Advice from college professors

Parents Social Lounge
1

<p>I am not a college professor but I saw this post on another thread and I wanted to highlight it, and also see if there are other college profs out there who have similar (or different) advice.</p>

<p>
[quote]
I'm a college professor and I can tell you firsthand that parents who DO leave no stone unturned in procuring an advantage for their child, fairly or otherwise, are doing their kids no favor. If you think that the faculty can't tell who cheated their way through high school, had someone else write their college admissions essay for them or had someone important make a phone call to reverse a denial of acceptance, you would be wrong. </p>

<p>Every year, we get a couple of kids in each class who we talk about -- and we ask, "does anyone know what the story is about this kid?" And usually we find out that the parents gave a building to the school or someone important wrote a letter or some other type of arrangement was reached to get this child into the school. The question is, 'would you really want your child to be the one child in the class who consistently struggles with the material, doesn't appear to have the basic grounding necessary to really understand and benefit from the class, and who is starting to wonder if perhaps they don't belong at the school?'</p>

<p>When people tell you that the main thing is to find a school that's a good fit for your child, they are telling you the truth. My husband thinks it's funny that I'm not more pushy with our own kids -- but I truly believe that the best student in the class is the one who's prepared, who has done the reading, who has something to contribute and who wants to be there. That's not something you can buy and it's not something you can fake. Realizing this has helped me to let go of any bitterness I may feel towards those parents who use their money and influence to game the system -- they may think they're helping their child, but they're not. If they're so shallow and insecure that they use their kids as pawns in some game whereby they feed their own self-esteem by bragging about their kid's acceptances, then you should feel sorry for them. and their kids. Being a good parent is about supporting your kids, not about doing whatever you can to level the playing field for them and feeding your own self-esteem.

[/quote]
</p>

2

<p>

</p>

<p>Why do colleges continue to allow this?</p>

3

<p>I think it’s a valid point. College is hard enough – why make it harder for the sake of a name? There’s less prestige in failing from a good college than graduating from any college at all.</p>

<p>Where I hesitate, though, is those colleges for which the admission has nothing to do with how well prepared you are but how exceptional and polished you are – the ones with 10% or less admission rates.</p>

<p>It’s not a matter of the student being unable to perform or it being a bad fit. It’s numbers and mystery.</p>

<p>Writing an essay for someone else is always the wrong answer, but is it wrong for parents to do a little legwork and try to find a way to strengthen the application somehow, even if it is milking connections? Once you get to college, you hear nothing more than “Connections are what’s really important,” and if you can’t use them, what’s the point?</p>

4

<p>I don’t think anyone is going to endorse wielding money or influence to get a kid into a school where they’re woefully underqualified. That said, 2 reactions:</p>

<p>1) At the sorts of institutions that get the most discussion on CC, I think that admissions offices are pretty good at withstanding the pressure when it comes to a student who really can’t cut it academically. It might be bad to have an influential parent PO’d 'cause their kid didn’t get it; it’s way worse to have that kid flunking out just as they’re digging the foundation for the “Smith Student Center.”</p>

<p>2) And as far as the other category, students who cheated their way through high school and had someone else write their college admissions essay . . . in my experience, faculty don’t have the kind of ESP it takes to spot this type. They don’t have to; admissions officers do ;)</p>

5

<p>“When people tell you that the main thing is to find a school that’s a good fit for your child, they are telling you the truth.”</p>

<p>I disagree. It is absolutely not my job to find a school that’s a good fit for DD. That’s her job. It’s been my job to be there, showing how to go about doing this kind of exploration. When we did the college visits, for example, DD helped plan the itinerary, printing out the maps, consulting schedules, etc., and I set boundaries: this is the budget, we’ll not visit more than two schools (max) a day, etc. Now that she’s getting ready to go to admitted students days, she knows how to put together an itinerary in order to travel on her own, and run it by me. My job is to be there, encouraging her to think about her values. She may pick a school that isn’t my own pesonal top choice, but that’s okay. It’s her life, not mine. Or as my next-door neighbor, not a professor, but a librarian says of her kids, “Our job is to give them wings, so that they can fly.”</p>

