<p>Fellow parents, I have been rendered speechless. Below is great link to NY Times article, which was really about students oversharing in their essays in an era of desperation to get into a "good" college. But just as incredible, the author revealed that there is really a camp for helping high school students write their college essays and it costs 14K for just one week, not including transportation OR food. The camp should be shut down immediately. Or the students should all be turned down at every college to which they apply. Either the kids are getting a LOT of help for their 14K such that the essays are no longer theirs (dishonesty/honor code violations) OR the camp counselors do not help the kids much and their parents are getting ripped off royally. Read about it here in the NY Times, article by Frank Bruni.</p>
<p>The people who are paying this 14K are not struggling to come up with 14K. Let them pump it into the economy. </p>
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<p>I’m trying to imagine if I was an admissions officer and I got an essay from a student about their mother’s pregnancy with them. It’s just… </p>
<p>So I guess these kids really aren’t so advanced/unique/exceptional if they need $3500/day of writing help/babysitting TO WORK ON THE COMMON APP. And they are going to survive in college a year for now?</p>
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<p>Checks article…camp is in the U.S…operating legally.</p>
<p>Under what laws in the U.S. do you think it is even remotely legal to shut down this camp?</p>
<p>A rock and roll fantasy camp costs around $6500 and that isn’t for a full week, nor do you get to reflect on your life’s journey in an essay.</p>
<p>Wow. Glad I don’t have to read some of the essays mentioned. Gross. </p>
<p>“Under what laws in the U.S. do you think it is even remotely legal to shut down this camp?”</p>
<p>OP here. It is not illegal, but it is certainly UNETHICAL for parents to pay someone to essentially write the essays. These are supposed to be the kids’ work, and obviously, anyone paying 14K is not expecting just a comma suggestion here and there. Maybe I am wrong, but I take this to mean that the essays will be very significantly the idea and product of the counselors. Not to mention that doing this sends a strong message to these already (for the most part) educated and smart kids - in not so many words, the parents are saying “You are not good enough, so I am going to spend 14K to MAKE you good enough”.</p>
<p>I am faculty and on the admissions committee of an ivy league medical school - and fully expect that the essays I read are 98%-100% the work of the applicant. I have no interest in reading the work of professional writers or editors - I can do that in the NY Times. I want to learn about the students and I want to know how they communicate and how they portray themselves. I want to learn what matters to the student - their values, experiences and passions.</p>
<p>Even 10 years ago, it seemed that most of the essays WERE written by the applicants themselves, and there was very little evidence of heavy duty input from admissions professionals. That has changed, even in the past decade, as the helicopter parents have increased significantly. I am sure they were always there, but there has definitely been an increase, percentage-wise. We all joke that none of us would ever get into med school today! </p>
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<p>I am afraid that your intimate knowledge of graduate school admissions does not translate very well to the undergraduate ones. Personal statements and other graduate schools requirements are cut from a different fabric, and reflect the added maturity of the applicants. At least in theory. </p>
<p>Fwiw, I am also afraid that you made no effort to look up the offering of the 14,000 Applications Boot Camp, which has been discussed here often in the past as it has existed for more than a decade. Its founder has posted here in the past to clear up misconceptions about the services. Regarding its cost and value, that appears to be in the eye of the beholder. And the size of the wallet of the buyer! Fwiw, for some, 14,000 is a drop in the bucket compared to 12-15 years of private schools in NYC, Boston, or Long Island. </p>
<p>Is it fair? Well, there is almost NOTHING fair about our system of education, and its purported equality. Actually, have you considered that parents who saved by avoiding private schools might have a wonderful war chest to complement the lacking but free public education with plenty of summer camps, fake charitable work abroad, and an army of hired tutors and consultants? </p>
<p>Cynical as it might be, in the end, people with means have more choices. They can live where they want, send their kids where they want, including high rent public schools, and hire the best doctors and dentists money can buy. This is America, after all! </p>
<p>Among all the scandals that plague our education, getting help on essays is among the most trivial and benign! </p>
<p>" Michele Hernandez, another prominent admissions counselor, runs one or more sessions of an Application Boot Camp every summer in which roughly 25 to 30 kids will be tucked away for four days in a hotel to work with a team of about eight editors on what she told me were as many as 10 drafts of each of three to five different essays. The camp costs $14,000 per student. That doesn’t include travel to it, the hotel bill, breakfast or dinners, but it does include lunch and a range of guidance, both before and during the four days, on how students should fill out college applications and best showcase themselves."</p>
