<p>Just submit the best possible form of your essays. You’ve taken this up with your counselor. If a school really does get two applicants with the same essays from the same high school, they will call the high school. I’m sure they’d figure things out.</p>
<p>However, as everyone else pointed out, it’s just not going to happen. Let’s recap.</p>
<p>1.) People don’t read random handwritten pieces of paper lying around.</p>
<p>2.) They didn’t take it from your locker. You figured that yourself. Who would go in a locker, reading papers? Who would steal it with malicious intent without taking the PS2?</p>
<p>3.) Finding an essay for a school doesn’t make one apply. They would know the app would be flagged. There’s a lot of other work involved, if it was a general topic, an already written essay could be used anyway.</p>
<p>4.) No offense, but I won’t go with the assumption that your essays are SO AMAZING that anyone finding them would be instantly compelled to use them.</p>
<p>You’re seriously kidding yourself if you think that your essay is so over-the-top great that some random student will find it and use it to apply to a competitive school.</p>
<p>No one has addressed the possibility that someone finds it, makes some modifications so that it’s no longer a carbon copy, and submits it with the idea and some key phrasings intact. That necessarily detracts from my essays’ originality and that it causes a split-second of doubt of authorship in my reader, my application might be trashed.</p>
<p>What can I do to prove my authorship? Extra writing samples, maybe from English Class, SAT Writing, etc? The packet of essay had a full main common app essay and the first 2-3 paragraphs of a supplement. Hopefully, whoever stole my essays can’t finish the supplement with a consistent style? I don’t think the person can be caught on grammar alone for the main commonapp essay–I edit as I go and it was almost a final draft (although I’ve made a few edits since).</p>
<p>It’s not going to happen, though. Most people probably think they can write a better essay than their peers. And who would really go through all the trouble of finding/stealing the essay, typing it up, and submitting it?</p>
<p>dude, there are multiple readers even within the same school, and unless it is read by the same reader, the chances that they know there is a duplicate out there is slinm or none, so chill out …</p>
<p>I’m not saying he sought out my essay, but rather came across it, noticed it was about something that could help him, and then took it. I arrived at the library at opening a few days ago and there were papers lying on the desks–the custodians had not done their job. So if they had also neglected desk clean-up on the day I lost it, then who sat at the same desk could’ve used the computer startup time to read the first few sentences.</p>
<p>Also I don’t want to be mean but most of the people here have poor writing abilities (insufficient grasp of mechanics being the most prominent weakness). If someone found grammatically error-free essays that conveyed strong messages, that’s 80% of the application completed already (in terms of time, rough estimate).</p>
<p>About multiple readers: There’s always the regional director, so if my application advances enough, chances are likely that he or she will read my essay and the other one (since he’s obviously from the same region).</p>
<p>There is no way to console you. You’re convinced that it’s likely someone found your essay, that they’re amazing, that everyone else is inferior, and that someone else would definitely use them.</p>
<p>So it’s pretty hopeless, giving your mentality. Just submit them.</p>
<p>
If your essay conveyed a great message, that would mean that it was unique to you. And the rest of the application takes time and money.</p>
<p>
Easy. You’re convinced no one else at your school is competent, so why would the other person’s application “advance enough” to the regional director?</p>
<p>If I PM’d you excerpts of my essay that may convince you to hold my essays in greater esteem than you currently do (assuming it’s now baseline neutral), would your answer regarding the likelihood of someone else’s thinking them better and thus using them change?</p>
<p>Also I never said no one else at my school is competent–merely that the writing abilities of most of them don’t meet collegiate standards. And there is empirical evidence for this (though nothing along the lines of a formal study–that’d be too mean). Also, I’m not as arrogant as the convictions you assign to me would suggest. I just think there’s a good chance that, if my essays are found, they’re probably better than what the discoverer can conjure himself.</p>
<p>If you messaged me an excellent essay (or representative parts thereof that still had cohesion), then I would recognize its worth. However, it would not change my assessment that any conflict has extremely slim chances and you should just submit the best essay possible, within your abilities.</p>
<p>njd, I think you are a little bit paranoid, chalk it up as a lesson to be learn, be careful with your stuff, may it be your wallet, your key or your essay …</p>
<p>Of course I’ll be more careful with my stuff, but I have to try to negate the damages of this incident. I feel like I just exchanged my future for an extra 3 hours of sleep (if I had woken up 3 hours earlier that day, I would’ve been among the first in the library).</p>
<p>And, I discovered some new information.
First, the custodians leave 25 minutes before I left that day. Therefore, if I had left it in the library, there’s no one to pick it up until next day’s opening. I’ve eliminated the locker theory as a possibility. It’s more likely that I had left it in the library, then someone picked it up the next morning within a three-hour window. </p>
<p>I then planted 3 copies of Stanford’s Application Instructions (I’m not applying to Stanford, I just chose it because its supplement will be very hard to negotiate for someone with poor writing skills, and the inconsistency between the main essay and the supplement can easily betray the perpetrator) on random computer desks. The second page was facing up, not the cover sheet screaming Stanford, so someone would have to pick it up to read it to realize it’s Stanford’s. I didn’t stay to monitor the set-up, but when I came back 3 hours later, only 2 of the 3 remained. I checked the garbage cans, and they were still relatively empty. Hence, it’s likely someone would indeed pay attention to such a thing and leave with it.</p>
Uh… wow, that’s dedication. Now, did you actually check all of the garbage cans, or just assumed that since there wasn’t much, the paper wasn’t in there?</p>
<p>I have to assume you have already applied, and don’t understand at all your concern. Your application via CA is dated, as are supplemental essay submissions. Anyone sending in an application now is late, to selective schools (others have rolling and later admission dates).<br>
And even if someone picked up Stanford’s application, so what? They certainly aren’t applying to Stanford this year. And picking that up doesn’t mean someone picked up your essays for nefarious reasons.<br>
Relax, sit back and wait for the acceptances to roll in; decide where you want to matriculate, and don’t worry about your essays being used by others.</p>
<p>I was looking at some of your other posts and came across this one (thread deals with what deters applicants from applying to selective schools)</p>
<p>njd1995 used this Quote from the thread:
“so if you can write a killer essay that’s different from the rest, there’s no reason not to apply.”
And then wrote the following:
“So inability to write a differentiatingly good essay deters a lot of people? That’s what I was thinking too–if someone happens to stumble upon an essay he perceives as good, the rest of the application seems a whole lot easier.”</p>
<p>No, actually I think he just created a thread about stolen essays; he didn’t lose any nor did he find any. I think he is bored after apps went out, is obsessing about some minor mistakes (his other posts deal with possibly forgetting to sign something, and using a capital letter instead of lower-case) and created this little scenario in his head after reading that essays might be key…</p>
<p>No I didn’t plant the instructions to find out who took them, but rather how likely is it that someone would take something like that, as opposed to discarding it or ignoring it.</p>
<p>Also, I submitted my applications before the deadline (to triple check everything), so it’s possible that someone submitted them before me.</p>