<p>There seems to be an evolving consensus on this thread about parental involvement in the essay(s):</p>
<ol>
<li><p>First version should be entirely written by the child. </p></li>
<li><p>It is OK for parents to give feedback to varying degrees, including making recommendations on how to make it shorter, improve clarity, etc.</p></li>
<li><p>It should be the child's call whether to a) seek parental feedback and b) accept any of the recommendations.</p></li>
<li><p>I would think that it is also OK for the parent to suggest what topics might be worth writing on. </p></li>
<li><p>Final version should be something that the child can recognize clearly as his/her own creation. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>Always being mindful that this is a very slippery slope.</p>
<p>Wow this has generated quite a hot debate. My personal feelings are it is OK for a parent to sit alongside their child and help edit but not to write the entire essay. I also very much agree with what many of you said about the SAT writing not always being consistent with the essay, you can't compare.....my son is a great and talented writer but under the pressure of 25 minutes and having to brainstrorm over a subject you just that minute knew about, is challenging at best with even a very high caliber student. I dont' think personally that you could possibly compare the two.
It is amazing to me that so many parents micro manage their kids to an extreme. I have tried to let him and my other kids do their best work on their own even though there were times i had to bite my lip from helping.......that said there were many times I have helped out when absolutley necessary and in his essay case because it was too long and we had to figure out how to cut it down a bit. I think as I have heard from many of his teachers that it is a great idea if the student is open to it to let a few key people read and proof the essay. Just my opinion.:)</p>
<p>Vicarious, my comment would be how does assisting your student with the Personal Essay square with the wording in the certification he must sign indication that it is all his own work? </p>
<p>I am assuming that you would object if a student in his class were allow extra time or given extra help on an exam because it would not be fair to your student and his classmates. Well isn't parental help on the personal essay unfair to the many students who get no outside help because they have the integrity to carefully and precisely abide by the application requirements? And the language is not ambiguous-all the personal essay is to be his own work. Not the majority. Not most. Not 99.9%. All work, meaning 100%.</p>
<p>I say again, we can try to rationalize anything if we are morally lax. However that does not make it right.</p>
<p>originaloog: I admire your moral integrity but I don't know if the term "my own" in the student certification means "with no input from the outside world". When an author writes and publishes a book, it is still considered his or her own work, regardless of whether an editor looked over it and suggested changes, corrected typos, etc. To carry your logic to the extreme, woudn't it be dishonest even to run the spell-checker of the computer program?</p>
<p>When a student in creative writing class has a piece of fiction or a poem 'workshopped' to get feedback from other students, and makes changes in response, the resulting work does not cease to belong to that student. It is still 100% that student's own work. Not 99.9%. The fact that the student got feedback and made improvements is actually a sign of maturity. It is also the way in which most important documents in law and business are produced. </p>
<p>JMHO, of course. </p>
<p>Disclaimer: This message was ALL my OWN work; no editing by anyone (and no spellchecker used eitherr).</p>
<p>Well, I think the problem is we're reacting to what other people do. With athletes, legacies, geographical distribution URM's, celebrity, filthy lucre all playing a part in who gets in and who doesn't I don't think we have to worry about parents helping kids with their essays. How many Alice Walkers are there?</p>
<p>My kids did theirs themselves; I helped edit an essay for a young woman who really wanted to attend Colgate. The English teacher (who was editing kids essays btw,) couldn't seem to help.</p>
<p>She emailed it to me and I just arranged her own words in a different order and showed her how to provide transitions. I must say, it was still a pretty bad essay, but literate.</p>
<p>She is doing brilliantly at Colgate, and I don't feel guilty at all. All I got was a polite thank you, which was quite enough.</p>
<p>Chedva: Help editing down work I think is perfectly fine, and you're right about published authors having editors.</p>
<p>If English teachers are doing this, I don't see why parents can't. People hire professionals to actually write their kids essays for them. I can't imagine how these generic essays with their canned beats can help students, but maybe they do.</p>
