Best way to keep a kid’s voice in a college app essay is to suggest and then let him make the changes as he wishes. Learn to lean back. Not treat this as a joint effort to polish. Frankly, most polishers don’t know. The author of the link has no admissions experience. She’s a former English teacher, writes young adult novels.
I can’t imagine an admissions reader looking for double spaces. Or assuming anything based on that. More important is how a kid thinks, down to the way he chooses to answer a prompt, what that shows. This is not a writing assignment, an isolated school paper.
When one thinks of the myriad writing assignments a young person will have over the years, whereby finding one’s voice and developing the skills to express and adeptly reflect one’s thoughts and ideas is the craft being honed, it is not a leap to view the college application essay as an opportunity to showcase that muscle.
It is a natural connection to make, when one looks at, reflects upon and acknowledges with appreciation all the practice runs a student has taken (where the course is sometimes set and timed; sometimes self-guided and self-paced), to get to just this point in considering how to answer the college application essay.
First, I agree with those that say this is a template for an argumentative essay, not a narrative. I can’t imagine a college essay working well like this.
And second, this would not fly in a college composition class either. I spend a lot of time figuratively beating out of them the five-paragraph essay. Really good, insightful critical thinking is much more complex than that template.
Does the common app submission form even retain formatting such as spaces? It’s been a long time since my kids applied, but back when my kids applied to college, one point of frustration was that formatting was lost. Definitely extra spaces are something that are commonly stripped out with online form submission.
A handful of years ago, when CA made some changes, some essay formatting was messed up, lines cut off, random machine figures inserted, large blank spaces, etc. It’s an inherent risk in digital world. And yes, the college can format its downloads. Eg, removing multiple paragraph breaks. Would they bother with double spaces after a period? I’d ask, why? Again, content and the thinking that shows is more important. They aren’t grading for classroom standards, subtracting points, as an English teacher might.
The way bad editing shows up most clearly is when there are stretches where the voice changes. If the open and close are completely separate from the body or if a paragraph in the middle stands out then you have to wonder which was the student’s. A couple Word Of The Day refugees, on the other hand, might just indicate one gift from last Christmas that finally found a purpose.
When I’m editing and it’s important to preserve the writer’s voice (vs just aiming for better/clearer writing) I don’t write on the paper. We just talk about the issues in general (eg passive voice here, redundant wording or sentence structure there, inconsistent vocabulary, third paragraph doesn’t tie to anything else) and any notes are in the writer’s hand and words. These essays are not intended to change the world so much as introduce a person and display a bit of structured thought.
Re waitingtoexhale #77: Excellent self-advocacy by your son. Of course, the action requires confidence that the teacher has heard of the subjunctive. Would that it were so everywhere!
“These essays are not intended to change the world so much as introduce a person and display a bit of structured thought.”
I would agree that structured thought and critical thinking are important, but the essays that have been made public that supposedly got kids into highly selective schools don’t really have a lot of that.
“I spend a lot of time figuratively beating out of them the five-paragraph essay.”
Yeah, if an adcom saw a well written five paragraph essay with compelling topic sentences, and arguments tied together, they’d know an adult did it or was too involved.
Re my comment about formatting: It historically has been html standard to remove extra spaces. In fact, to render a page in html with two successive spaces, the extra spaces need to be coded in with
for each space.
So it’s my 23 years of experience writing html that leads me to anticipate spaces to be stripped out.
I have typed 25 spaces between this. that.
So its common that text entered into an online form will have various types of formatting stripped out.
But again, I haven’t actually worked with the common app in more than a dozen years. When my daughter applied to colleges, she was so frustrated with what the online app did with the formatting of her essays that she opted to submit everything on paper. They probably don’t allow that these days… but there’s a reasonable chance that her choice back then was a significant contributing factor to her admission to U of Chicago (because of creative formatting of a main essay).
If a kid is drilled in the 5 para format, of course an essay like that could be written by the kid. The question would be, why the kid thought this format was called for, in the CA essay. That’s on the kid who submitted it.
“So its common that text entered into an online form will have various types of formatting stripped out.” And at the discretion of the folks behind it, whether CB or the receiving colleges. Or, eg, CC.
