I am thinking of hiring someone to help DS with essays since I am also an engineer and can’t help with essays. I have never written any college essays. DS applied to couple of highly selective summer programs and got rejected. He has stellar stats, and very good ECs, so that makes me believe his essays were probably not good enough for top schools.
I used the essay organizer (thanks again…great tool!) and if D applies to the 25 schools on her list, she will have to write 9 main essays. Then there are the separate scholarship essays and honors college essays. Yikes! It’s going to be a long summer!
As for writing them, I can’t say I’m totally surprised that there are some parents who write their kids’ essays, but I have to believe its a very tiny percentage. A larger percentage than that will use educational consultants, but those kids are mostly those that are applying to elite schools and the Ivies. I have no problem with that. I’m my D’s free educational consultant. I will help her as much as she needs with the essays…ideas and editing. As a first generation college student, I had no help. I’m very happy to be able to help my D. And she is much more relaxed about the college admissions process knowing that she has me to assist with a lot of it.
@srk2017…my S applied for a summer program with Texas Tech and while typing his essay in the website kept timing him out. He had the essay written and was simply typing in the system. Knocked him out 2 times…the 3rd time he got everything in there and hit send without checking for typos. BaMmmmm…about 6 typos in the essay. He has not gotten his rejection email yet however I am sure it will come soon.
That’s a bummer about the music teacher @eandesmom. It’s been our experience with both music teachers and coaches that they have an unrealistic view of just how much time is available for teens to devote to their particular activity. Especially during junior and senior year. I feel your pain regarding the no email and phone answering. If your business is primarily young people, then it’s essential to keep up with technology.
A minor rant: When our oldest went through the college process we had lots of “helpful” advice from family members and friends who were basing their nuggets of wisdom from 30 years prior. We’ve been trying to keep a lower profile with ds, but it’s even worse this time around. I guess it’s easier to remain entrenched than stay up with the times. My 94 year old mother just can’t understand why ds won’t get a full ride scholarship to UCLA like his aunt did back when the dinosaurs roamed. Lots of well meaning people tell ds that he’s going to get all kinds of $. I have to keep bringing him back to planet reality.
A friend who is a single mom relayed this story: Her son’s dad and stepmom told son that they were not allowing him to apply to more than 5 schools because no one applies to more than 5 and it’s a waste of money. Guess how much dad will pay for application fees & son’s college? That would be zero. Son lives with mom most of the time. Stepmom’s son is finishing his freshman year. He applied to one school, an instate college that his stats barely qualified him for. He’s now racking up $25K a year in loans, partying and barely avoiding academic probation. They want son to do the same.
Thankfully my friend told her son to ignore them, or as we say in that other thread, Smile and Nod. Smile and Nod.
@srk2017 If your D is applying to competitive schools, getting someone to help with essays is probably a good idea. Doesn’t need to be an educational consultant. A friend who is a writer or in a profession that writes for a living would be perfect. I regularly help my friend’s kids with their essays at no charge.
@itsgettingreal17 that’s a good idea. I am going to ask a friend who is a teacher at a local college ( i think she teaches journalism) if she would be willing to help my son. My son is friends with her kids, Hopefully she will say yes. My wife and I are OK writers, but not quite like our friend. I was thinking of asking our neighbor who teaches british lit at high school for help too. 2 helpers might be better than 1.
So the whole thing with writing-my take on it (as a published writer and editor) is to be careful about hiring someone who is “good at writing” to touch your kid’s work. You may want an editor, but you may not want a writer-a writer may dilute your kid’s “voice”.
I like the idea of asking teachers who you know are good at providing constructive criticism-you want to polish that turd, not turn it into gold. Palpable turdiness is important in a kid’s essay, in my opinion-it needs to be authentic. Grammar and usage turdiness has to go, though.
Helping your kid to find what he/she’s really trying to say, and communicate it clearly without losing the voice, is probably the core challenge.
@Tgirlfriend I think kids should write essays in something like Google Docs and paste the essay into the application when it is ready. That way, they don’t loose their work if the website crashes.