<p>And the kids will have to write in college, so they'll eventually learn to.</p>
<p>originaloog, this is OT but what you and vicariousparent (love the name btw. reminds me of me.;) ) are talking about is something that has concerned me all through D's high school and college about classwork :
[quote]
I admire your moral integrity but I don't know if the term "my own" in the student certification means "with no input from the outside world". When an author writes and publishes a book, it is still considered his or her own work, regardless of whether an editor looked over it and suggested changes, corrected typos, etc. To carry your logic to the extreme, woudn't it be dishonest even to run the spell-checker of the computer program?</p>
<p>When a student in creative writing class has a piece of fiction or a poem 'workshopped' to get feedback from other students, and makes changes in response, the resulting work does not cease to belong to that student. It is still 100% that student's own work. Not 99.9%. The fact that the student got feedback and made improvements is actually a sign of maturity. It is also the way in which most important documents in law and business are produced.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I think part of me - the stickler part - agrees with you (O'loog) and it bugs me that educators seem to vary in their opinions on this. They stress cooperative work above most anything else and really strive for the "learning for learning's sake" approach. The "community of learners" thing. That's fine but when the honor code seems as strict as your interpretation (and as I said , on schoolwork that's my tendency on how to read it, too) what's a kid to do? I have insisted mine use great caution and talk to her prof's to find their interpretation in each class as Rhode's Honor Code is very important to Rhodes students and prof's. </p>
<p>Ex. My D takes world class notes, is it a violation for her to xerox them and give them to her classmates as study aids? Well, not so far it hasn't been. (D is actually so good at it her school pays her to take notes for others who can't physically take their own. She did it in highschool, too but as a voluntary thing. Heck, she'd have done it without pay at Rhodes, too but hey, they offered.;). ). How about lab work? Is it O.K. to share procedural techniques (tricks that she may know from experience that others don't know) on a graded lab project? So far yes, but I cringe every time she says "I helped Little Johnny with his bio lab. It was killing him." :eek: Dear. What do you mean by "help"?</p>
<p>As I've said before, my kid is a gunner but a unique one. Playing ball she'd knock you down , help you up, teach you what you did wrong and then knock you down again. She has always been this way. I don't want to change her by making her paranoid but sheesh. This stuff all looks tricky to me . There appear to be no absolutes and I think that is appropriate but man, they should give more guidance. Seems like a bit of an ethical tightrope to me. Without a net. </p>
<p>Or I could just be clueless of the ways of modern education and none of this is a problem. </p>
<p>Now as far as college app essays, I think there is a line where editing does become writing. Where that was for me, you, and vp may not be the same place.</p>
<p>I do not think the author/book editor analogy holds up but lets analyze it anyway. Book selling is a competetive industry and good editing is done to give a particular book a competetive advantage over the thousands of others in the big box bookstore.</p>
<p>So why do parents, friends and admissions counselors give help to students on their PERSONAL essay. For the same reason, to give them a competetive advantage. And that is not fair to those students abiding to the strict rules of the application certification.</p>
<p>Now suppose the adcoms had a computerized algorithm which could detect with 99.9% accuracy which students received assistance of any kind on their essay. If you would be reluctant to offer any help whatsoever because the chances of getting caught were high, then you agree that it is unethical. Its just that with the admission world we live in there is little chance of getting found out.</p>
<p>Its kind of like the joke where a reasonably good looking man offers an attractive woman $10million to have sex with him and she agrees. Then he asks her if she would do it for $100 to which she replies, "Do you think I am a whore?" To which he replies, "I already established what you are and now we are just haggling about the price."</p>
<p>And Jesus said this about oaths, "Let your yes be yes and your no be no..." It is always best to teach our children it is best to err on the side of simple honesty and integrity.</p>
