<p>I have really not been able to find other threads on this. How do you feel when you know other kids have their parents basically doing their applications, including their essays?</p>
<p>I have a buddy who told me his mom will be doing his essays. He said, they are only like 500 words how are they going to prove that he didn't write them?</p>
<p>I mentioned this to someone else and they said it really ends up being the same thing in most people's cases because everyone gets their essays edited by everyone so much that it is almost never a hundred percent your own work ever, in the end.</p>
<p>And if I ask for help on my essays, how far can you go with help?</p>
<p>I think it’s fine for someone to look at your essays to check for problems with grammar, flow, and other awkward issues you may have with your writing. I also think it’s okay for people to suggest different ways to go about your essay and to notify you to dig a little deeper with your essays. Basically, as long as they don’t feed you the words to write your essay, everything is A okay.</p>
<p>In your friend’s case, I don’t what he and his mom are doing is ethical.</p>
<p>These kids don’t belong in college. I suppose there could be extenuating circumstances (like a disability) under which it would be okay for someone other than the applicant to fill out the application, but if it’s just about laziness…then no, it’s not okay.</p>
<p>IMO parents filling out the their kid’s applications is wrong on many level. In addition, IMO, the parents writing the essay is likely to be counter productive … schools are not looking for a great literary work from the essay but to better understand the applicant … and a 50 year trying to write in the voice of a 18 year old is likely to not be very effective.</p>
<p>The purpose of the essay is so that colleges can see how well the future alumni is able to express himself through writing. Notice I said alumni, since the parent is not going to be the one attending the school. I don’t think it’s ok for a parent to write the entire essay for the child. It should be a challenge and educational experience for the student. </p>
<p>However, it is okay to get the parent to edit and make revisions.</p>
<p>It is very much not okay for the Parents to be doing any written portion including the essays. This strategy will have a very likely effect of backfiring and making the applicant look bad. As someone said above, it is unlikely the essay will be perceived as being written by the student and that is unethical and will look like plagiarized work.</p>
<p>And I agree with iamoym about the type of help that you can get.</p>
<p>I think the applicants should fill out everything except the family portion if only to avoid the family strife that develops when the applicant keeps asking a question every 5 minutes.</p>