How much help are you providing with the high school application essays?

[Anonymous]

I want it to be his words and ideas, so when my DS was really blocked at first (too focused on trying be perfect on the first draft) I just let him talk it out with me and then offered to type while he talked. I just typed exactly what he said, and it gave him a first draft to edit.

[Anonymous]

Definitely not writing them for our dc, but heavy coaching, lots of brainstorming together and typing notes while DC talks, then working together to make a coherent answer. My kid has basically never had a real writing class. Coming from public. There’s no part of their curriculum that focuses on writing essays for school admissions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Definitely not writing them for our dc, but heavy coaching, lots of brainstorming together and typing notes while DC talks, then working together to make a coherent answer. My kid has basically never had a real writing class. Coming from public. There’s no part of their curriculum that focuses on writing essays for school admissions.

yeah kids take classes and hire college counselors for writing college essays and the kids writing those are 4 years older.

[Anonymous]

So many excuses for doing your kids application. It’s pretty pathetic. Teach your kids how. Do you want helpless, non-confident kids? Don't "heavy edit". Teach them. Geez. This is basic parenting. Oh, and read Anxious Generation before you ruin your kid.

[Anonymous]

We helped DC edit short essay down to meet the word count, but they did the first draft at school and got feedback from their English teacher. There are definitely things I would change if I was truly editing but helping remove some extra words/sentences was the extent of our edits. At least one of the schools we are applying to required a graded essay. Schools that require the SSAT will see the essay that students write for that. Resist the temptation to do too much here and be honest with yourself re level of involvement. Schools do not expect 12th grade level writing, but this is an important part of how they size up a kids potential/voice.

College essays are a bit different. This should be 100% student. DC wrote theirs in college seminar class, peers reviewed it, CC gave feedback and school brought in former college admissions officers to give feedback.

[Anonymous]

My children did their own, got into their top choice…refused to show me their essays! And once submitted I peeked at one, found typos…and kicked myself for not helicoptering.

So… point is, schools know if an essay is too perfect the student had help

So do this: tell your dear and probably stressed daughter to write to you or a best friend…that could loosen her anxiety.
She will be okay…moms feel the stress❤️

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We helped DC edit short essay down to meet the word count, but they did the first draft at school and got feedback from their English teacher. There are definitely things I would change if I was truly editing but helping remove some extra words/sentences was the extent of our edits. At least one of the schools we are applying to required a graded essay. Schools that require the SSAT will see the essay that students write for that. Resist the temptation to do too much here and be honest with yourself re level of involvement. Schools do not expect 12th grade level writing, but this is an important part of how they size up a kids potential/voice.

College essays are a bit different. This should be 100% student. DC wrote theirs in college seminar class, peers reviewed it, CC gave feedback and school brought in former college admissions officers to give feedback.

For both HS and college, your student had professional help.

How is a parent providing that same help any different? Is it because your student’s parents paid for the help instead of helping directly?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We helped DC edit short essay down to meet the word count, but they did the first draft at school and got feedback from their English teacher. There are definitely things I would change if I was truly editing but helping remove some extra words/sentences was the extent of our edits. At least one of the schools we are applying to required a graded essay. Schools that require the SSAT will see the essay that students write for that. Resist the temptation to do too much here and be honest with yourself re level of involvement. Schools do not expect 12th grade level writing, but this is an important part of how they size up a kids potential/voice.

College essays are a bit different. This should be 100% student. DC wrote theirs in college seminar class, peers reviewed it, CC gave feedback and school brought in former college admissions officers to give feedback.

For both HS and college, your student had professional help.

How is a parent providing that same help any different? Is it because your student’s parents paid for the help instead of helping directly?

I'm the PP you are responding to. I don't deny that my children got professional help in some form or another, but what I was trying to say was 1. DCs took the lead in writing their essays (coming up with the topics and then seeking help/using resources other than us) and 2. the people who did help them were not heavy-handed in their edits and provided more suggestions type of feedback vs line editing or word smithing. I think parents actively editing is a very slippery slope because too many get sucked into making it perfect and completely take over.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We helped DC edit short essay down to meet the word count, but they did the first draft at school and got feedback from their English teacher. There are definitely things I would change if I was truly editing but helping remove some extra words/sentences was the extent of our edits. At least one of the schools we are applying to required a graded essay. Schools that require the SSAT will see the essay that students write for that. Resist the temptation to do too much here and be honest with yourself re level of involvement. Schools do not expect 12th grade level writing, but this is an important part of how they size up a kids potential/voice.

College essays are a bit different. This should be 100% student. DC wrote theirs in college seminar class, peers reviewed it, CC gave feedback and school brought in former college admissions officers to give feedback.

It definitely sounds like your kids college essay was not 100% DC's given all the help they got at school.

[Anonymous]

I was on the high school admissions team at a school outside of DC until last year, so I’ve seen it all. Trust me, we can tell when there’s heavy parental involvement. It becomes glaringly obvious when we look at the full profile and read the teacher recommendations.

Having someone else—especially a parent—write the essay often doesn’t bode well. It’s hard to write authentically from the perspective of a rising 9th grader when you’re 45. As they say, it just hits differently—and in this case, “different” translates to distasteful and untrustworthy. Using tools like ChatGPT to draft the essay can make this even more obvious.

My advice? Let your kid do it. Admissions teams value authenticity, and the essay should reflect their voice, experiences, and personality. We don't grade it, we just want to get to know your kid!

[Anonymous]

This was our 1st opportunity to really learn how to write. All other writing had been done in class or out of my purview. After reading a few examples, I let them give it their best shot and then I tore it apart and ripped them a new one. They started Moms school of writing and exited a much more confident writer. I'm not exaggerating, they were drafting and editing every weekend from Sept-Dec. It helped that they were applying to multiple schools so they had multiple essay prompts to work on. By the last one, they did 90% of the writing themselves. I have not had to follow up since- their writing is solid and they no longer have "writers block frustration".