<p>If Newton North is a college acceptance factory, then there was a serious production line breakdown on this widget.</p>
<p>
[quote]
FWIW: Her college admissions counselor should be fired forthwith if she in anyway approved [or even acquiesced to] that Kentucky essay. Disasterous!
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Forget the guidance counselor. What about her parents!</p>
<p>Even putting aside the nauseating snobbery of the essay, it tells us nothing about the applicant except that she's been to Kentucky. It doesn't sell a picture of a living, breathing curious teenager who might contribute, in some way, to the specific campus community of a college. </p>
<p>It doesn't even tell us that she knows anything about Williamstown, except that it's a small town with blue-state attitudes. That's pretty darn superficial. My daughter came up with more than that for a college she'd never even visited, like at least finding out about its new study abroad program in Russia and tying it to her high school Russian courses. Something. Sheesh.</p>
<p>I would guess it was the SAT scores, not the essay, that did her in. Noble as it may have been for her to forgo private tutoring, the results were not good in the world she lives in and aspires to. All she would say is that she got "over 2000" and that's not good enough for a nonathlete from an educated household in a well-known "brains-and money" district.</p>
<p>I wasn't so much that the essay was a mess, it's that it was a pandering, conniving mess. Almost as insulting to the colleges who received it (as if they weren't clever enough to figure out the agenda), as to residents of Kentucky or the South.</p>
<p>Bad choice. At my d's school, the AP Eng Lit teacher reads and comments on at least one draft of the college essays; at other schools, the guidance counselors usually give them a once over. How did this one fall through the cracks?</p>
<p>Middlebury is SAT optional. I agree that you would like to be at 2100+ for the schools she applied to. It would be nice to have the full picture.</p>
<p>Having said that, if I were an adcom, I would reject her one paragraph into the essay.</p>
<p>At my kids' high schools, nobody reads the college essays. At least, not automatically. I suppose a kid could ask a teacher for help if he wanted to, but there's no requirement to do so.</p>
<p>Idad, NNHS is a gigantic school, and the college advising can't possibly be so personal that they "allow" or disallow all misguided lists. Each counselor has a massive load of students, and I don't believe that this "commuter rail" system exists anywhere besides your imagination.</p>
<p>It was a dumb essay though.</p>
<p>"I'm surprised that nobody has posted on the NYTIMES article today about the horrendous hardships faced by students at one of the most affluent high schools in the United States, Newton North:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/01/ed...gewa%5B/url%5D">http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/01/ed...gewa</a> nted=all</p>
<p>So sad. These pitiful creatures, saddled with the burdens of suburbia. Why, the one poor girl was the only girl in her class who didn't have a credit card. Life is truly unfair."</p>
<p>It all seemed so "aweful" (in both the standard and biblical sense of the term.)</p>
<p>Maybe it's just me. I'm glad I live where I do.</p>
<p>It's hard to come off as both pretentious and naive but this girl manages both in a couple of hundred words. I'm so curious if she shared that essay with any adult prior to submission. It's cringeworthy, especially in light of all of her "God's work" through her church. Maybe she could do a gap year collecting New Religion jeans for poor Appalachian teenagers.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Actually, the reason those were such ineffective college essays is that there was nothing even remotely personal about them.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Yes, I agree that the essays were extremely impersonal which is why they failed. What I mean by "personal" is that college essays aren't written to be read by the general population. I wouldn't want to publicize the college essays that I wrote. </p>
<p>I fail to see why the NY Times thinks this article is news worthy though.</p>
<p>I really have a hard time believing adults are heaping all this scorn on a 17 year old. She's somebody's daughter. Looks like the concensus is that she had it coming (the rejections, I mean). </p>
<p>As for the NYT thinking it's newsworthy - it's stirred something up here, and it was listed as the most e-mailed story on the NYT website. Looks like the NYT knows exactly what they're doing.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Esther's application to Smith included a letter from her father.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>And who's thinking that it's possible that no adult read her essay? </p>
<p>Esther got into Smith.</p>
<p>Wow, everyone is being very harsh here.</p>
<p>I read the essay before reading any of your comments. My reaction: I was surprised by her early criticism of Kentucky, but curious enough to want to keep reading. I think she turned it around, because she was just as critical of where she is living. Her spirituality did come through. As did her yearning to sink roots into a small community. I thought she had some very nice touches in it, some nice phrases -- while you may disagree with her characterization of Kentucky, she drew a picture for me with her words. I thought, this is a kid who still has a lot of learning to do -- and isn't that what we want in a 17-year-old?</p>
<p>The print version of the article today's Times does not have the essays; nor does the online lookalike version of the article. You have to go to a separate link to read the essay, and I finally did that. And although I may forever be branded on CC as someone with no taste or sophistication, I didn't think the essay was that bad (which may explain why I do not presently have a student at Williams:). In fact I thought there were parts of it that although not sounding terribly original or fresh to the grownup mind showed a degree of seriousness and thoughtfulness and an approach that might in fact have set her apart from others. It was the last sentence that I thought was the weakest because the most pretentious in a way: "What is Williamstown like?" Too disingenuous. And obviously that sentence was not included on the RD apps. Or so one would hope.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I really have a hard time believing adults are heaping all this scorn on a 17 year old. She's somebody's daughter. Looks like the concensus is that she had it coming (the rejections, I mean).
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Nobody held a gun to her family and forced them to be featured in the NYTimes.</p>
<p>Like many parents here on CC, I've been contacted a few times about sharing an admissions story for a writer. I've declined.</p>
<p>Ester and her family put it out there. Should we not comment?</p>
<p>My comment is Esther's essay was very good until the end. I liked it though. She is a very bright young lady and will do fine in life.</p>
<p>The shame of it is that Ester had a great essay topic just sitting there to be picked: giving the sermon at her Baptist Church.</p>
<p>BTW, the NYTIMES author missed the boat. In the multimedia feature accompanying the article, one of the teachers said that the real story is not that women are such impressive students today, but that the male students are so obviously behind.</p>
<p>I thought Esther picked a great topic. I thought she wrote it well. She's 17. She showed quite a bit of insight for a seventeen year-old.</p>
<p>I love the following line.</p>
<p>"I live in Newton Massachusetts, where I cannot find my tradition."</p>
<p>"I'd rather read about the excitement of getting a new pair of designer jeans. At least it's relevant to a living, breathing teenager."</p>
<p>I had exactly the same reaction interesteddad. On the other hand I am not sure a lot of college admissions officers would have had the same gagging sensation while reading them.</p>
<p>My goodness, I've always thought of my daughter as an "amazing girl" but I don't think she would be so designated at Newton North (nor would she want to be). We must be really sheltered here; I've read (on CC) about pressure-cooker NE high schools. Is that really what they are like? I'm a teacher of honors and AP classes, and my good students work hard, but they also generally get enough sleep.</p>
<p>We visited some of the schools mentioned in the article, and <em>I</em> really liked Midd and Swat, but my daughter just couldn't see herself at either one and dropped them from her early list. I'm sure her good end results were due to a well-chosen list (no extreme reaches because she didn't find any she liked better than her matches), but I think her very personable essay about being famous in her school as the maker of the best fudge in the world also helped.</p>
<p>I only read the excerpt of the Kentucky essay; that part seems like an unfortunate choice (but a lesson on what not to do for students who will be applying next year).</p>