My son wrote a lovely, creative essay that is in his voice for one of the prompts on SAO. It has various comma splices and some wording issues but otherwise it reads well. My thought is leave it alone–let him take another look to edit but don’t get involved in wordsmithing or proofing. It is the same writing they will see on the SSAT and I think will be nice for the schools to see untouched. (Incidently, one of the schools he is applying to asks for a signature attestation by him that he did not receive any help. I thought that was interesting). Just curious about opinions and practices here not feeling insecure about my decision.
Yes, leave it alone. Schools want to know how kids actually write. Some schools even ask kids to write essays when they come for interviews.
What I did at this age, both for middle school homework and for BS applications, was tell them that there were some errors and that they should go back and reread each sentence carefully and see if they could catch them or make the essay stronger. Reading things aloud to themselves can often help with wordsmithing/smoothness. They didn’t always find every single thing I would want to change but they did often find a good chunk of things they could fix. It was good practice for them to learn to go back and edit their own work without editing from mom or dad.
Agreed.
I have a different point of view. All our kids asked their English teachers to review. They are experts at helping kids review papers without highjacking the content.
I think it’s okay to say “This part wasn’t so clear to me” or “This transition reads a little awkwardly” or “could you think of another word for XYZ”, but I think that the schools really want to see what they come up with on their own, and I think that the signature requirement demonstrates that. I like @doschicos ’ idea for “self-proofing”.
I was told when DS was doing this that one of the purposes of the SSAT writing sample was to help schools spot the kids whose applications had clearly benefited from help. I’m not sure if that’s the case, but if there’s a big difference – one that can’t be accounted for by the time constraint – it could be a problem.
It’s kind of like interview prep–you wouldn’t send your kid in cold, but by the same token, they can’t be overly rehearsed and scripted. These are 13, 14, 15-year old kids–some parental involvement is expected.
Use your judgment but don’t feel bad if you spot a typo or help with a sentence that your kid is struggling with. It’s not like Andover is letting in kids who weren’t otherwise supposed to get in because Mom or Dad proofread a personal essay.
“some parental involvement is expected”
I think one needs to be very careful about this. Read each school’s application materials carefully. This statement is from the Candidate Personal Statement from St. Paul’s School’s application which requires a student’s signature below it: “In keeping with the St. Paul’s School Honor Code, my signature indicates that all information submitted is factually correct, complete, and honestly presented. The written answers represent my own work and have not been edited by others.”
Definitely don’t edit. But point your child to some online resources that they can use on their own to improve their writing. My favorite is slickwrite.com. Its online and free.
Having a few errors is fine, and somewhat expected. Having a perfectly polished essay will be quite obvious to the reviewer that a middle school student didn’t write it completely on their own. Some schools even compare the writing sample from the SSAT to the essays that are submitted. Its fairly easy to tell when someone else did the writing on behalf of the student. Unfortunately lots of parents try to meddle.
While discussing college essays, Our BS college counselor cautioned parents not to “put a Volvo engine in their child’s Honda Civic” He likened AOs to expert Honda mechanics who can easily spot parental “improvements.” I would send the essay in as is.
All great replies. I am leaving “as is” which will be similar to SSAT essay. I think that makes the most sense for our family at least.
Hi–taking a look at slickwrite. Any tips on using it? Did you purchase an extension? Thanks.