<p>Good thing that they toss in the lunch for no charge :)</p>
<p>That “range of guidance” might include her counseling services through the admission process. The boot camp week could be a part of that. </p>
<p>$14,000 is (way) over the top IMHO, but there must be a market for it, or she couldn’t set the cost that high. </p>
<p>One point in the essay is not to write TMI essays. While the essays should be the students’ own work, I think most of them have been proofread by a parent, teacher, or other adult, so I’m surprised those got as far as admission. </p>
<p>Let’s be clear–it’s only four days.</p>
<p>So what happens to these kids when they enter the workforce and have to think on their feet and mommy and daddy and the boot camp counselors aren’t there to help them? </p>
<p>I’m wondering how much this woman is paying the NY Times for advertising her summer gig.</p>
<p>Look, New York (and probably LA) are filled with very very wealthy, Type A parents who are more than able to pay the fee. This article, like so many others, feeds on their fear of the college application process enabling this camp to exist. If the parents are so blind to schools outside the top 20 and money foolish, well, good for the woman for discovering this market niche? </p>
<p>I’m not sure what one would expect. There is a limit to how many applicants can be helped by Ms. Hernandez in the four days and a huge number of families willing to pay “whatever it takes” to give their applicant a leg up. Ms. Hernandez is not running a charity and has no responsibility to ensure that her services are “fairly” distributed. </p>
<p>We might find it distasteful, and for the record my DS had help on his essays from a few friends (whose payment consisted of DS reading their essays and making suggestions), but if you don’t like capitalism, you’re in the wrong country. I personally would be embarrassed and ashamed if my DS attended such a camp, but I also didn’t gift him a Ferrari as a HS junior either (as happened at his school). </p>
<p>I will admit sharing high fives with my son when the ultra-rich kids at his school didn’t get a very good return on their investments in over-the-top help. With a couple of exceptions, most kids were accepted at appropriate schools; my respect for Adcoms has grown immensely during this season. </p>
<p>My own suspicion is that four days of boot camp is just the tip of the iceberg. These are likely students who have had the advantage of tutors, test prep, and college advising as well. Once in college, they will likely be ahead of many untutored peers, as well as primed to seek out assistance and avoid academic risk or failure.</p>
<p>As for what happens in the workforce, I think lots will depend on where they land. I am sure that there will be many who will discover that they can do fine without (or as a result of )all that assistance. Lots will continue to ask for, and receive good advice from parents or consultants. </p>
<p>But, I can fully understand why employers might want to administer their own aptitude tests and ask potential employees to talk about their studies or internship experiences in long interviews, before hiring anyone to a position where they would be expected to think on their feet. </p>
<p>Perhaps those teams consist of English majors and Creative Writing majors that otherwise would struggle to find jobs :)</p>
<p>So many kids have an infinite amount of resources to tap into. I also agree that it’s capitalism at its finest, so who are we to begrudge anyone a leg up in the process? It’s been happening for many years on so many levels & will continue for many years to come. But please remember that when hard working, qualified poor kids gain entry into HSCs WITHOUT life’s accoutrement. We can’t have it both ways. </p>
<p>I found the piece in the New York Times interesting – but not only because of the financial information disclosed there. I have been appalled for a long time at the amount of self-disclosure which the essays seem to routinely expect from students, all based on the assumption that the most important thing a student can bring to a campus is his or her own identity – not their achievements, accomplishments, determination or values. I think that the current system seems to privilege:
- extroverts – who like telling their own stories and don’t mind disclosing things
- People from cultures where self-disclosure is the norm (vs. those where many things are regarded as private or ‘family matters’. I’m trying to picture someone from a culture where there are lots of notions of honor and shame, for example, trying to convince his or her parents that they should write about something embarassing that happened to them)
- Kids who are more socially mature – It seems like another case where there could be a big difference between someone who had been held back, started kindergarten late, took a post-graduate year, took a gap year, etc. – and someone who was only sixteen when they started composing their essays. I know that I didn’t really have the ability to “look back” on my high school years and to see myself as a character in that story when I was sixteen – that would have been something that came later, with maturity.
