Abstract. Let R be a ring and E = E(R R ) its injective envelope. We show that if every simple right R-module embeds in R R and every cyclic submodule of E R is essentially embeddable in a projective module, then R R has finite essential socle. As a consequence, we prove that if each finitely generated right R-module is essentially embeddable in a projective module, then R is a quasiFrobenius ring. We also obtain several other applications and, among them: a) we answer affirmatively a question of Al-Huzali, Jain, and López-Permouth, by showing that a right CEP ring (i.e., a ring R such that every cyclic right module is essentially embeddable in a projective module) is always right artinian; b) we prove that if R is right FGF (i.e., any finitely generated right R-module embeds in a free module) and right CS, then R is quasi-Frobenius.