[thaumasiotes]

> Applying that to the above, and you can see that, if I worked infinitely hard on my essays, I could only make my apps 11% better versus not doing anything at all. (At least to the extent that it really does follow that rubric [the essay being worth ten percentage points of 100], even if I submit a blank essay.)

This is wildly incorrect. Assuming you have a perfect score on every other part of the rubric, the maximum improvement you can get through the essay is 11% of your non-essay score. Without that assumption, the maximum improvement is positive infinity percent.

[oneloop]

So? This text is aimed at people who care about the final 10%. People who score zero on every other part of the rubric aren't falling into the partial control fallacy.