But frankly, too much is being made of this “who wrote it?” and speculation adcoms are sitting there scrutinizing. The main issue is what is written. That’s not about “henceforth” or other wording, nor double spaces.
Too much is made of “being you,” writing what you want, whether someone sees it on the floor, etc. This is an application, not creative writing, nor expository. You advance your chances by writing that shows the attributes and thinking the school wants to see.
Nope, I think most of the published “successful” essays are not very good. The generally come from secondary sources, not adcoms.
It’s funny - my older son crafted essays that were unbelievably well written - he took upper level English and writing classes throughout high school and those classes had multiple writing assignments so his confidence in this space showed when it came time for his college essays. His difficulty was being limited by word count But they were genuine and for anyone who knew him, they definitely reflected his personality well. His grades and test scores backed up his writing abilities and he ended up exactly where he wanted and where he belongs.
My younger son is a senior this year and a man of few words. He spends more time getting to the exact minimum word count on writing assignments than actually writing. Fortunately his high school also has the LA teachers working with the seniors on college essays in class so when those become a homework assignment and graded, the end product is very structured with the tell show tell or other such drafting formats. The students are also encouraged to use their new best friend “Thesaurus” and find the sizzle words to showcase. A couple of his finished essays gave me a chuckle. They were genuinely his but he would never use the word “hone” or “hypothesizing” in real life. For me, his essays are well written but had I not known they were an assignment in school, I may have thought they were written by someone else! This is from a kid whose college list started with schools that required the least amount of writing for the application! His grades and scores are also excellent but in his case they reflect aptitude, not attitude towards writing.
I’m really interested to see the outcome of D19’s “why this college” essay for her ED choice. Her counselor did NOT like the essay but D19 insisted it was authentically her …and I loved it, it IS her and the essay captures exactly why she wants to be there. I mean… I know there’s no way to know how much weight this essay has in the final decision but if she gets in it we will assume it’s partly because of that
Incidentally, this same school says they use writing component of SATS/ACT as a check on whether the student actually wrote the application essays. I presume they have some form of adjustment for test conditions vs polished & revised essay.
One of my girls is a fabulous writer and has been told she should pursue a degree in writing/literature. Her lexicon is way above most kids her age. Her twin wrote an essay on a financial course that was so dry I could barely get through it and I’m sure the reader would think no kid would write this. Dismissing an essay as written by a parent is pretty obnoxious and kids should be given the benefit of the doubt.
As in many instances here at CC, I am going to say something that is neither indicative or representative of typical interactions or outcomes, but is true for one of my kids.
One of my daughters had such positive, glowing responses to her college application essays that two of her early-writes made specific mention of how much the admission committee enjoyed reading them. One college’s note said that after reading her essays, they could not wait for her to bring that energy and spirit to their campus.
The college to which she matriculated presented a special moment for me when, at a gathering, I said my daughter’s name and one of the readers of her application turned to me and told me that my daughter’s statements in her essays were so emphatic, so formed a picture of who my daughter must be, that her essay both reflected who she was, resonated with those in the room, and made quite the introduction.
I know the details of only two of her essays, and know that in one she took such risks, was SO much herself, that I raised an eyebrow and told her it was her risk to take, but I wouldn’t do it.
She read fully the opportunity the application’s questions presented, and melded her
how-I-got-here
with her
where-I-want-to-go
and
how-I-want-to-get-there,
and wrote an essay using the proper punctuation, form, tone (+) and focus for getting done what she needed to get done.
My takeaway: with proper preparation, some confidence and consideration, and that unknown factor most of us will never know about, the kids can take a leap every once in a while and land safely.
“Too much is made of “being you,” writing what you want, whether someone sees it on the floor, etc.”
This is the exact advice adcoms give, at presentations and also when they’re quoted online. Write what matters to you, in your voice, and yes if the name was removed, we’d know it was you. This is what they’re saying, and you’re recommending an almost opposite tack.
The higher the college, the more thinking it can take. A meaningful essay about your dog isn’t going to cut it. There used to be great advice from some fine LAC about the diff between writing about your European bike tour and how great it was versus making it meaningful in the context of your app and the qualities they look for.
This biz of “if someone found it, they’d know it’s you,” completely misses a big point. It needs to be relevant. Not simly in your own voice.
