Do these schools know that there really are kids who love things like community service and aren’t just writing what they think the AO wants to hear? I looked over some of my daughter’s essays last night and while I know they are very sincere because I shared some of the experiences with her I worry that schools may think she is blowing smoke. Not sure the question even makes sense since she has to write what’s in her heart anyway.
I can assure you that there are schools who want that kid because it is at the core of their ethos. My son went to one.
How much are consultants helping kids with essays? Speaking to an aquaintance today she mentioned they have a consultant going over all their child’s essays. Interesting since I thought they were supposed to be written by the kid. Anyone use a consultant? What did they actually do? Spelling and grammar or make something crappy into gold?
No consultant here.
I figured most people on CC didn’t use them, I’d never heard of a consultant who fixes (reads) essays. The mom seemed very pleased with the notion though. It was clear she felt the application would be perfect with the essay help.
Many/most CC parents also qualify as OCD parents…and as a result, serve as editor-in-chief of applications at home (not me, of course). 
I know a number of parents who’ve used consultants for college applications, but none for BS. However, we have few BS applicants in our neck of the woods.
I know people who do consulting for BS (although it never crossed our mind to use one.)
They can help a kid find their story and can read and comment on what still seems unclear. They do not write or edit essays!
AOS claim they can tell what was written truly independently from writing samples and knowing what an 8th grader’s voice sounds like. Most can spot parental editing…
I’m CDO (that’s OCD but with the letters in alphabetic order, as they should be.)
I think schools can tell very readily which stories resonate and which were curated experiences based on the parents. For one thing, someone who just took up an interest cannot readily compare with a kid who started doing something at an early age/ or based on a genuine interest. Really the stories about the kids helping others who started this or that are often feel goods. Going and doing something once isn’t the same as doing it every week for years.
I know maybe 30 families with kids in boarding school. Never heard of one using a consultant and some are the type to use them. I’ll bet most parents reviewed the kids essay for grammar errors, however. I did. I also helped point out areas that weren’t clear. But didn’t do any writing or chose the subject matter.
We did not use a consultant. We did not get involved in the applications beyond the parent requirements. One school, however, had 6 or 7 parent essays for us to complete! Maybe we needed a consultant for us parents! We did panic when kiddo sent in the essays and had a print out - we found grammar errors on a couple of the essays. All turned out OK. I really think that your student knows what is in his/her heart and will be the best person to write the essays. Also, some schools ask for writing samples or copies of graded papers…this will show consistency between the application essay and reality. [-(
@Golfgr8 My daughter was complaining about the schools she’s applying to not asking for a school essay. She finds those much easier than talking about herself!
The SSAT includes a writing component, so AOs can tell if the essays were written (or heavily edited) by an adult!
@calimex Yes, that’s true. But some kids take time to craft an essay. So written work, like that corrected by a teacher with edits is probably a better comparison than an essay written on the SSAT. Too much pressure to think about clear, concise prose for most kids.
They expect an admissions essay to be much more polished than the timed essay written as part of the SSAT. They do not expect it to sound like it was written by someone else altogether 
It’s tough to write a really good essay that ADCOMS haven’t seen before. Sometimes a good consultant knows what’s ho hum and what will be refreshing. At any rate, schools want to see kids who convey curiousness, good citizenship, unique contributors to the community, and vitality of the mind (a la Stanford).
that’s for college; for prep school I think they want to see more kid writing, but someone out to change the world. They are looking still for unique contributors and those who might fare well in leadership and college admissions.
Dig deep and write from what is in your heart. GolfKiddo wrote one essay about the many tournaments assisting and caddying for our brave Wounded Warriors. One of the highlights of Revisit Week was when the AO l read one of GolfKiddo’s essay to all assembled…that brought “love the school that loves you” right to the heart…even grumpy Golfgrampa was touched :x
Oh, great…now I sound like the parent who wrote his kid’s essays!
I assure you, my comments were limited to things like “you know why Word underlines words in red, right?”, not things like “please expand on sentence 2, paragraph 3, and be careful with verb tense.”
And to anyone who responds, “yeah, right!”, consider the dislike button pushed on your comment. >:P
Maybe I’m wrong but I think it’s very challenging comparing an essay that kids have 20 minutes to write versus one our DS has been working on for 2 weeks.
^^ Hopefully, one that has been worked on will be better! But I am pretty confident that the seeds of the latter will be evident in the short one. People who work with kids this age know pretty well what kind of transformation editing can make vs what kind of transformation a ghostwriter can make.