<p>My friend's daughter rushed her Stanford application in to the express postal service a couple of years ago, without proofreading her essays. When she got home she notice a GLARING grammatical error. (Her mother had been forbidden to LOOK at the application before it went into the mail.) Daughter waited a few days until she thought the app would have reached Stanford, called admissions, and asked that someone correct the error on the application, which they did. She was admitted to Stanford.</p>
<p>o'loog. After that last post I realize that you are taking a stance of "no such thing as a little bit pregnant" on these application essays ( I assume scholarship ones, too. Right?). If that works for you , that's fine. I don't see it quite that way. Do you see all other parts of the app the same way? Or just these personal essays? What about editing on which ec's to include? Whether to mention a major you are interested in? Reminders of just what they liked about college B? Are all those a slippery slope for you, too? What type face to use? How formal or familiar a tone? Or is it only the "Hear no, speak no, see no part of the app" approach that is appropriate? Why see it if you can't even comment on it it, right? I mean even a "thumbs-up" is editing help. Tells them it's good to go. "Thumbs down?" Tells them it needs a little more work. Remember, no help at all. ;) Not even hints. </p>
<p>I know several of us have "edited" ten's of apps for kids we don't even know. Some essays but also the type of things I mentioned above. Are you saying that all of those things we do here in regard to app advice (advice on preparation of the app itself- ec lists , which essay to use, the fact that an essay is too risky, or offensive etc.) are morally suspect? I'm hoping not.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Why see it if you can't even comment on it it, right?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>curm, my son made sure that was exactly the situation here. We never saw any of the applications. My husband thought that was perfectly normal and right, and I was never given the option. </p>
<p>Two months after all applications had been submitted, I found a copy of one of the essays crumpled up under his desk. (I don't vacuum thoroughly real often.) It was obviously an essay for U Chicago, the one that asked you to describe yourself as a mathematical function. I have kept it as my only souvenir of the whole application process, and I looked at it again today, in light of this thread. If he had asked me to review it, I would have suggested a less abrupt beginning and a less awkward placement of an adjective in the second sentence. So, it wasn't perfectly written in the strictest sense, but it was perfect. It was perfectly him. Every word of it. And I am so very glad that I wasn't given a chance to inject myself into that essay, or into the application process. It was a do it yourself project, and he did a fantastic job of it.</p>
<p>^^^I did drive him around a lot. And made a couple of trips to the post office. And handed him the credit card for online payments. I had a role.</p>
<p>I have learned a ton on CC and have no problem passing on that info to my Ds, that includes helping them figure out which info should go on the little blanks on the apps & which to leave off; I also have to complete finaid forms; and I was the one who found the scholarship opportunities, not Ds, because it helped me more than them.</p>
<p>I had no problem reminding them of deadlines and following up on secretarial details like that.</p>
<p>I don't want my kids to go to a college which fits me, I want it to fit them. I listened to our GC help my D understand how to write an essay about leadership for a scholarship, he helped her see how she is a leader even if it is not the traditional student body pres kind of leadership, he knew and understood the real question and aided D in presenting herself. If a parent can offer that same steering, great! That's not cheating, that's helping to understand. </p>
<p>Actually writing the essay, that's different.</p>
<p>Our HS would give the copier and the copee a 0 on a copied homework assignment, once burned, twice shy when Johnny asks to see how you did #13 and proceeds to copy half your paper without you noticing (because you did not imagine that possibility) A tough lesson, but one that sticks with a kid.</p>
<p>I find this whole conversation interesting. Somemom, what would you think about showing Little Johnny how to do a similar problem set so he can do the actual problems himself? Where she gives him the formulas and the functional order that he then replicates (quite easily) using the actual problems? </p>
<p>I think I am probably somehere in the middle (as usual) . I want it to be the kid's work but if there are no talented GC's or college counselor's the parent is sometimes all there is. I just hope they don't go overboard. It tells the kid "you are not good enough and don't have the capacity to do it yourself even with guidance". As I said earlier, a crippling lesson.</p>
