<p>If the child is the one to make the corrections, however, the edits are handled, the child is still learning how to write, which is the goal, after all.</p>
<p>I just don’t worry about what other people do.</p>
<p>It bothers me alittle treating the end of high school as an arms race for the parents, but if I step back it doesn’t bother me so much. For some kids, it’s their moment in the sun and their parents’ moment in the sun only they have chosen to make that mark at the high school level and then it’s ground zero again and it’s really the kids that have to do the work in college and stand on their own two feet. There have always been “pushy” people and I just don’t have the desire to allow them to give me ulcers.</p>
<p>I’m not worrying about the unethical deeds of others, and my kids are pretty decent writers who can handle the task themselves. But I am concerned with how unfair the admissions process feels to so many of us. You can argue that the adcoms are pretty good at what they do, and that essay re-writes or the lack thereof are a minor thing which won’t make or break a student’s application. But on the other hand, foks have received letters from admissions offices specifically commenting on how impressed they were with a student’s essay. Many counselors on here stress how critical the essays are for elite college admissions. And adcoms themselves have revealed that a memorable and interesting essay is what did the trick for an applicant. That leads us to believe the essay holds more importance than just an additional data point “revealing” the student’s personality. And if it’s that much more important, then maybe it should be completed under controlled conditions, like a standardized test. Everyone gets the same prompts, has the same time frame, and same tools at hand (spellcheck, thesaurus, dictionary, internet search engines, whatever). I think the SAT writing section could have accomplished that if constructed properly, but most schools haven’t embraced it as valid or worth their attention.</p>
<p>Maybe I’m reacting this way because I’m feeling oppressed by my conversation with D’s large public school GC this morning. I could rant about it for 5 paragraphs at least, but let’s just say that one of several issues was that 3 times, regarding 3 different mistakes on D’s transcript, he said that he didn’t think the errors were a big deal and wouldn’t make or break her application. Translation: he didn’t feel like fixing them. I had to keep saying, “But she’s applying to the best schools in the country–I don’t think we can be sure what will or won’t make a difference!” D is at the mercy of this kind of stupidity which I’m sure does not happen in private schools with the same frequency. Similar quality control measures seem to be in place regarding the college essay too. Sure, I’m capable of editing D’s essay so she’ll be fine, but many parents are not. Some don’t speak English as their first language, some are overworked and have no time, some have no money to pay a professional to do it for them, and many public school kids receive no help from English teachers either. Heck, it’s hard enough to find teachers to write their college recs–forget about asking for editing help. </p>
<p>Affluent kids already have many advantages as far as the quality of the academic and EC opportunities available to them. We can’t change that, but do colleges have to give them even more by treating the essay as they do?</p>
<p>^^ Many great points and I don’t dispute most of what you say, but the question is, what is ethical and what is unethical? Is it unethical for an affluent parent to spend the money on a private high school? Is it unethical for an educated parent to share the benefits of being the child of educated parents? Is it unethical to buy SAT prep books for your child? Or is it unethical not to?</p>
<p>Colleges admit that they make allowances for a student’s background when they evaluate an applicant. They will expect more from a child of affluent educated parents coming from an expensive private school than they will from a child of impoverished uneducated parents from a large public school. More APs, better SAT scores and better essays. To whom much is given, much is expected. </p>
<p>If you are an educated and affluent parent and you are NOT letting your child get the benefit of your affluence and education because you have some fanciful ideals of maintining a level playing field with the less fortunate, then you are shortchanging your own child. </p>
<p>Ultimately we need to look at what colleges expect - they expect applicants to get someone else to read their essays before submitting them. Not write their essays, but read their essays. </p>
<p>Some teenagers are too cocky and proud to get feedback from their parents or other adults. Parents should not misinterpret that to mean maturity and independence. That is a sign of immaturity that will not serve them well in college. It is the mature writer who is willing to pass around his or her essay, listen to what readers have to say, and then modify it so that it conveys to the reader exactly what the author wants to say.</p>
