<p>i'm a little worried about my friend, thus my first post. he has decent stats, a little lower than the ed's. he thinks he has no chance at some the ivies so hes been having fun with the app. however, he told me that hes been visiting this site and has been getting ideas from the essays posted. when i read it, it was oddly familiar to the ones posted, from the beginning of the sentence to the general message of the essay. do the administration ppl actually know when people are plagarizing other people's works? hes already done with apps so its useless to change it anymore. just wondering if you guys know anything about this. and NO, this is NOT me. i'm still doing my essay for princeton :l, and i have morals :)</p>
<p>if you really think it is cheating, then go and notify the admissions office at prinecton, however, seeing that he is not yet under the honorcode (nor you) it doesn't really matter :-P</p>
<p>Actually, the letter at the beginning of the application from Rapelye says Admissions expects you to abide by Princeton's honor code, and I'm sure this is also true for most other colleges.</p>
<p>I don't think it's necessarily bad to get some ideas off of here and then apply it to your own experiences. And, chances are, a lot of people are going to talk about similar things, anyway.</p>
<p>If it's strikingly similar -- as if he just reworded things in the original essay -- then that's definitely not good, nor is it fair to the original essay writer. But I couldn't tell you whether Princeton will notice or not...</p>
<p>Princeton doesn't even read 75% of it's essays. The remaining essays that are read are people who are borderline or are likely to be accepted. They are a waste of time for adcoms when they have so little time to finish applications.</p>
<p>PrincetonFather</p>
<p>Is that really true?</p>
<p>PrincetonFather- How do you know?</p>
<p>My Pton adcom sent me a link saying that at the end of the regular decision round there is a HUGE stack of essays which have never been looked over. As for the recommendations, my counselor is good friends with the most of the adcoms at Harvard and they told him that they don't open them unless the student is borderline.</p>
<p>This is obviously credited advice, since it comes from the admissions themselves. From what I can tell, it's called efficiency. The initial screening process eliminates a lot more students than you might think.</p>
<p>Could you share this link?</p>
<p>I mean, you make it sound different then it likely is... they probably have some sort of SAT or SAT II cut off, so reading the essays aren't really going to make a huge difference... but if you pass the SAT / good EC mark... they're pretty well gonna read your essays.</p>
<p>But, what the hell is the mark? I've seen people get in with low stats (1200 SAT, 600 SAT IIs, B avg) and "alright" ECs before while people with perfect stats and national ECs get rejected.</p>
<p>yea this is starting to scare me..i was hoping my essays would give me a chance</p>
<p>Guys- I wouldn't trust that info too much. Essays and (especially) recs are important.</p>
<p>That's what I was thinking, pton. Historically, people with low stats but high "personal ratings" have gotten in over those with high marks and a lower personal rating.</p>
<p>Yeah, definitely. I won't believe him unless he produces evidence, in which case I'd still be skeptical.</p>
<p>Absolutely. I've seen so many people with stellar records be deferred or rejected at great schools that it's completely bewildered me as to why I got in. I concluded that it must be the recs and essays -- those are what truly set you apart.</p>
<p>As for your friend... well I have a feeling that at least some adcom members know CC pretty well, and know the essays that have been posted.</p>
<p>Same here. Recs were the best part of my application, I think.</p>
<p>Recs do count, but 75%-80% of the admissions decision hinges on your academics ("A is for Admission" by Michele Hernandez, also told to me by a current Princetonian). I think what PrincetonFather is trying to say is that the adcom weeds out your application based on your academic record unless something in the teacher recommendations indicates that you're a saint who is a force to be reckoned with in class discussions (or that you grew up on the streets and succeeded in teaching yourself Latin/multivariable calculus, and gave what little money you had to those poorer than you) in which case the adcom then reads your essay to determine whether to offer you admissions even though your marks may be on the low side.</p>
<p>
[quote]
The initial screening process eliminates a lot more students than you might think
[/quote]
What exactly does the inital screening involve? I think most people assumed the applications are looked at holistically... It seems hard to beleive that the entire essay section would be completely disregarded, unless the applicant seems so stellar from the first few essays that maybe then they decide not to read the last one... I think at least one essay will be read by someone though.</p>
<p>Actually I recall was my Harvard adcom that told me what they do with essays, not Pton. This was over three months ago before I even started applying to Princeton. I had the worst teacher recs in the world, and I've been told that my writing ability is weak, but yet I still got into the school based on merit.
<a href="https://www.thickenvelope.com/college-admission-4.aspx%5B/url%5D">https://www.thickenvelope.com/college-admission-4.aspx</a></p>