<p>"...a recently developed college admissions website allows college students to share their successful applications to selective schools from the previous year in exchange for a stipend of up to $100...applications include completed answers to every question, including the general essay and short answer questions." The power of the Internet.</p>
<p>Buying</a> the Common Application | NYU's Daily Student Newspaper</p>
<p>I could have sworn I saw a wegotin.net advertisement on the side of CC’s site yesterday.
Did anyone else notice it?</p>
<p>i really dont know how to respond to this … disgusting. But there are a lot of things to discuss. Will post when I dont have to use the on screen keyboard.</p>
<p>College admissions has just become disgusting. I think maybe they should scrap personal essays. Some kids just have too much of an advantage in preparing. PUT MORE EMPHASIS ON TEACHER RECOMMENDATIONS THAT THE STUDENTS HAVE SIGNED AWAY THEIR RIGHT TO READ AS WELL AS CHARACTER REFERENCES FROM OTHER PEOPLE.</p>
<p>Are you kidding? Essays are the last thing they should scrap if they’re trying to get rid of “an advantage in preparing.” Standardized tests should go first… At least with essays you can express more of who you are. Even if you can’t write with a particularly sophisticated command of grammar or vocabulary, your topic and how you express yourself count for a lot. Yes, some kids get professional help on essays, but any kid has the ability to ask an English teacher to look over his essays.</p>
<p>well that’s a good point. Solutions to this problem are hard to imagine. the current situation is pretty sad though</p>
<p>Ridiculous. But that’s what society has come to. And their pricing scheme…only $100 for submissions, they’re going to make a ridiculous amount of money here. I can think of at least 20 parents, easy, who would pay for this.</p>
<p>I always wonder about the whole extracurricular emphasis, personally, when it comes to inequities in college admissions. If you’re affluent you can pay for music lessons, sports, tutoring, &c, but what if your family doesn’t have the financial means to let you explore all those things?</p>
<p>So this is definitely legal, right?</p>
<p>I’m conflicted on how to feel about this. On one hand, I don’t want people to game the system. On the other hand, since some people already do game the system, this offers a relatively cheap way for everyone to have the same advantage. </p>
<p>For extracurriculars: you can found and join clubs that don’t require a lot of money to be part of, or do creative things like start your own business, develop software and get it into wide use somewhere, speak in front of the UN (okay maybe not really… extreme example), etc. All the stuff that’s most impressive to colleges requires initiative and not necessarily a lot of money. And if you don’t have time to participate because of financial needs, you can write down how many hours you work every week, and they look favorably on that.</p>
<p>And it’s not like SAT prep actually works: <a href=“SAT Coaching Found to Boost Scores -- Barely - WSJ”>SAT Coaching Found to Boost Scores -- Barely - WSJ;
<p>A 30 point gain could probably be replicated by buying a Blue Book and having the discipline to complete a few tests.</p>
<p>Why is it when affluent kids get consultants for thousands of dollars an hour no one complains, but when other kids get help for $19 (and at no cost if they cannot afford it) there is an outcry. I know we have migrated to a winner-take-all society, but at least let those less fortunate have some stake in the game. If we strip any hope from all but those born into affluent families, college admissions will be the least of our troubles.</p>