<p>My struggles with my D about essays were epic and I have posted often about the process we finally developed. Her problems weren't syntax or grammar. She just wrote like Jack Webb talked. "Just the facts , ma'am". OTOH she came alive in face to face interviews. Just yesterday a doctor she volunteered for told me at my appointment that "Your D can talk to anybody. Pope or pauper. Doctor or patient." He thought that rare in a 19 year old. But put a pen in her hand- Jack Webb. She's better now. A good bit better after her writing course and a couple of writing intensive courses. </p>
<p>I don't feel in the least concerned with my ethics or her's in the process. They were her essays. I didn't write them but I did (help) teach her how to find her voice in written words. Since I didn't look at proof or "pre-read" any school assignment, maybe ever but certainly not since grade school, I thought it a good time to share what little I know about the topic. Lord knows I can't help in Math or Science. I actually consider it one of my better moments but appreciate that others can feel differently.</p>
<p>We got to luv ya Cur because you ask such interesting questions and make such interesting posts. I guess we should go back to the Common Application certification and parse that. They say that all information submitted is the students own work, factually true and honestly presented. Lets assume that my child was convicted of a crime or subject to school expulsion and had marked those two boxes on the application NO. I would have an ethical obligation to tell him that those were dishonest answers as to fact and refuse to pay the app fee, refuse to submit a FAFSA and tell him that I would refuse to pay and tuition, room board fees. Why? Because these lies were committed to put him at a competetive advantage.</p>
<p>The thumbs up or thumbs down comment starts putting us near or down that slippery slope and I do not want to get too anal about this. There was an article about the perfect application published a short while ago where adcoms commented that a few typos, misspellings and grammatical errors added authenticity to student applications and that "perfect" applications were not expected or even looked favorably upon more "authentic" ones. So if this is a "fact" why should we parents be concerned about it. I doubt any student would include winning a fifth grade spelling bee on his list of accomplishments while leaving off his national Intel award.</p>
<p>I guess what I am saying is that we need to trust our children and set as ethical and honest example. What would you prefer if you lovely daughter had asked to review her application a few years ago? "I would love to honey but the application you are signing is to be all your own work and I am certain you did a terrific job as always" OR point out to her you feeling that her varsity b'ball captaincy should be put ahead of her bio club chair honor, a suggestion that would give her zero benefit to an adcom reader.</p>
<p>As a grad student and (hopefully) future professor, I have to write a dissertation and articles. Will I write my dissertation all by myself, with no help from anyone? Nope. I will write the first few drafts, and then I will give it to my advisor. S/he will then make suggestions and comments. I will take it back and work on it some more before bringing it again to my advisor for more comments. I will repeat the process until my advisor feels it is good, at which point it will go to my other committee members for comments and revisions. Not until everyone is happy with it will it go to the defense.</p>
<p>For articles, I will write them and send them off to journals. Oftentimes I will get a "revise and resubmit," where my article is sent back to me with suggested revisions from several readers. I will then revise it, addressing their concerns, and send it back for publication.</p>
<p>Both these examples are accepted, mainstream parts of academia. A parent making suggestions and comments on a kid's essay, providing it isn't dictating significant content or writing style, is exactly in line with these examples. If it's OK for academia, why wouldn't that be OK for college admissions essays?</p>
<p>That having been said, it's totally unethical for a parent to write any significant portion of the essays themselves, and I would call a parent out on that if I heard it.</p>
<p>Curm- I would have no issue with my D showing Johnny the formula and how to do it- when she did get the 0 in grade 8 on a math homework she was flabberghasted and furious, because she did not cheat, she was also furious at her classmate - it was the most advanced math class, not cheating due to not being able to do the work, but laziness.</p>
<p>D is big on doing what's right and things being fair, it took her a while to get her head around the fairness issue, and I am not sure how I felt about it at the time, but over her years of HS I saw that she learned to be careful and learned other would take advantage of her hard work by being lazy, so she would tutor some one who asked, but would not share homework ;)</p>
