<p>Forgive me if this comes across insulting to anyone... but I would really like some guidance on my common app essay now instead of waiting to have my teachers look over it when I get back to school. I would show it to friends and family but it's really a very personal story and I'm not sure I feel comfortable with them reading it. I just can't shake the hesitation I have over asking people on CC to read it. What if someone copies it or something? Is it safe?</p>
<p>No it isn’t. But people do it anyway.</p>
<p>It depends on who you ask. Most times, you need to check someone’s post history. My advice: Don’t send your essay to someone with less than 1,000 posts. There are many parents and grad students on CC, who have accumulated thousands of posts, who have offered to help students with their essays. You have to go through this thread and find them: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-essays/552302-consolidated-list-essay-readers-cc.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-essays/552302-consolidated-list-essay-readers-cc.html</a></p>
<p>It’s not safe, no. But you can minimize your chances of plagiarism by:
a) writing an essay that literally only you could write and that would be incoherent in anyone else’s application
b) writing a really awful essay 
c) only sending essays to posters with high post counts, preferably adults/parents</p>
<p>No, it’s not safe. A better alternative is to hire a tutor to make suggestions and proof your essay.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Check your privilege…not everyone can spend actual money on a word-rearranger just so they can get the good envelope from some college. There are safer options than asking people on here, though. (Though it’s reasonably safer to ask one of the parents with a million posts.)
You could ask an English teacher, but make sure to tell them exactly what they should be looking for. It’s not supposed to be a canned five-paragraph essay, it’s not supposed to be overly formal or pretentious, and it’s supposed to reveal something about who you are. Obviously good grammar is really important, but it’s more than that.</p>
<p>^^ Actually, THE BEST people to ask for feedback on your essay are the teachers who will be writing your recommendation letters – even if they are math and science teachers. Colleges look for your teachers to confirm your “character” in their recommendation letters . . . and what better way for your teachers to get to know you outside of the classroom then for them to help you with your essay. Asking your recommendation writers for guidance is a win-win situation that ensures that your essay and their letters will be in sync.</p>
<p>Question: Why would anyone steal someone else’s essay if they knew that the person who wrote it would also be sending it to colleges (probably the same few top colleges, considering how CCers are)? Wouldn’t the plagiarist be setting themselves up for automatic rejection? Or are colleges really bad at finding out when two people sent the same essay?</p>
<p>I’m hijacking the thread a little, but I’ve recently become paranoid and I need advice. In the past I’ve PM’ed my Common App essay to other high school students to read. Probably fewer than ten people, and I remember some of their usernames but not all.
There’s at least some chance of plagiarism, so should I write another essay?</p>
<p>Well define safe. Worst case is they copy some of ur essay which if ur essay is unique, only few can do</p>
<p>Halcyonheather: I don’t think anyone would plagiarize your essay. It was unique to you and many people have already written essays that they are proud of.</p>
<p>Yeah, for a lot of them I read their essays too, so they couldn’t do anything to me that I couldn’t do to them…but still, lol.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>There are probably as many reasons as there are kids who plagiarize. Some kids do it because they’re stuck and your idea is better than anything they can come up with. Some kids don’t realize they’ve done it. They’ll read an essay in July and then magically submit a very similar essay to a college in December never really remembering that the idea wasn’t theirs in the first place.</p>
<p>A well crafted essay – no matter what the topic – should contain specific examples, or snippets of conversation, or experiences that only you have had. If your essay is that specific, if someone else stole the idea, they couldn’t use any of the specifics in your essay because it wouldn’t make sense. For example, three years ago my son wrote his essay about a dinner conversation he had with his baseball coach. Now, I suppose a student that read that essay could copy the idea, but the specifics of that conversation wouldn’t make sense in another student’s life. The conversation was that specific. If someone were to steal the idea, they would have to invent new material as the conversations contained details that were not generalized. If your essay is that specific, then you have less to worry about. And FWIW: all essays should be that specific regardless of whether you’ve sent them as PM’s to other students.</p>
<p>You shouldn’t post it in the forum for all to see. But I don’t think there is much risk in sending it to a few selective people here, especially those who have been posting for awhile. I’m not sure how helpful it will really be, especially from high schoolers, but you might get confirmation if your essay is interesting, or falls into the ‘too personal’ category. I have time to read lately, broken ankle so laid up at home. You can see from my posting history that I’m a parent of a kid who graduated in college in 2009 and is now in grad school. Like others, though, your teachers are your best bet, but I understand now is a good time to work out essays and get it into shape before you show your teachers.</p>
<p>I think CC is a good way to fix ur essay before u show it to teacher and counselors. Ive made tons of improvements thanks to the nice people here. Only person ive shown it to is my brother. But thats cuz hes the only person who can tell me if my essay truly reflects me.</p>
<p>I think you shouldn’t trust anyone with less than a 1000 posts. I usually ask senior members for help</p>
<p>If your essay is specific enough, then I think plagiarism shouldn’t be much of a problem. I’ve asked several CC members for their opinion on my essay, and other CC members have sent me their essays. Just exercise common sense: don’t post essays as threads and don’t send your essay to someone who has zero posts.</p>
<p>How about non-personal essays? My UChicago extended essay, for example, doesn’t mention me at all because I’m pretty sure it doesn’t have to. I think it says something about me if you look at it the right way, but it doesn’t contain any personal stories and I couldn’t prove I wrote it the way I could with my Common App essay.</p>
<p>to other high school students to read. Happens all the time on CC. And I say: WHY? Another kid who hasn’t so much as hit the submit button yet, on his own essays/app- and has no idea what is truly effective??</p>
<p>@heather fwiw, i’m not having anyone on cc review my uchicago essay. it isn’t personal, which means anyone can take it w/o having to change it. i have asked for help on my commonapp, because it is personal and i don’t worry so much about someone taking it</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Adult readers may never have hit any submit buttons. Just because someone’s an adult doesn’t mean they know what they’re talking about, though there’s probably a better chance that they do. (This applies more to real-life people than people on this website, because the adults on this website usually have more knowledge about what colleges are looking for than the general population.)</p>
<p>Someone doesn’t need to be a better writer than you to give you valuable criticism (though it helps). Other people can judge the quality of your writing in ways you can’t. When you read your own work, you have an idea in your head of how it’s supposed to be read and interpreted…but other people might not see it that way, and you don’t know how it’s going to sound to someone else.
(Despite any modesty I pretend to have, if I thought my sentences were bad I wouldn’t have written them. I need someone else to tell me they’re bad, or I won’t know.)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>So I should probably write another extended essay.
Eghhhhh…I’m thinking of just not applying there anymore. I don’t have any chance of getting in anyway.</p>