Your daughter has the benefit of still having the time to take care of it and possibly re-write or heavily edit what she has already written. My son didn’t speak up about his ambivalence about his essay until he had already submitted it EA to his dream school, where he was wait listed and eventually rejected. It was too late for that school, but not for all of the other schools he applied to, so he started from scratch and eventually wrote one he was much happier with. She is lucky that she still has time in which to work it all out to her satisfaction!
Here’s the big question. Can she write something better? WILL she write something better?
I hear from parents pretty often when they don’t like the essay. Sometimes I love the piece and sometimes I don’t, but it has always become the common app essay because it is the strongest piece I could get out of the student. By all means, encourage the student to write something else and see if she can top this. At such time as you have a better essay than this one, encourage her to send the better one. But don’t reject an existing essay in favor of an imaginary Platonic-ideal essay that exists in the parent’s imagination. It may or may not ever reach paper. Deal with real options, not with hypotheticals.
“Can she write something better?” The kid may be able to. The parent may feel the kid is able to, because the parent knows the kid and her work. But does the counselor know this? How much of the kid’s prior writing has the counselor read? How does the counselor know what the kid is capable of producing and when to give it the OK? What’s a good essay for one kid may be pretty lackluster for a better writer or one whose life experiences are better suited to the topic.
You never know. My oldest we were just relieved when he finally spit out a good enough essay. It actually had a great start and a good last line, but the middle was okay for a comp sci guy but not much more. That was fine, he certainly wasn’t selling himself as the next great American writer. My younger son wrote several possible essays. The first try, he didn’t feel showed himself enough, but in the end he tweaked it to answer the “What was your favorite EC” essay and I actually thought it ended up being stronger than his main common application essay. I liked his main essay a lot, it showed his sense of humor and his propensity for exploring topics he was interested in on his own. His AP history teacher liked it, but thought it wasn’t unique enough to get him into an Ivy level school, so he wrote a completely different essay which he only used at Georgetown and in a slightly whacko version for U of Chicago. It didn’t get him into Georgetown (which was a huge reach, so no surprise there, whether or not they liked the essay), but it or the rest of his application did get him into Chicago.
Honestly, most of the time, essays just have to be good enough not to sink the application. It’s rare that they are going to take a kid on the cusp and carry him over it. (In my younger son’s case, I think essays may have made a difference, in my older son’s case, I doubt they made any difference at all, except to prove that he too could be funny and could write coherently if not particularly interestingly.)
I think it may depend on what the kid’s interests are. If the kid wants to be a STEM major, I doubt the essay needs to be nearly as good as if the kid wants to be an English major.
^^ that is not true at colleges that do not admit students by major or ask students to declare an intended major in their application.
here is a true story-
we “encouraged” DS to apply to Stanford SCEA, because DH was an alum, Ds was great student, and so many Seniors from his HS were always accepted early. He had top SAT scores and grades and recommendations and we thought he would get in easily.
DS was not sure at the time that he would WANT to go to a college so close to home- in fact- at the beginning of his SR year he was SURE he wanted to go out of state, but we ignored that.
He submitted his Stanford essays that I thought they were great !! What did I know??
When he was deferred in Dec, he realized he had to write essays for all the other colleges that reflected who HE really was, and not what I thought he should say.
He hid in his room over Xmas vacation for 2 weeks, grieving and writing essays.
Needless to say, those weeks were not fun for any of us.
He was accepted to every other college he applied to. all 12.
I got the chance to read the essay he submitted to those colleges a few years later.
It was funny, and brilliant, and there is NO WAY I could have guided him in writing it.
Parents cant be the ones who decide what essays their children should submit.
They don’t have to declare a major. If you look at the coursework, EC’s, essays, and letters, and can’t tell a thing about what the student’s interests are then it’s probably not a very good application.
Absolutely not true. Students change their mind all of the time and are sometimes limited by their high school course offerings. There are very few students who start out saying that they want to do one thing and end up doing something else (in high school every other kid wants to be a doctor, and we all know that life doesn’t pan out that way). As for my house, there is no way of knowing when my daughter was in high school that she would graduate with a degree in religion!!
Seconding sybbie. I used high school as a time to explore, not as a time to be tied down to any one thing.
I despise the idea that a student needs to “specialize” in high school. AdComms aren’t stupid. They know that most students are going to change their majors. (Generally) they admit the student, not the major (OF COURSE there are exceptions.)
This is wrong. Writing a college application essay is different than writing an essay on literature or philosophy. Furthermore there is no evidence that the HS students applying for English major have better essays than the ones applying for STEM majors.
High school is so early in one’s life, it’s rather alarming that anyone can think a student would know and be on track for their eventual major/career path.
You can tell the applicant’s interests during high school but this may mean absolutely nothing in terms of the student’s eventual major.
I read some essays from students who were accepted to the Ivies. Some were better than others. I would not call them all sophisticated and polished. Some of them just told a story in fairly plain language.
