English Majors Don't Have Much to Show Off

Ostensibly, any time you start a sentence with the word 'ostensibly', you're being erudite to the point of pretentiousness. If this pretension manifests itself in an application essay to a fairly prestigious English program, does this necessarily impugn your entreaty as obsequious? Even more pressing, if I used even a third of those words in Scrabble, would my score be higher than my GRE?