<p>Hey, I too, have the Jack Webb writing style, that's a good way to put it. And I am so envious of people like you, Curm, and others I know, who write so well and can put down on paper (screen??) all those thoughts in such evocative ways.</p>
<p>I don't think editing is an issue, my D emails her papers from college home for her sister to review- D is not nearly as good a writer as her sister, but sis would never rewrite it, nor would D want her to do so. She just wants her sister to point out the stupid mistakes and little sis takes great pleasure in doing that :D</p>
<p>On the other hand, D who is not a great writer does express herself and her voice. GC in HS said her essays were prime examples of some one who "gets it" who can share with their admissions committee who they are. For example, D was struggling with one schools creative prompt about what famous person would you be oif you could be (it was bigger than that, but that's the gist of it) and D simply could not write on that one, until we discussed it and she said, " I would not be any one else, I am me and I like me" I told her to answer that way and off she went with an essay which truly reflected her, not the expected answer, perhaps, but a revelatory one.</p>
<p>One way MS Word makes the slope slippery- the easiest way to edit is by using the "track changes" feature and let the other person "accept" or "reject" the changes. Especially if the editing is done by email, it becomes the only practical way to go.</p>
<p>Students who receive any help from parents, teachers, admission counselors or friends are violating this statement. In short they are lying and endorsing this lie with their signature. And by allowing them to sign and submit the application their parents are supporting this dishonesty.
</p>
<p>First, the capitalization in the reference above was added by poster, and does not exist on the Common App Website or in their written documentation. This emphasis might be misleading.</p>
<p>I appreciate O's bringing up these points. It's good to stake out a strong position in a discussion and see where that leads. Some implications of this strongest possible position could include:</p>
<p>-- "all information(...) is my own work..." Would this still be true if the simple historical information on the form was not filled out by the applicant's own fingers? Would a student who could not type or write who dictated the application information to a helper be able to electronically sign this statement in good faith? I would submit that they could. So, in my opinion anyway, we have found one counterexample where a reasonable person would consider that it was good enough to fulfill the spirit of the certification although it might not fulfill the letter.</p>
<p>-- As someone else suggested, academic work is frequently done in partnership with others, and is the result of a review-feedback-revision process. If some of the grades on the common app were done in group projects or even with the advice of the parent, would those grades be an accurate reflection of the student's own work? I understand that I am stretching a little here, but an extreme interpretation of the Common Apps attestation might find that the applicant could not in good faith sign the app if any of their grades were the result of tainted work. In other words, their grades were partially the result of the work of others, and therefore did not represent the student's "own work."</p>
<p>-- If some of the supporting materials were from another party, according to a strict interpretation, they could not be submitted without violating the attestation. Technically, I suppose, the applicant could rewrite recommendation letters or other content, but it would still be tainted.</p>
<p>-- A strict interpretation would also argue that using the spelling or grammar checkers embedded in most word processing software would be strictly forbidden. Don't hit "F7" in Microsoft Word or you cannot, in good faith, sign the application.</p>
<p>-- I think O is assuming that there is a single meaning of "own work" that might not be shared by other reasonable people. If this sounds like "it depends on what is is" reflect on the amount of time the appeals courts spend interpreting would seemed like clear language by lawmakers. The confidence on the part of one party that something is crystal clear is not necessarily shared by everyone.</p>
<p>I believe the statement can be interpreted without requiring the services of a Talmudic Scholar. Did the student write and edit the essay themselves? Is the other information accurate? Did the student lie on the application? Those are the important distinctions in my opinion. I don't care if they used the Word spell checker or had their mom enter their address and phone number or even if they talked over possible essay topics with their best friend. It wouldn't be considered academic plagiarism, and would more than satisfy the "own work" criteria of any college.</p>
<p>O, thank you for making me think about this. Even though I come down on a different conclusion, I really respect your position.</p>