Agree with avoiding over-editing. With my daughter, I read her essay and suggested changing a few words — and she pushed back pretty hard, saying that these words did not sound like her. She was right. The effective essay(s) will have a voice, and it will ring true to an AO and they seem to have a 6th sense about who really wrote the essay, and if a student had help. Overly polished essays with SAT words are a tip-off.
We call writing in our house “butt in chair time.” S21 is writing a lot of essays nowadays - he wrote for the summer programs he is currently in, and is also applying to a few fall programs. In between, he is polishing his common app essay. One thing that I’ve told him is that every word counts. Every word chosen in lieu of another. It’s hard and he hasn’t learned to do this type of careful, succinct and meaningful writing in school. So I give him essays and poems to read, and hope it’s making a difference.
@NJWrestlingmom UCONN was the only school we didn’t visit. Realistically, to big a school for what D is looking for. It would be foolish not to apply and follow up with a visit if accepted. We watched the virtual visit tour, but was really disappointing. It stays on the list for reputation, location.
D21 started working on her Common App essay in early June. She struggled for three weeks before she realized the angle she was trying to use wasn’t working for her. She trashed that attempt completely and then just started writing with the first thing that came to her mind. Within a week, she had a very good essay. I read it - she is a naturally good writer and has published in a regional magazine, plus her AP English Language teacher in 10th grade had her students write an essay or two every single week in all different formats, so D21 knows how to write succinctly and in a memoir/narrative fashion.
She left the new essay for two weeks and then came back and read it again. She likes it and feels it captures who she is very well (and I agree). I have two professional tutors/editors looking at it right now to make sure the grammar is 100% correct, then she is done.
She is still working on supplemental essays, but hopes to be finished all of them by the end of August. The goal is to be completely finished applications before August 31 - except for the few ED contenders. She will finish those but won’t submit them until she has decided her strategy.
I have my own writing to finish - as the homeschooling parent, I submit a bunch of materials into the counselor part of the Common App. Course descriptions (a 40-page document), a letter of rec (giving context to the home/school life), and a school profile (methods used, educational philosophy, etc). So I’ve been busy too with lots of writing and editing this summer. I hope to be finished my end of things by mid-August.
Sadly, I am thinking that my senior’s “busy” fall is not going to be so busy…so there will unfortunately be plenty of time for application essays, supplements. and final spell checks. Fingers crossed that some cancelled things will be rescheduled and Spring will be extra busy.
Looks like I’m in the minority, but no paid essay readers/admissions help here. She’ll just roll the dice with her own efforts, I guess.
@3kids2dogs No consultants here either. I review my kids’ application essays for typos, spelling, etc. but that’s about it. My oldest kid had great results with college admissions with her own writing and I suspect the younger will be similar. Thankfully, they both enjoy writing and have had great Lit/Lang teachers along the way to guide them.
D21 has a draft of the Common App essay written. It needs some work but so far I like it and it sounds like her.
No paid essay readers or such help here either! D21 just asked my D20 to look over a draft essay and I’m willing to proofread for grammatical errors/typos if she asks. That will be it for us though. ?
I’m saying this here because it will only cause unnecessary stress to say at home.
I have a list of about 30 schools based on conversations with D21, both of us perusing Fiske and The Hidden Ivies, and with pretty extensive help from the crowd here. She has pretty effectively outsourced that part of the reasearch to me. (Sidenote, IMHO it was a brilliant job by her to delegate the time consuming task of sorting through all of the definite no’s and instead of starting with a list of 3,000 looking at a much more manageable list of 30) She has been focused on the ACT last Saturday, but I was hoping to have a good sit down with her this week and get the list narrowed down into a semi-final form, or at least get a good # of the slots filled with a second list of “maybes” she still wanted to consider. Partially due to my schedule and mostly due to hers, which included a fair amount of socializing, we haven’t had that conversation yet. I really just want to keep the process moving. Then she can focus on hitting info sessions, etc. for the ones that matter, and she can start writing her essays.
I realize I am being obsessive, and that it is a good thing she is spending time with her friends. I think she is starting to realize that this group is probably staying together next year, just without her. This last year or 2 they have settled into a really great group of girls who are supportive of each other and just overall good for each other. She is just 17, but really this is the best group of friends she has ever had. So she is prioritizing spending time with them.
I have a bit of an obsessive streak and it is driving me nuts. My preference was that we dealt with this Saturday night after the ACT. But I realize this is my issue and not hers, and that it is important that she has a healthy balance. So mostly I’m venting my own neurosis here rather than burdening her with it.
That is all. I just needed to say that somewhere, and an anonymous forum is the correct place.
I have heard a couple different places to use school application instead of common app…one was by the college counselor at the Hs about the state flagship preferring it? Not sure why one format would be preferred over the other. Any thoughts on this.!It seems like the common app would be convenient but I have kind of steered D away from it.
