<p>Just my experience, similar to oldfort. Detecting depends on some coincidence. Either a regl rep would find both in his/her area (as oldfort did, with her pile) or another rep, backing him up with an addl read, would need to recognize. If there is a good relationship with one or both hs, there would likely be a call to the GC, to tackle this, flag it. If both candidates are highly desirable, but the hs is lesser known, maybe the same. But you have to realize how fast these reviews are. They try to read a whole package, every page, but they are zipping through. It’s sometimes difficult to know if the “familiar” is from this year or another year. More common are cases where the big essay just doesn’t keep tone with the rest of the writing. Eg, some internationals, where the language and construction are perfect in the main essay and struggle in the rest of the package. This is just ime where I am part of the process, but not a decision-maker.</p>
<p>I don’t know if you should worry, HH. So many essays are somewhat similar. You want to rest assured you have your best shots. You’re smart and carefully considering college choices. Without freaking, maybe just change a bit. Even if you prove out as the original author, there’d be the issue of how this occurred. And, the more competitive the college, the more others there are. That’s what I’d say to my own girls. Decide as you feel is best.</p>
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<p>Like make it better or something? I’ve been trying to think of things I could add to it that would make it clear that I wrote the whole thing, but I’m not sure how I could do that.</p>
<p>I would never share my essay with people on the internet (no offense to anyone or anything), because there’s always that chance they would steal it. And I really don’t want to be identified. That’s one of the reasons I don’t say a lot about my EC’s.</p>
<p>HH, how good is it? That’s what needs to be figured out. I think we’ve worried you, but none of us can predict someone took anything from yours, they’re applying to the same colleges or that their version would be so similar. </p>
<p>You have a lot going for you and please be sure to breathe. You have time to think about this. A lot of essays are similar. If yours is great (and that is not topic or details as much as execution and appropriateness,) chances are no one could reach that quality. You’ll make the decision that works for you.</p>
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<p>No idea. I’m not a great judge of my own writing. (I used to write these awful poems when I was thirteen or so, and I thought they were flipping amazing at the time, but of course they weren’t.)</p>
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<p>They could if they stole it.</p>
<p>I doubt halcyonheather’s essay would be similar to anyone else’s, she writes about unique topics, and it is a Chicago essay, so the prompt will not be common either. I don’t think you need to worry about it being stolen if you just sent your uncommon essay prompt to a few people here via PM.</p>
<p>One thing you may want to do is to save all of your emails/pms relative to your essays, and various versions of your essays. In case it should come to question, you would have paper trails to show you wrote those essays. As mentioned by BP and LF, you probably don’t have much to worry about.</p>