<p>Maybe the best way to make sure people don't steal your essays goes as follows:</p>
<p>(1) Send a really crummy version, maybe two paragraphs of absolute unintelligible garbage...but make it believable.
(2) Wait for the critique
(3) If it actually comes, send the real version and package it as an "edit."</p>
<p>I've never actually done this, but it might work :)</p>
<p>i dont think anyone really STEALS any of the essays that you send them.. i mean, college essays are too personal to steal or copy.. i guess they can get inspired by the essays or get some ideas, but they definitely can't use the same essays for their college apps. that's if they have a bit of common sense. haha. </p>
<p>i've read several college essays and gave them honest, helpful feedbacks, and that's what the people on this site are looking for. they want to know what strangers think of their essays. because if the essays don't make a good impression on these strangers in the forum, they probably won't work with the admissions officers either.</p>
<p>well i certainly hope everyone i sent my essays to were like you letitsnow. i wonder if the uc system use turnitin... it's so big.. does essays really matter to them?</p>
<p>This thread is making me SO panicky.
How can you tell if somebody has "stolen" your essays? I sent 2 of my short answers for Stanford to somebody and they replied with critique a day later, but they had a low post-count. How do you know if somebody stole it? I regret doing that but now I am freaking out that the idea presented in one of my short answers (which I am using in one of my longer Common App essays) may be used. I know I should have researched and thought through this more before I did it, but is there anything I can do now?</p>
<p>Another idea that I had was to send essays to people you have met who have been accepted to their ED schools. For example, I'm on the Princeton forum a lot and have "met" a lot of nice people there. Once they have been accepted ED, is it OK to send your essays to them? Obviously they won't use them themselves (well...they don't need them) and while I suppose they COULD pass it off to a friend or something, is that likely?</p>
<p>I am so worried now. But thanks everyone for putting this out there.</p>
<p>^^You are not panicky enough. You are still thinking of sending essays to others. Obviously you see benefit in that, then be prepared to take the risk. Don't panick.</p>
<p>"i dont think anyone really STEALS any of the essays that you send them.. i mean, college essays are too personal to steal or copy.. "</p>
<p>Not true at all. You see people, for instance, posting on CC about planning to lie about their ECs and ethnic backgrounds. Some people will do anything to get into the college of their choice, and that includes completely stealing others' essays and fabricating a completely different character and background than they really have.</p>
<p>Creating a new identity could get someone into the college, but he/she would not succeed at that college. If you can't write these essays, then how do you plan on writing in-class essays for a comp. class.</p>
<p>Still, it's hard to steal an essay in certain circumstances. Mine, for example, would require the "stealer" to have taken a Ceramics class junior year and won an award in that. Sure, that could've happened with a few people, but it's unlikely that of the three people I sent my essay to (that didn't respond, that is--you know who you are), one or more fit that profile.</p>
<p>well, cheating will eventually catch up to you.</p>
<p>btw, does anybody know which colleges use turnitin? all the ivies should use it, since they got the most applicants and there's bound to be a couple instances of plagiarism somewhere.</p>
<p>i would like to too.</p>
<p>don't you just HATE those posters that never reply?? it really irks me. if you say you're going to read something, you should READ it.</p>
<p>if someone stole an essay, im sure their conscience would get to them. if you actually get into that school, you'll never know what got you in. if you GO to that school, you'll have that looming on you for the rest of your life...kinda creepy...</p>
<p>"im sure their conscience would get to them" for sure</p>
<p>Unfortunately, I've seen posts on CC from people who think that any kind of cheating is OK because the ends justify the means or according to them, "Everybody cheats." Of course, the truth is that probably their friends are the "everybody," but those posters' warped thinking still means that they probably wouldn't feel guilty if they got into college via a stolen essay.</p>
<p>"don't you just HATE those posters that never reply?? it really irks me. if you say you're going to read something, you should READ it."</p>
<p>Oh, I bet that they do read it: read it to learn how to write their own essays, including by stealing ideas from others. They don't read essays to help other people.</p>
<p>i'm getting a bit angry here.. hearing about these people who steal essays.. wow why would anyone do that..</p>
<p>and i'm mad bc i've proofread more than 15 essays on this site, and out of all the people that i've sent my essays to, i haven't received any replies. i think we should really have a LIST. haha</p>
<p>What about the parents on CC? There are MANY parents (like Northstarmom, for example) who are extremely well-established on this board with thousands of posts who are helpful in every situation. I'm not saying that we should begin to BOMBARD frequent-poster parents with our essays, but can those parents be trusted?</p>
<p>I don't know about everybody else here, but I am finding myself in a place where I don't really know what to do. After reading a thread like this I can't trust anybody, but I NEED somebody to read my essays. I've shown some of my teachers essays I have written but for some schools with deadlines in the next week I can't contact them before then. Most of my friends are only applying to state schools and don't understand or care that essays are more important in applications to higher-ranked schools. My mom doesn't care at all and my dad doesn't speak English well enough to edit. </p>
<p>That essentially leaves me with fellow CC'ers, but now I am so freaked out that I don't know what to do. I know it's my fault for waiting so late to start my essays, but is it better to risk sending an essay to somebody who I believe is trustworthy or to just not have anybody else read it?</p>
<p>And my original question, can well-established parents be trusted? I don't know about parents, but I can't imagine a parent who spends a LOT of time on this board stealing an essay and giving it to their son or daughter. What do yall think?</p>
<p>Here's another concern... how would turnitin handle a common ap essay? Suppose you apply to two (or more) schools using the common application. Both schools plug your essay into turnitin, and you get flagged for plagarism because two copies of the same essay exist in the system. How would schools get around this... because there are many copies of my common ap essay floating around, one for each common ap school I applied to.</p>
<p>Or suppose an applicant applied to a non-common ap school, but has a common ap essay that fits the school's own essay prompt. What if the non-common ap school puts the essay on turnitin and finds an extra identical copy in existence?</p>
<p>While in both situations I described, the student's own, non-plagarized work would come up plagarized, wouldn't it? Wouldn't that be a major flaw in the system, especially the first scenario I mentioned? How would schools solve this problem and really weed out plagarizers?</p>
<p>No problem, both copies will show up as being written by the same author.</p>
<p>This is what I don't like about the development of technology. Will people be able to write about anything without "plagerizing" 100 years later when probably all the expressions in English language would be online?</p>
<p>Turnitin.com has to be used with discretion by the teacher or administrator. For example, my Theory of Knowledge teacher showed me the class database for a recent paper we submitted and nearly 17% of mine showed up as "plagarized." She said that she can click on the parts that are allegedly plagarized, but if it's a common 5-word phrase (turnitin.com searches for 5 word sections) such as "once upon a time there...," it isn't actually a case of copying. Additionally, if the information that is quoted as plagarized is cited or provided with quotations, it doesn't count.</p>
<p>I know that doesn't apply at all to college essays, but I'm just saying that whomever is USING turnitin.com won't just blindly accept the results that turnitin.com provides. Schools know that applicants submit the same essays to many colleges, and it's not as though they would disqualify your application because turnitin.com claims that it's a "stolen essay" from another applicant (with your same name, imagine that) applying to another college.</p>
<p>I'm not sure if that made any sense, but basically the system isn't perfect. It does, however, work well within high schools and on weeding out people who buy essays on the Internet. Eventually, though, I'm sure that some of those sites that sell essays will feature some kind of "blocker" that can avoid being caught by turnitin.com or mydropbox...which is unfortunate. I hate the fact that so many people get away with cheating.</p>