<p>To me the college essay is more like a short memoir piece. I don't know why they call it an essay, but I guess no one reads Francis Bacon anymore. ;-) As for input, well, professional writers get feedback and criticism; why shouldn't students? A good editor knows how not to take over for a writer and knows how to encourage the writer to sound more like him or herself. That's very different from doing the work for the writer. It's a process that is used, btw, in many high school and college writing courses.</p>