I was just told by a sad kid that her mom had deleted all her essays and re-written them. Apparently her mom said “well, you never would have gotten in with those essays.”
Than that parent better set aside plenty of time to write essays for the child for the next 4 or more years of school.
An AO once told me that a common feature of kids that fail in BS is that the decision and process of applying was done or heavily managed by the parents.
She’ll never get in with the new ones either. Mom is naive if she thinks that an AO cannot tell the difference between ans essay written by a 13 year old and one written by a 40+ y/o.
My S19 wrote all of his own essays without any assistance - I just proofread for spelling etc. Last night I read his supplemental essay for one school and I was so proud and moved. As a parent you do your child a huge disservice by writing or over editing his essays - aside from the fact that I think it is usually evident to those doing the reading.
Why would you take away his or her true voice?
The mom is a good friend of mine but hypercritical of her kid. I have tried to give some of the advice I have learned here but it falls on deaf ears.
Sometimes one just needs to invoke the “worry about your own damn self” rule. 
Yes, I could just worry about myself but that gets hard when the kid is upset and talks to me. It’s hard not to want to help a sad kid.
I forced myself to back off and take a different approach than many. I felt like I wanted my kid to truly represent himself and what he was capable of (grammar mistakes and all). My theory going into this was that if he didn’t do ALL the work independently, he may end up at a school where he was in over his head. (My son does have an LD and I didn’t want to gloss over or hide it.) He did send a graded writing sample, so an essay “polished” by someone else would have been evident.
I think AOs know who is working with a consultant, who has help at home/school and who is working on their own and judge accordingly. Just like they need to compare applicants from private schools that are invested in the application process of their students and students from public schools that have no skin in the game as to whether the student gets accepted or not.
We had one of those heart-to-heart conversations after the essays were finished…kiddo didn’t want us to read the essays before they were launched…but kiddo said “ I wrote some essays the way you would have wanted me to and others I wrote free form”…interesting to have this platform upon which to discuss both the process and the content.
Our son wrote his own essays, he would sometimes come to see us for ideas and brainstorming but then he went back on his own to write them. We did not get to see the final product until after they were sent and unfortunately there are some structural issues and spelling mistakes. Prep schools will see him for what he is and I am curious to see if and where he gets in.
I agree with @Golfgr8 it is great to have CC to discuss these issues. I wonder though if we are a self-selecting group of more hands-off parents and if many parents out there in the world are writing essays for their kids. My daughter would say she is mostly in charge of school herself. For quite a long time I have not wanted to sign homework logs and permission slips for silly things. She has been in charge of doing all those things since 4th grade I think and has become very organized and thoughtful as a result. Or maybe she was organized and thoughtful to begin with so I could outsource those tasks to her without worrying. To me, the essays are the same thing. If she can’t handle them she probably shouldn’t go to that school. I am always happy to be a brainstorming sounding board and I will read when asked but I am not going to be the taskmaster about getting things done. She did complain once during break and I pointed out that she was the one who wanted to go to private school and at any point she could decide the work wasn’t worth it.
@dogsmama1997 makes a good point - “If she can’t handle them she probably shouldn’t go to that school”…we know students/parents who have hired BS placement counselors and college students to write their essays. Sickening, IMO. I am guessing that AO’s are pretty good at sifting out the essays written by students in their own voice. One mom we knew from elementary school always helped her son. She wrote the essays and was rather bold about telling us that she did this. For the past few years she FaceTimes her son at a “top school” (with no study hall restrictions) every night to help with homework - especially work that demands writing. We think she will actually go to college with her son to assist with his homework.
@CaliMex but can AOs tell when an essay has been written and heavily edited by the kid? I am starting to wonder about my kid who has been crafting and editing a looong time. She also happens to be much better with grammar than I am (took an extra grammar course at school) so her essays are going to be pretty error free. I would be shocked if there’s even a single comma out of place in her essays.
Not sure what your concern is @dogsmama1997 ?
Sorry, @CaliMex, you wrote in the beginning of the thread that AOs can tell when an essay has been heavily edited by a parent. Can they tell the difference between that and an essay being heavily edited by the kid themselves? My concern is that my daughter has worked very hard writing and editing and that they may be too perfect (error free, who knows if the topics are good or interesting).
@dogsmama1997 The AO is not looking for Pulitzer Prize-winning prose from you; the essay just adds another facet for your kid (who after all, is the focus here). Don’t overthink it, but at the same time, don’t let her overedit. Personally, I would not let her edit at all, but that’s just me.
Whether or not an admissions officer can spot a parented or counselor edited essay is not as important, in my opinion, as the admissions officers evaluation of an applicant’s maturity level. Such an assessment probably would be impacted by a sense of someone assisting the child behind the scenes.
Lol @skieurope I cannot stop the editing. She is pretty much done.
But out of curiosity, why not let kids edit?
Let the kids edit. It will still be in their own voice. That’s what matters.
When grown ups edit, especially non-writers, they inevitably change the voice.
We are talking about editing, not proofreading, btw.