Unlike your child, my D is not a great a writer. She relied on this idea of just writing the story as if she were telling it to a friend. She is funny, and her humor came through. I think her essay reflected her personality and also what she learned from the experience she described. She did not apply to Ivies, but did apply to very good schools (one top 30) and got into every one of them with merit money. I was not of the belief that her essay itself would get her in anywhere - but it wouldn’t keep her out either. I thought the reader would learn something about her, and be entertained, but that’s about it. The essay is not the most important piece of the puzzle. It’s an opportunity for the reader to learn a little more about the student.
I have heard from others that some English teachers do not understand well what the college essay should be. It is not a 5-paragraph literary essay. My daughter did have a few English teachers review it. They all made small, subtle suggestions that improved the essay, but kept her voice. A few changes got away from her voice too much, and I suggested she not make those changes. Most of the help she needed involved cutting and condensing to stay under the word limit.
I agree with you that students who are excellent writers don’t necessarily sound like a 17-year old. So, how could an admissions officer really know who wrote it without making assumptions, unless the writing is so outstanding and the English grades and scores are not.
Talk to the counselor. Show her a sample of your child’s writing and ask some questions. If you are in a competitive area and this counselor has had consistent success getting kids into top schools, I see no reason why you should dismiss her opinion.
@thumper1, I agree with what you are saying. If you hired the counselor, then might want to let that relationship flourish with your daughter so she can write her best college essay. I would stay out of it. Also, agree with @mathmom and not give it to the English teacher.
@thumper1, I listened to that. You can google it and listen to it. Also I know there is a link to it somewhere her on CC
“How does the counselor know what the kid is capable of producing and when to give it the OK?”
Don’t forget the second half of the question: WILL the student write something better?
Abstract capabilities are all well and good. But unless the kid is a blogger or memoirist, they haven’t been writing in any related genre. The fact that the kid writes great fiction or great history papers or great HS newspaper articles does not always mean they’ll excel in this genre. The only measure of what a kid is “capable of producing” is what she actually produces.
More importantly, we’re talking about teenagers. I give the OK on a non-amazing essay when I’ve pulled and pulled and the student isn’t giving any more. There comes a point where more pressure from me is just going to cause anxiety and hostility, not writer’s insight. That’s a judgment call with each kid, and I often discuss it with the parents. But this isn’t something you can force.
I haven’t read where the OP has said exactly what it is about the essay she doesn’t like?
I haven’t had to proof an essay for the kids for a while, although occasionally they do ask me (I’m a professional writer-please excuse my use of the vernacular on here as I’m “off duty”). Typically I’ll just check it for grammar, usage, and other stuff the computer doesn’t pick up when they spell check it. The essay should be clean and tight, but I don’t think it should be “polished and buffed”. That may be semantics, though.
If they ask me at the beginning I will offer suggestions, like asking them to find the idea that will connect with their intended audience, and then seeing them work from there. Brainstorming is fun for that.
Sometimes I do notice that I’m not hearing their voice in the work, and I’ll point that out, but really, what’s coming out of their head needs to get authentically to the paper, without the mature perspective of a grownup (in my opinion, of course). I am totally ok with their writing sounding “juvenile” because they are juveniles!
I’ve read my son’s CA essay mostly because one of the schools he is applying to is rolling and they say applying earlier is better. School doesn’t start here for another week and I’m not sure when they’ll work on essays in AP Lit so I looked at it just for that one school. He choose the significant challenge and has one that applies and he wanted to disclose but doesn’t have to be treated seriously. I liked his unique voice and some of the unusual phrasing. I think it shows that it was his work and wasn’t uber polished. There were 2 words I felt like he could find a better word for but hopefully that will come from his teacher. I only know the topics for his MIT app essays and I think he tried a little too hard to be funny and oddly enough on that one he didn’t use his actual challenge for the challenge question but will disclose it on other so maybe they will respect that he was trying to tell a good story. His CA essay can’t be condensed down to the MIT word limit. It wouldn’t have been my choice but honestly it is who he is so we’ll see if that meshes with what they want.
I’d worry about taking advice from English teachers, especially younger ones. It seems like all the English class writing my son has done for the past 2-3 years is “analysis of the author’s purpose and techniques” and “arguing from evidence.” I thought I was going to like the Common Core’s balance between reading fiction and non-fiction. But the last time DS got to write personal narratives for school was probably 3rd grade and the last time that his own personal response and thoughts about a work of fiction were asked for was probably 5th grade. I hope he can remember how to write about himself and his own thoughts, because that is certainly discouraged in English classes these days.
The good news is you’ve got time. A good thing to do with any writing is put it in a drawer for a week or two. Don’t think about it. Then take it out again and see if you feel the same way. Maybe your daughter would be willing to take a stab at a totally new essay in the interm. Perhaps you could brainstorm half a dozen ideas together. Then go away. Let her pick one and write a draft on a new topic. Good luck.