Reply to When you say your child's essays were amazing - objectively, how do you know that?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I am not questioning the professional writer's, the editor's, or the appellate lawyer's writing ability; but, I am questioning their knowledge as to what components make up an effective college admissions essay.[/quote]

Because there is not merely ONE good essay, or ONE successful formula. I'm not any of these posters. I'm a scientist, and a foreigner to boot who never had to write essays to get into college. But since I knew nothing, I read compilations of admitted students' essays. And they're all unique and vibrant and the voice of their author is apparent. They feel authentic. Since they were selected from the best, none of them have grammatical mistakes, or clunky sentences. But I'm sure other essays of students who were admitted may have a few imperfections here and there - that's probably not disqualifying. The most important thing is to have the ability to take a possibly ordinary topic or event and express self-awareness, maturity and growth. As others pointed out, merely witnessing a historical event or suffer personal trauma is insufficient. What did the student learn from it, how did it inform their values or academic path? The student can veer into humor, dialogue, verse, any written medium, as long as the reader can understand who the author is and what they've learned about themselves in their 17 years of life.

That's why it's so hard to explain what makes a good essay. But after reading a few, you know one when you see one.[/quote]

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