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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Tell her you will not pay for the application fee until she fixes it. She can fix it or find a way to pay for it herself.[/quote]

Fix it according to whom???

From an ethical standpoint, the essay should be only the child’s work. Forcing a kid to take someone else’s edits or not apply is absurd and wrong.[/quote]

I didn’t say force her I just wouldn’t pay for the application. Having someone proofread an essay is not unethical, many college professors will proofread essays during office hours if asked. The fact that she’s being completely stubborn and unwilling to receive feedback is why I wouldn’t pay for it. If she agreed to meet with a teacher or librarian that could make suggestions I’d be ok with that whether she takes the suggestions and applies them or not. Allowing a child to completely disregard the draft writing process for an essay when they’re applying to college just sets them up to think this will be ok in college as well. The point is to teach the lesson and help expand essay writing abilities and learn to accept feedback as part of the process, not to force changes.[/quote]

It’s her essay. It’s her writing. The college is judging her.

And no, good professors don’t proofread essays. They might point out several examples of errors or poor stylistic choices and then tell the student to carefully read their paper and find similar errors and fix them. They do NOT proofread. Please do not teach your kid that she should ask her college professors to proofread her essay in office hours.

Signed, a writing professor [/quote]

The good ones will. If they don’t most campuses also have writing centers.[/quote]

Writing centers, yes.  Asking your lit prof to proofread your essay?  No, wtf.

OP, are you going to control every aspect of her application?  Decide now what control you need and set boundaries with her about what you’re going to insist on if you’re going to pay her app fees.  I let my parents/sister proofread my essays… but then ignored some of their feedback.  I’m sure my parents felt as you did; glad they didn’t make a huge fuss about it.  I got in almost everywhere I applied, imperfect essays notwithstanding.[/quote]

I had many professors in undergraduate and graduate schools ask to proofread larger assignments, often creating a writing process as part of the assignment. FWIW, I never used a writing center, always got the highest grades on writing assignments, and my thesis advisor said my first draft was better than most published articles in the professional journal he was editor for. He still made me fix it at least 20 times because there’s always room for improvements. Ten years later I heard they were using my final thesis as an example in one of the classes. Out of thousands of examples they picked two, and mine was one of them. That’s what happens when a good writer meets a better writer and engages in the writing process.

So I didn’t really need the help but learned a lot through all the feedback. I just can’t understand how you think this is so out there. How does anyone become a better writer, especially when dealing with a professional field of study that has very specific writing guidelines, if there isn’t guidance given along the way? Maybe for a 2-page essay on a random book that’s not necessary, but for major assignments written in specific formats to be used in your professional career how would you skip that? It’s asinine really to think someone would go through 4-8 years of college without this expectation.

Maybe we just had very different majors.[/quote]

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