<p>My s would never trust us to write essays! He needs to get in on his own accord. All we can do is make sure he is well fed and that we’re here for him to bounce ideas off from.</p>
<p>I will not write my child’s college essays. This is why many of the apps are still not done. He hasn’t gotten around to it.</p>
<p>I will, however, fill in his name, address, SSN, activities, test scores, on and on and on, and of course, enter the credit card for the fee. This has become my full-time job.</p>
<p>As for essays, that’s his job. And hey, if he wants to go to one of those fancy common app schools, he’d better get moving.</p>
<p>Oh, and I also am not asking his teachers to write recommendations for him.</p>
<p>I’ll print out the form, but he’s got to be the one to hand it to him/her and ask them.</p>
<p>No surprise, none of those have been done, either. </p>
<p>Now, I will proofread for spelling, punctuation, because I do that for a living. </p>
<p>As for writing an essay, he goes to an excellent school where they write constantly, so he can do a much better job than me. </p>
<p>Wouldn’t it be nice if they wrote some college essays in class?</p>
<p>Montegut, I’d be thankful for a teacher or two who would look at S2’s essays at this point. As a parent, I’d appreciate someone else pointing out the logical inconsistencies and phrasing. Instead, they keep giving HW.</p>
<p>^^^^Good points, vicariousparent. I continue to shake my head at the false dichotomy that haunts this thread–i.e., that there are only two alternatives, to have absolutely nothing to do with your child’s essay, or to write it for him/her. </p>
<p>I’m also a bit bewildered at how worried people are about “compromising the student’s voice,” as if teenagers’ voices were fragile little flowers that wilt at the slightest touch. That doesn’t jibe with my experience at all. It would take some pretty ham-fisted editing to make my son sound like anybody else.</p>
<p>I do think TheGFG’s points about fairness are well taken, and the idea of making the essay a timed response to a prompt rather than a carefully prepared production is an interesting one (and would certainly take a lot of the angst out of this time of year for a lot of people). However, it would penalize kids whose thoughts are strong and interesting but take a bit of time to develop. My son would do fine; he wrote the first draft of his essay in about a half-hour in the back seat of the car on the way back from visiting a friend, and it has only been revised lightly since then, including the revisions he made in response to my suggestions. But other kids might really suffer from having to do their writing on command within a short time like that. In terms of fairness, I think you might lose more than you gain.</p>
<p>Hear, hear, counting down.</p>
<p>In son’s defense, a major reason he hasn’t written many college essays is the amount of homework essays he’s had.</p>
<p>He has at least three every weekend, including 800 word ones for religion!</p>
<p>Boy, he’ll be ready for those college philosophy classes.</p>
<p>But you make a good point. I wonder if we could ask the teachers to proofread their essays?</p>
<p>I’d bet some of them would like to pick up some spare cash doing that. </p>
<p>And I’d even bet some of them would do it out of the kindness of their hearts.</p>
<p>Knowing the litigious nature of the society we’re in, though, I could definitely see high schools discouraging such actions, for fear of recrimination should that “stellar” student not get into that Ivy League school.</p>
<p>This is a hard line to walk–expecially with Nov. 1 looming! As many of you have said, I am acting as a second set of eyes & have circled words/phrases he might like to re-think. That’s where I’m drawing the line. I’m pleased that the first assignment in my S’s senior English class was to first read college essays & critique them and next to write their own based on either a Common Ap question or a UConn essay.</p>
<p>I hate the idea of a timed essay instead of the personal essay. My son’s first idea for an essay bombed. He wrote it a couple of different ways, but he still hated it. So he tossed that idea out and tried again a week later. The second effort was immediately much better than the first, but it still had a weak beginning. It got tweaked, and tweaked and tweaked some more. Meanwhile he realized that that first essay with some modifications will actually work really well for one of the Georgetown questions so that time turns out not to have been wasted either. </p>
<p>Actually I think the hardest thing to teach my kid is it’s okay to sit on the essay for a while. If you don’t look at it for a couple of days and come back to it, it’s much more obvious what doesn’t flow.</p>
<p>Good advice about the letting an essay sit, Mathmom. I was always taught as an English major to turn in your 3rd draft.</p>
