How much work are your kids putting into their own applications?

[Anonymous]

Lately, I’m getting the sense that a combo of parents, AI, and paid consultants are doing all the work completing the applications. Are your kids doing anything?

[Anonymous]

I'm sure there are some people who do what you describe, but most don't. We didn't but then they (super high stats) just ended up at the state flagship, which it turns out, DC has been happy with.

They did reach for T10 and got rejected. Maybe if I had paid $$$ for a college consultant they would've made it to a T10? Who knows, but it has worked out well for DC. But then again, we aren't super strivey people. Just happy to have a comfortable mc/umc life.

[Anonymous]

Mine did everything but paying the application fee themselves.

[Anonymous]

mine did all the work. I did all the nagging.

[Anonymous]

If you look at reddit, most kids are doing it with zero help, almost negative help from their parents. I'm always impressed with kids with no resources at all trying so hard to get themselves into a good school, using everyone they can find, including reddit community boards etc

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:mine did all the work. I did all the nagging.

+1 haha, me, too. And then they asked me to review everything before they hit submit. I caught one or two things.

[Anonymous]

My ADHD/ASD kid was tutored in math and did test prep, but after debating whether to hire a college counselor, we kept the applications in-house. He agonized over each of them, and since I was the project manager, I agonized too. I was the one keeping track of deadlines and reminding him to work on them.

He's a great technical writer, but writing about himself, as a person with autism, proved extremely difficult. I gave him ideas, but he rejected most of them and in the end, wrote some really nice essays. I gave him editing advice to smooth out some of the clunky phrasing, which he also rejected, but which prompted him to rewrite and improve them. All my suggestions basically served to pique him into doing better by himself. His first drafts were Kindergarten-level

[Anonymous]

Most high schoolers in this country receive no help at all, because they don't know they need help, and can't afford it even if they know.

For the middle and upper middle classes who can afford to pay for educational help and realize that this might benefit their kids, investing in tutoring and test prep is far more prevalent than college admissions support. There are actually very few families who pay for the latter. But college essays are often read and casually edited, for free, by people other than the applicant: teachers, parents, other relatives, kind strangers on the internet, AI, etc.

College admissions officers are aware that any number of people, or AI, could have massaged candidate's essays into legible form. They claim to recognize when essays have been too "packaged".

[Anonymous]

My daughter is doing it independently but I do check in with her on where she is at and provide brainstorming and feedback on essays if desired. I’ll also edit at the end.

She is very high stats but her target list is largely safeties or easy targets (mostly t50-t150) so we aren’t worried about being “shut out”. Most of the focus for her applications is on maximizing merit aid.

[Anonymous]

SAHMs need to STOP doing their kid's applications.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Lately, I’m getting the sense that a combo of parents, AI, and paid consultants are doing all the work completing the applications. Are your kids doing anything?

Why do you care? You post here so much its nauseating.

[Anonymous]

I’ll be honest, mine wrote the essays and I reviewed. My kid was struggling with depression at the time so I also did the common app

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Most high schoolers in this country receive no help at all, because they don't know they need help, and can't afford it even if they know.

For the middle and upper middle classes who can afford to pay for educational help and realize that this might benefit their kids, investing in tutoring and test prep is far more prevalent than college admissions support. There are actually very few families who pay for the latter. But college essays are often read and casually edited, for free, by people other than the applicant: teachers, parents, other relatives, kind strangers on the internet, AI, etc.

College admissions officers are aware that any number of people, or AI, could have massaged candidate's essays into legible form. They claim to recognize when essays have been too "packaged".

Hmm. Except they don't. They like that AI tools can help FGLI kids now. It helps democratize everything and all of the applications now sound more polished.

The kids with the most polished (professionally hired rewview) apps did the best at our private for T20 OUTSIDE of HYPSM.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:SAHMs need to STOP doing their kid's applications.

Stop trolling. ALL the parents I know do their best to help their kids with their apps, and the immense majority of them work. In my circle, I'm the only stay-at-home parent, actually.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Most high schoolers in this country receive no help at all, because they don't know they need help, and can't afford it even if they know.

For the middle and upper middle classes who can afford to pay for educational help and realize that this might benefit their kids, investing in tutoring and test prep is far more prevalent than college admissions support. There are actually very few families who pay for the latter. But college essays are often read and casually edited, for free, by people other than the applicant: teachers, parents, other relatives, kind strangers on the internet, AI, etc.

College admissions officers are aware that any number of people, or AI, could have massaged candidate's essays into legible form. They claim to recognize when essays have been too "packaged".

Hmm. Except they don't. They like that AI tools can help FGLI kids now. It helps democratize everything and all of the applications now sound more polished.

The kids with the most polished (professionally hired rewview) apps did the best at our private for T20 OUTSIDE of HYPSM.

PP you replied to. Yes, I did wonder when I recently heard college admission officers say that. One was specifically talking about how AI couldn't write your essay for you, because it would end up being very impersonal, so I guess if you submit a very good draft to a chatbot and they work around the edges, it can make for an excellent product that doesn't read like AI. This means doing a lot of the work yourself, which I guess is acceptable.