<p>My child surprised me when writing applications and scholarship essays. I wasn’t even allowed to look at them. I was initially surprised (after all!!) but respected that decision and in retrospect am very, very glad. Not just because DD was accepted at all of the schools she applied to, and with merit scholarships that completely blow my mind, but because it was entirely on her merits, her essays, et cetera. And I was prepared, too, for her to be turned down: it was her work, not mine.</p>

<p>It makes perfect sense that admissions officers would be good at recognizing and distinguishing an essay that has been “assisted” from a more genuine one. Just think about how many of them they read! It’s amazing.</p>

<p>Among the most difficult students to work with in my teaching career (25 years +) have been those students who were admitted for preferential reasons, and knew it, and decided (perhaps based on how they had seen parents and other authority figures act) that they should be ones who are running the class. I completely agree that the best students are, as the OP indicates, the ones who are prepared, who have done the reading, who have something to contribute and who want to be there. They are pure gold. They will also be the ones who will contribute the most to the school over the long run, through good will and word of mouth advertising.</p>

6

<p>EngProf, sounds like you are basically in agreement with the poster of the original thread, as am I. But I have to take issue with your view that “It is absolutely not my job to find a school that’s a good fit for DD. That’s her job.” Selecting a college can be an overwhelming process for anyone, let alone 17-18 year old kids. And despite all the rhetoric about being adults now, HS seniors and 1st semester college freshmen are basically kids. Your D is probably much more mature and informed than the typical college applicant.</p>

<p>In general, I think this process, especially in the preliminary stages, should be a joint effort between parents and student. And when it comes to the notion of “fit”, financial fit should be a factor taken into consideration. No young person should be assuming a huge debt to go to college. Most students wouldn’t know what schools their family could realistically afford without parental involvement – unless money was no object. Even though I’ve been “in the business” for 20 years, I didn’t have a clue that many top colleges award no merit scholarships. So even with my help, my D’s list was less-than-ideal, because it included schools that we could never afford without it.</p>

<p>There’s plenty in this process that students can (and should) assume responsibility for; but there is a role for parents as well.</p>

7

<p>One reason parents do this is because it sometimes, maybe often works. I know one such parent, and her kids are all in top schools and thriving. One was definitely an admit because of parental involvement; the others were in that vast category of “could get iny”. but not a big likely". The parents are very open about the legal things they did about boosting admissions chances, including hiring expensive admissions counselors in 9th grade for each child, and “buying” EC opportunities. Also tutors up the whazzo, and some impressive recommendation writers. It does work. The top schools tend to have low attrition rates and high student satisfaction rates. It’s not as though some of these kids who get in with less than average stats are at huge risk of flunking out. They may even have a better chance of staying in because of the peer pressure and atmosphere.</p>

8

<p>No, I wouldn’t leave it to my kids, not when it comes down to 50,000/yr. I wouldn’t pay for it if it’s not worth it. I wouldn’t even let my D1 buy a car by herself, why would I let her do it by herself for something that would cost me over 200,000.</p>

9

<p>

On the contrary. Since they will never know which ones were assisted, this is a presumption for which there is no data. There will be exceptions - the kid with terrible writing test scores and an Updike-quality essay. But otherwise this perpetuates the myth of adcoms as all-knowing. Given there is no systematic reality-check on the “quality” of their selections, vs. those they excluded (with the exception, perhaps, of those who flunk out), the admissions process is an exercise in subjective decision-making, and one that can be gamed.</p>

10

<p>you need to be objectively involved, not deciding the school for them. When we looked at schools D was accepted to, I could tell myself if it was a fit for her or not. If I felt it wasn’t and there were quite a few, I asked what she liked/disliked, could she see herself there? I objectively gave my thoughts on the pluses minus’s and thankfully her minus’s were the same as mine. Thankfully, D is thrilled where she is, and we are pleased also.
The interesting thing on this topic was the few friends of D whose parents left it all up to the kids on where to apply and where they finally chose to go, ALL of them left after freshman first semester and came home, even the Val AND Sal of D hs both left. The other 3 are transferring out to new schools this September.</p>

