How do colleges check for essay plagiarism?

I’ve read that they use Turnitin and other plagiarism checking software, but do they check if the essay has already been submitted to other colleges in the past years?

Why ask the question if you don’t plan on doing this?
Not a chance I would take.

Different colleges likely have different methods. Some probably use TurnItIn and some use other software. Some probably don’t use any at all. It wouldn’t surprise me if the Common App started getting into that business eventually. Don’t plagerize, but also don’t spend your time worrying that an honestly-self-written essay will be mistaken for a plagerized one either. Colleges want to see “the essay that could only have been written by you” anyway, so if you’ve written an essay that you or your reviewers think could have written by a thousand other kids, it’s time for a rewrite.

OK, so I’ve got to ask: why do you want to know?

@bjkmom. Read post 1…lol…

Yeah, I did. But I’m curious as to how the OP would phrase his response in such a way that he doesn’t come across as morally bankrupt.

They haven’t been back on for follow-up so maybe that’s enough.