The college essay

[Anonymous]

LOL DCUM be like
I’ll pay for private school, hire tutors, pay for test prep, pay a college consultant, stalk DCUM’s college thread, and college confidential, advocate to have child assessed, they may need more time, inspect class rigor each year in HS, calculate potential gpa, spring for spring break trips to do campus tours, stalk college websites….
….but the college essay?
God no, didn’t even peek at it. Cuz now that’s where I draw the line.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:LOL DCUM be like
I’ll pay for private school, hire tutors, pay for test prep, pay a college consultant, stalk DCUM’s college thread, and college confidential, advocate to have child assessed, they may need more time, inspect class rigor each year in HS, calculate potential gpa, spring for spring break trips to do campus tours, stalk college websites….
….but the college essay?
God no, didn’t even peek at it. Cuz now that’s where I draw the line.

Hahahahah

So true. But, of course, the same people who have been glued to this thread will now come back and say nooooo that’s not me I didn’t do any of those things I just happened to stumble upon a thread called “college essays” because I’m totally uninvolved in my kid’s college applications. Lol.

What’s really going on here is that they are all so competitive that they are irked by the possibility, even though there is no possibility, that what I did with my kids’ essay hurt their kids in the college application process. They are obsessed.

[Anonymous]

My kid wrote his own essays because he found any inputs we (parents, eldest sibling) gave him as "Trash". He used the essay essential book to find tricks to write the essay and his English teacher told him that it was ready to submit. He is a good writer and a fantastic story teller.

I have no problems with parents writing the essays because rich parents are also paying consultants to write essays. I know because I am the poster of the SIL who wrote essays for a fee. (Yes, my SIL also looked at his essay and did not have any changes to make. She in fact used some of his ideas to write for other kids, since she was writing for 15 kids.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:LOL DCUM be like
I’ll pay for private school, hire tutors, pay for test prep, pay a college consultant, stalk DCUM’s college thread, and college confidential, advocate to have child assessed, they may need more time, inspect class rigor each year in HS, calculate potential gpa, spring for spring break trips to do campus tours, stalk college websites….
….but the college essay?
God no, didn’t even peek at it. Cuz now that’s where I draw the line.

hahahahah +1000

[Anonymous]

Back to the original question, we used someone who worked with our college advisor. It was really important for me that my kid's voice came through. She was far more open with the essay advisor - they had a zoom meeting to brainstorm ideas and my kid picked one topic and ran with it. Met with the advisor a second time over the rough draft and the advisor made a few grammatical corrections but more importantly urged the kid to dig a little deeper and put more of herself into it. It's a fantastic essay she can be proud of and it's all her.

[Anonymous]

The essay is just marketing your kid. Whether you choose to out-source the marketing or handle it in-house is your choice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Back to the original question, we used someone who worked with our college advisor. It was really important for me that my kid's voice came through. She was far more open with the essay advisor - they had a zoom meeting to brainstorm ideas and my kid picked one topic and ran with it. Met with the advisor a second time over the rough draft and the advisor made a few grammatical corrections but more importantly urged the kid to dig a little deeper and put more of herself into it. It's a fantastic essay she can be proud of and it's all her.

Here’s the thing: it’s not “all her.” If it were “all her” she wouldn’t have had an “essay advisor.” The essay advisor “helped” her. When someone “helps” you do something, what you do isn’t “all” you.

I’m not suggesting you cheated, but let’s get real: your kid had way, way more help and guidance on their college applications than the typical kid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The essay is just marketing your kid. Whether you choose to out-source the marketing or handle it in-house is your choice.

Exactly. I write marketing copy for my day job, so I helped DS frame his story, polish the language, etc. He was a recruited athlete, so the essay was just window dressing.

[Anonymous]

Zero. None.

Read before he uploaded/submitted to common app., honors prgms etc.

I strongly believe that there should be an attestation that an applicant must sign and check off, stating that work reflected in the application is:

1 - entirely their own

2 - parents/other non-paid adults provided assistance

3 - one or more paid consultants (or any other name) provided assistance.

Those found with fraudulent responses would have any admission revoked.

Why are colleges afraid to lift up the curtain on this? It certainly continues to widen the have/have not divide. Second, importantly, all UMC are assumed to have polished submissions due to paid or non-paid adult intervention.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The essay is just marketing your kid. Whether you choose to out-source the marketing or handle it in-house is your choice.

Exactly. I write marketing copy for my day job, so I helped DS frame his story, polish the language, etc. He was a recruited athlete, so the essay was just window dressing.

Will you attend college with him to do same? Or just dropbox his work after you polish it up?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Back to the original question, we used someone who worked with our college advisor. It was really important for me that my kid's voice came through. She was far more open with the essay advisor - they had a zoom meeting to brainstorm ideas and my kid picked one topic and ran with it. Met with the advisor a second time over the rough draft and the advisor made a few grammatical corrections but more importantly urged the kid to dig a little deeper and put more of herself into it. It's a fantastic essay she can be proud of and it's all her.

I would not be proud of that process or product.

[Anonymous]

Sit through college info sessions and their admissions officers will tell you to get feedback on your essays before you submit.

I think they should bring back the essay section in SAT. The kids can write two essays - one as a personal statement and another as an analysis of some issue. And then all colleges get that essay.

[Anonymous]

Colleges don't want SAT - a better measure of student's ability that they cannot fake.

But they want subjective and racist teacher recommendations and they want essays that someone else could have written.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:LOL DCUM be like
I’ll pay for private school, hire tutors, pay for test prep, pay a college consultant, stalk DCUM’s college thread, and college confidential, advocate to have child assessed, they may need more time, inspect class rigor each year in HS, calculate potential gpa, spring for spring break trips to do campus tours, stalk college websites….
….but the college essay?
God no, didn’t even peek at it. Cuz now that’s where I draw the line.

Yeah. Because having someone else write it or correct your mistakes is cheating.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Zero. None.

Read before he uploaded/submitted to common app., honors prgms etc.

I strongly believe that there should be an attestation that an applicant must sign and check off, stating that work reflected in the application is:

1 - entirely their own

2 - parents/other non-paid adults provided assistance

3 - one or more paid consultants (or any other name) provided assistance.

Those found with fraudulent responses would have any admission revoked.

Why are colleges afraid to lift up the curtain on this? It certainly continues to widen the have/have not divide. Second, importantly, all UMC are assumed to have polished submissions due to paid or non-paid adult intervention.

This so much.

My kid did everything on his own as it should be. But because if our zip code, he was compared against kids whose parents spend thousands and thousands of followers on application and essay help.