11

<p>drb, unless the person heavily assisting with/editing the essay is a proficient creative writer who has successfully & recently written with an adolescent voice, it is hard to fake that. There are subtle things that those of us acquainted with style differences (and who read essays often) will notice. Recently I had occasion to look at an essay started by a highschool student. I could tell precisely where the mother’s hand began and ended in the essay. It felt “off.” I confronted the student and her mother: Yes, I was 100% right. I told Mom, Stop It. </p>

<p>The adult voice is more studied and more removed from an experience. The language is different (not just the vocabulary). The tone is definitely different. (Less direct.) The subconscious audience is different. Without knowing it, adolescents speak, at least partly, to other adolescents; adults speak to adults.</p>

<p>That said, I’m sure there are students who get in with adult polish refining their essays, or even written entirely. But they did get in on essay alone? Doubtful.</p>

12

<p>I certainly defer to your experience, although I imagine the successful college counselor is indeed “a proficient creative writer who has successfully & recently written with an adolescent voice”.</p>

<p>Interesting observation that “Without knowing it, adolescents speak, at least partly, to other adolescents; adults speak to adults.” Although I wonder whether what stands out in the pile of applications are in fact those adolescents who do speak to adults.</p>

13

<p>“Without knowing it, adolescents speak, at least partly, to other adolescents; adults speak to adults.”</p>

<p>Unless they’re homeschooled.</p>

14

<p>Not professor here but have friends who are grad students and TAs: </p>

<p>Two things to keep your child from being a target of jokes and gossips among the TAs and professors:</p>

<p>1) Teach them not to cite Wikipedia unless the professor says it’s okay.</p>

<p>2) Teach them to not completely rely on the Internet for information, especially a very random website that might prove their hypothesis, if they don’t have solid background in the area they’re going to write about.</p>

<p>3) Tell them to read the essay over again just before class just to make sure it didn’t look like it was written while drunk or fatigued at 4 AM. Interesting sentences have appeared…</p>

15

<p>You can just bring your papers to the tutoring center to get them reviewed too.</p>

16

<p>I don’t know epiphany, I think there are a few high school seniors with startling mature writing styles. In fact, I worried that my son’s essays would be suspected of excessive “assistance”. His voice is not remotely adolescent, instead it is concise, clear, analytical and a bit distant. I think it helped that he had won essay contests and that his teacher recommendation called him the best student writer he had ever encountered, but I still worried that readers like yourself would just assume that he had been “edited”.</p>

17

<p>One thing I really loved about my son’s application experience was the support and cooperation among his group of friends. All high achievers and definitely rooting for each other. They sent their essays back and forth to each other and edited, made suggestions and re-read many times. I think this helped polish their essays and keep the adolescent voice. </p>

<p>My son was thrilled when his friends got into their top choices because he felt involved and had a stake in their success. </p>

<p>My sister, a professor, read my son’s final drafts and made no changes or suggestions. Not necessaily because they were perfect, but because they were good AND sounded like the writing of a capable young person.</p>

18

<p>I think adcoms assume that the norm is now for essays have been edited by adults. If they want evidence of writing ability, they can look at test scores and download the essay from the SAT. They read the essays mainly for insight into personality, interests, character, etc.</p>

19

<p>Both my sons write much, much better than any of their SAT essays. Those topics and time constraints are really not conducive to good writing, nor do they mimic typical exam writing. I think they’d be better off seeing the essays from their APs. </p>

<p>My sister-in-law (who dropped out of a PhD in English at U of Michigan) read mathson’s essays, since she happened to around the weekend before they were due. I was really impressed with the way she was able to make suggestions without actually changing one word herself. (Something I find very difficult to do.)</p>

20

<p>

</p>

<p>Well said.</p>

<p>One thing that skews the teenage “writing voice” is the absurd disproportion of first-person and self-focused writing assigned in school. The assumption is that students don’t have much background knowledge, but they can at least write about what they know: their own experiences and opinions. This reduces their familiarity with the more objective, distant form of discourse. </p>

<p>Another is the saturation effect of advertising. Much of the persuasive language seen by teens, especially the less literate, comes from advertising, so it is natural for that style to influence their habits of speech, writing and (possibly, but hopefully not) thought.</p>

<p>Of course, sometimes one also sees amazingly mature writing in high school newspapers, or even from some high school students on these discussion boards.</p>