I proofread my daughter’s for grammatical errors and typos, but I still find it helpful to have a tutor/editor friend take a look too. I’ve published academically and commercially, and I can’t tell you how many times I have looked over something I’ve written twenty times only to find an extra space here or a typo there much later. The problem (with me at least) is that once I’ve read something two or three times I stop seeing it. Hope that makes sense. So fresh eyes can be helpful in spotting something that somehow got by me.
We just want the fresh eyes for grammar mistakes and typos though. Absolutely no content or wording revision. I agree with everyone above in that the voice needs to be the student’s and just the student’s.
Our HS will not publish rank or share directly with colleges but they will release to the student for the student to use as part of their application. I had D18 get hers since Clemson gives merit money based in part on top 10%. I just asked GC for D21 rank and she was in top 5% so we will be putting that into her applications. Just putting this out there for others that school says they don’t rank because I think they all do for internal purposes. Ask to have it because if it is good the student can share in the application.
S got a mailing for a need blind school that asked him to fill out information and send it back, one of the things they asked for was family income. Why would they be asking for this information if they are need blind?
Agreed here as well that the voice needs to be my S21’s…as he is not one of the kids who loves writing and is a kid with ADHD/executive function challenges and slow processing speed, the outside class was really a structured way to get him to focus his time on it for a few weeks. When it’s D23’s turn, she probably won’t need that as she loves writing, identifies as a writer, is self-directed and good at managing her time, etc. Different kids benefit from different types of support.
Despite the fact that he is editing quite a bit, it doesn’t seem like overediting (at least I hope). It is a lot in comparison to the amount of editing he usually does (but that’s because he usually does very little). The editing takes him much longer than it might take someone else due to his particular challenges, but he isn’t putting in words that don’t sound like him or making things formal and stilted, etc. - he’s just forcing himself to be more intentional in his choices so that he can take it from 1300 words down to 650 - that length difference calls for a fair amount of editing. ?
This weekend his assignment (from the class) includes sharing the essay with one or two others who know him well to see if they think it sounds like him. I think it does, but it will be interesting to see what the others say (if he is willing to show it - I’m hopeful that he will be given that it’s a class assignment…I don’t know that he would otherwise).
I see a parallel in how he handled his zoom interviews. He had some help from me and my husband prepping beforehand - helping him think about what things about himself he might want to convey, what stories he could use to show them those things, etc., but it was also important that he not rehearse too much (like overediting). So there was some help in brainstorming and how to handle the interview process, but once he began the interviews, what came out of his mouth was on him. After each interview I’d ask him if he’d been asked anything that threw him, what he’d learned about the school that he hadn’t known, if there were any parts that went particularly well or not so well. It was all of 7 minutes of debrief each time, but that allowed him to go into the next one with a bit of an “edit” he realized he’d like to make. What happened was that by the last one (of 9), he actually sounded MORE natural, more like himself, more at ease with the details he was sharing because the process helped him figure it all out - I think his essay editing is following a similar path. The revisions are a part of the process of figuring out what he is trying to say.
One of the many ‘tells’ that need-blind schools have that help them assess need at the applicant level.
Many recruiting questionnaires ask if the student will be applying for FA, and in our recruiting experience with D19 every single coach asked if we would be applying for FA, and virtually all of those schools were need blind.
One of the most important things to remember is the people reading the application do this for a living. They’ve read thousands of personal statements from HS students. You gotta know your audience.
My sister read apps for a T20 and she used to joke about “if I have to read one more essay about cooking with my now deceased grandmother…”, but she would admit that topic was fine. She’s looking, and circling, key points the university is interested in. Sure, a unique and interesting essay will be more fun to read and therefore get a better grade, but it’s not a requirement.
To lighten the mood, here are a couple of funny stories from my sister:
Someone wrote their essay in French to show off their french proficiency. This kid was not from France.
They did get essays where halfway through the writer started referring to “my son” and it was obvious the parents wrote it.
There were essays about my parents want me to attend your college but I hate it.
Hi everyone. I thought I would join in as these forums were so helpful last year with my oldest D20 graduate. I have a son graduating this year and it’s been difficult to watch the affects of Covid on a second child’s senior year. S21 was hoping to play football in college and recruiting has all been canceled and now fall sports are not happening. I’m not sure what he will end up doing. Also he was scheduled to take the SAT 4 times over the past several months which were canceled. (He is scheduled now for Sept). I hope everyone is holding up, and feeling ok about the future. Not knowing is always the hardest and this unprecedented situation is rough on these kids trying to plan. Wishing your kids the best and much success with applications.
We are going to focus the next couple of weeks on trimming our list. Curious how many are planning at this point to apply to over 10 schools? For us if we get no ACT by September, probably will go a little higher.