- Kids who have been raised by parents who valued self-esteem highly and encouraged their kids to be a bit self-centered, to demand things, to regard themselves as clever.</p>
<p>If you were encouraged as a child to be dutiful, quiet, diligent, not to brag about or to think too highly about yourself, etc. it’s hard to see how you would be able to crank out an essay that kind of shouts “me, me, me. Pick me.”
I also can’t imagine how exhausting it would then be for an introvert to be living in a dorm and taking classes surrounded by outgoing colorful extroverts who were constantly putting on a show. My head hurts just thinking of it.</p>
<p>“The camp should be shut down immediately. Or the students should all be turned down at every college to which they apply. Either the kids are getting a LOT of help for their 14K such that the essays are no longer theirs (dishonesty/honor code violations) OR the camp counselors do not help the kids much and their parents are getting ripped off royally.”</p>
<p>My son didn’t go to a boot camp but his private school had a class in “getting into college” every kid takes starting in January of their Junior year and going until November of their Senior year (when all apps are required to be into Guidance.) There are 5 kids in each class - so lots of individual attention. They worked on crafting their lists, their essays and their apps. As a parent, I didn’t have to do a single thing except take S to visit schools. I never saw his essays or read his apps. </p>
<p>After he was done with applying and accepted to colleges (everyone he applied to,) I was going through the box with all his college stuff and found his essay. If I had seen it before hand I know I would have suggested a ton of changes (and probably screwed it up.) When I told him I read it he said he wrote it in 15 minutes. It was definitely his - even though he had this class. So your contention that the kid’s work who go to this boot camp work is dishonest or an honor code violation and they should be turned down at every college because of that is not based on anything other then your imagination. </p>
<p>“And they are going to survive in college a year for now?”</p>
<p>My S is a rising senior and has a 3.5 at a top 25 LAC. He plays a sport, has a job on campus, is in several clubs, is on the executive council of the student gov’t and has had internships for two summers. Obviously no problem surviving in college even though he had a class in getting into college, along with a private SAT/ACT tutor. </p>
<p>For my three kids, the only coaching that was really helpful was handing them photograph albums. They looked over their lives in photos and came up with great essay topics. This cost a lot less than $14K.</p>
<p>One of mine has serious health issues that did not affect her academics, despite weeks here and there of absences etc. I guess this would have demonstrated the proverbial character, but she didn’t mention it at all in her essay.</p>
<p>I find these confessional essays interesting. A better way might be to indicate one’s struggles in more concise form in the optional shorter essay opportunity on the common app. and write about something else in the main essay.</p>
<p>I have helped a few international students with their essays. Many students, whether from the US or elsewhere, seem to have a misguided goal of demonstrating “uniqueness” in their essays, which results in some truly awful writing. I tell students to be straightforward and convey what it is they want to convey in the simplest terms that can get the message across. EB White is still my hero.</p>
<p>I don’t think a five day essay writing course is going to cripple a student. Especially when they have been lavished with the best that life has to offer since birth. Five days won’t make a bit of difference in the grand scheme of things. </p>