So, I think the title says it all. I read one of my parent essays to my kid and she looked at me with a shocked face and told me she had written a very similar essay and I had to change mine. Sigh. I suppose I should be glad that I managed to impart some of my values to her very stubborn brain but DO I have to re-write?
I would think it is fine if there are similar themes/values/thoughts that are discussed in the 2 essays. However, you just wouldn’t want it to inadvertently come across like the essays were written by the same person.
Essays can have a substantial impact when applying to the ultra selective prep boarding schools. Admissions committees are so astute that they can usually sense when a topic discussed has been generated by the parent rather than by the applicant.
@Publisher but can they tell when an essay has been written by the kid who just happens to think like her mom? DD and I have a very similar writing style and we think in a very similar manner.
FWIW: I learned the hard way. Turned an “acceptance” into a rejection. All I did was suggest a topic that, in hindsight, was too adult & inappropriate for an 8th grader (discussion of propriety of the death penalty).
The student was burned out from writing too many apps. & asked for a suggested topic.
Woah @Publisher do you know for sure that torpedoed the kid? Mine had a long discussion in school about the criminal justice system and the death penalty. I could see her writing about that (none of her essays ask for anything so mature though).
All of the special housing arrangements had already been made. So do I know for certain ? No. But it is my best guess.
But this was one of the most competitive schools in the country–so there were thousands of applicants waiting for an opening.
If you don’t change it and your daughter gets rejected will she blame it on the essays? If there’s the slightest possiblity that might happen I’d write something else.
OTOH, my kid chose to spend a good deal of an interview talking about the psychology of pedophilia while I was trying not to eat all my lip at once. ~X( Kid was admitted with full scholarship. I later got a note from the AO, who turned out to have a degree in psychology and was impressed with her spunk and maturity. So it all depends…
@GoatMama: That’s scary.
It was her social studies research paper in 8th grade. The teacher penalized her for the choice of topic, which resulted in her digging in her heels and loading up on reading about deviant psychology. Guess what her choice of college major is now…
@Publisher I’m confused. You had already been accepted and then they took the offer back? What was their stated reason? Surely they had read the essay BEFORE the admission offer, no?
@GoatMama I used to hang out with someone who counseled sex offenders as a psychologist. They shared that it can be extremely frustrating to work with pedophiles because the recidivism rate is so high If GoatKid can crack that nut she will do a great service to society.
@Calimex: I am an adult poster. This is not about me.
@Publisher. Still confused. They read your kid’s application file, including their essay, offered admission, then took it back?
@Calimex: Unfortunately, the details are not mine to share. Please move on.
In reference to the original question, I’d rewrite the parent essay, mostly to increase the breadth of information provided between the parent and child essays and the rest of the application. Use it as a chance to discuss another great story, characteristic, etc. If your child had any concerns about your essay overlapping with hers, it will also help reduce anxiety (hers and yours) in that time between submitting the applications and M9 (which can seem like forever at baseline). And if there are rejections or waitlists on M9 (which essentially every child gets some of), nobody is left wondering, no matter how unlikely it is that they are related to the overlapping essays.
@Publisher, be glad you didn’t send someone to a school that can just throw away a kid and replace them with another.
Thank you, good points.
I ended up changing some of the things I had written. Then my husband read through a viewbook and said “did you read this? it sounds like your essay.” LOL. I had not read it, I don’t really get the point of the fancy viewbook and marketing materials when we have actually been on the campus, but that caused me to change the essay once again. Apparently I should write marketing materials for BS.