@payn4ward Thanks for the essay website link. DS will have basically “a zillion” essays to write, though they say only 12 main essays. I’m surprised at how short the word limits are for many of them. I think the shorter essays he wrote for summer programs were not as nicely worded as the longer once, because he had to cut out neat phrasing to get them to fit.
@Tgirlfriend Here is the essay organizer link for your S.
http://collegeessayorganizer.com/
Schools have additional essays for scholarship application.
A couple of thoughts, if your student is writing an essay online and it might time out, do it in Word or another word processing program so they can write, think, and edit on their own time, and then cut and paste it into the online app. (Oops, wrote this before I saw Ynotgo’s post).
Also, I think it is good to have a non-parent resource help the student with their essay. In my family there is less tension if someone else is saying the essay needs revising. There is less of the “Mom!” with the eye roll!
More sage advice from @MotherOfDragons.
I may have to look back at the Essay Organizer site. I looked at it a few months ago, and compared it to what I had found on my own, and I just felt that I couldn’t ‘trust’ that everything was correct. I felt like I had to look at each school’s site (or w/in the CA) to be sure, so if I had to do that anyway, I wasn’t sure I needed the site. Do you guys feel it is going to be accurate and up-to-date?
@2muchquan I won’t rely on it solely. Best to double check for sure.
My S is targeting highly competitive schools and I don’t think he can get any help from teachers given how busy these IB teachers are. I am not looking for someone to write essays for him, but more like guide him. It is not easy for some hardcore STEM kids to write essays that appeals to adcoms.
I agree on having a 3rd party work with the kid to figure out the essay. It would probably turn into a bicker fest in my house. My son doesn’t like help, criticism, or feedback from his parents. He likes to succeed or fail on his own. I just stay out of the way.
@2muchquan Sure, you should reconfirm.
It is so easy to create an account (well, I’m sure I’ll get spammed) and drop the college list and have it to show what kids will be dealing with this summer 
@CA1543 Thanks. No, I’m not sad b/c of the PSAT thread. Thank you for creating and contributing on the thread. 
I’m mad with the College Board.
Ugh, I’ll have to give CB more $$; 3 AP exams next year and tests and APs for DS19.
:-&
Once the AP English Comp exam is done, S17’s class will work on their common app essays. This approach was really helpful for D15, who banned me from even reading her essay because she didn’t want any input. I confess to sneaking a peak anyway. So good!! She’s a STEM who hates to write, stresses about the whole process, but worked really hard to develop her voice. S17 may need more guidance to push him to go beyond doing the minimum, but I would definitely find a teacher or consultant for that process. I agree with @rightcoaster - I’ll just stay out of the way.
@srk2017 and others: I think someone who is good at editing essays and has some insight into what colleges are looking for can be very useful when applying to selective programs. But, you don’t want someone who will make the essays sound like someone other than your kid. A teacher might not have that college insight; a good English class essay is probably not a good college essay.
We gave DS feedback on his summer program essays and also had a consultant who doesn’t charge too much look them over, though she only looked at earlier drafts, not the versions closer to final. It was kinds of a trial run for college essays to use her.
The consultant didn’t rip them apart and take away his voice, but her comments were useful along the lines of what they were looking for. Examples: “My only suggestion is to add a few more sentences about how they overcame the , since this essay is about overcoming a challenge, and not just the challenge and the result.” and “For this essay, I would consider shortening the first paragraph and adding a bit more to the second.” and “Make the conclusion more positive.” and “Make this more focused on your dreams and aspirations.”
DH and my edits were more to deal with parts he could cut to get under the word limit, because he is naturally verbose.
I think parents can also be useful because they know the things the kid has done. DS tends to leave things out because “I don’t want to sound like I’m bragging.” We tell him that sometimes you have to “brag” and this is one of those times.
Watch out for doing things in Word too. Use Dropbox or something for off-site backups.
A few weeks ago, DS decided to reinstall the Ubuntu (UNIX) partition of his laptop and somehow accidentally obliterated the Windows partition. Luckily, he uses Google Docs for all his documents (including essays) and GitHub for most of his programming files. It seems like the only thing he lost (other than time and ego points) was his 3D modeling files, though 2D images from ones he liked were posted to his blog.