<p>D wrote her common app essay in about 30 minutes. Her final draft eventually looked very close to the original (after 3 re-drafts), BUT it took her several weeks (maybe months) to think out the topic, write down different ideas, and just let it percolate. Writing needs time-at least good writing does.</p>
<p>Of course it is ethical for parents to utilize their financial resources to benefit their children academically. I have no problem with that, and I certainly use my own resources (which are not primarily financial, though) to help my own kids. But doesn’t it seem to you all that once the general population, ie. the average Joe, has got the process figured out, a new layer gets added on to mix it up? Regular grades and teacher rec’s become too boring, so let’s see how many advanced or college level classes were taken while in high school. Ok, you’re on board with that now, so let’s throw in a test of the student’s involvment in the school. Make him list his EC’s. Still not good enough: we need a national standardized test to separate the sheep from the goats—the SAT! Now school clubs and sports are rather passe, I mean everyone does them, so now let’s see what the student does out in the larger community. Raise any money for a worthy cause? Oh, and maybe next we’ll ask how the student spent his summers. Take any college classes? Feed the poor in a Third World Counrtry? Hmm. You’ve learned how to prep for the SAT now? Figured out you can be tutored and take it more than once and then superscore? Ha, we’ll add SAT II’s and a new writing section. See how long it takes you to figure that out. Hey, you’re smart! Here, take score choice to decipher, but just to confuse you, we won’t all allow it. And by the way, those personal questions and essay prompts on the application aren’t just so we can learn a little more about you anymore, they’re now actually a test of whether you’re an original and creative thinker who can write something we haven’t read a million times before.</p>
<p>What GFC says ^^^.</p>
<p>GFG
You are so on the money that original creative thinkers are the next wave of our country’s future! I am almost finished with A Whole New Mind by Daniel Pink which tells how our left brain process of thinking has put us out of a job due to abundance (think Walmart), Asia (think where all of our jobs go due to cost) and Automation. The Information Age of knowledge workers and their Left brain thinking has had their importance diminished. It is the dawn of right brain big picture creators and empathizers that are needed to set our nation apart. We need to perform work that can’t be done overseas, or quicker by computers that satisfies the artistic, emotional & spiritual demands so as to set us apart. The SAT counts very little for career success, between 4 and 10 percent. There needs to be another test for high concept, high touch thinking. Colleges DO need to get the creatives, ASAP!</p>
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<p>I believe collegeboard is planning to release a new test- the CSAT (creativity sat).</p>
<p>My wife and I reviewed our S and D’s essays, and shared some input, but that input was mostly on how it was organized. If we had to do it over again, I’d review it even less (or not at all). The kid gets so much more out of the whole application process when they’re driving it.</p>
<p>I remember transferring into MIT 30 years ago. My essay was 1.5 handwritten pages pulled out of a 3-holed lined paper binder.</p>
<p>I’ll tell you something. D’s got an application due at her school on Friday for processing (high school’s deadline and totally reasonable). It’s all done except one teensy supplemental essay. Which has been the only thing undone for about a month now. My life would be so much easier if I did write it. But if she misses the deadline, it’s her problem.</p>
<p><quote>But at what point does any essay that has been vetted by another person cease to be “the student’s own voice”? <quote></quote></quote></p>
<p>At the point where the student gives up what they think is best for what someone else thinks is best.</p>
<p>Example:
D was writing about something embarrassing that happened to her. She wanted to make it clear that this happened when she was trying to impress a new boyfriend. She wrote, “It was my third date with a guy I really liked, and my first time meeting his friends.” Her English teacher hated the phrase “guy I really liked.” The teacher wanted her to substitute “cute guy with gorgeous brown eyes” or “varsity lacrosse player” or something more particular/descriptive. But D decided that “guy I really liked” did the best job of conveying that it was important to her that this boy think highly of her, and that those were words she herself would actually use. So she kept it. I suggested that she change the phrase “my first time meeting his friends” to “my first opportunity to meet his friends.” She thought that did sound better, so she made that change. </p>
<p>It was still her voice, and her story.</p>