Here’s some good news if you’re dreading writing a personal statement for a college application. You can skip it. The college you’re applying to probably already knows everything about you anyway – even the stuff you don’t necessarily want to share. WaPo: Student tracking, secret scores: How college admissions offices rank prospects before they apply. “The software sent an alert to the school’s assistant director of admissions containing the student’s name, contact information and details about her life and activities on the site … The admissions officer also received a link to a private profile of the student, listing all 27 pages she had viewed on the school’s website and how long she spent on each one. A map on this page showed her geographical location, and an ‘affinity index’ estimated her level of interest in attending the school.”