<p>So my D is adamant. She does not want us to see her app essays!! She is an exceptional writer. She always lets us read her assignments for school. For some reason she doesn't want our input. She has agreed to allow her AP Lang teacher from last year go over the essay with her. How worried should we be?</p>
<p>This can work, although my Ds did allow me to see their essays. I also offered D2 the opportunity to work with one of her academic team coaches who is also a college counselor (I was going to see if we could pay him just for essay feedback, I think he would have done it). So we wouldn’t have had to pay for the full cost of a private college counselor, just for that one task.</p>
<p>She decided to let me just review them, but we did it via email exchanges. She would work up in her room and send drafts to me. I would comment on the draft (turn on editing in word and just add comments) and email it back. We discussed this later, and she said that the email process worked perfectly for her. She said it was a lot easier than doing the feedback process face to face. The only time we discussed them face-to-face was when she was stalled on finding topics/material for the college-specific assignments. We would sit in the living room while she brainstormed and I inserted a few comments, then she would go back into her room for the actual writing.</p>
<p>I would say that SOME adult needs to read them. And honestly, an early reading for content/topic/structure and a final review for “are you sure this will sound okay to an ad com?” is a good idea.</p>
<p>There’s nothing you can do about it. </p>
<p>My S is an excellent writer, who never let me take the slightest peek at his HS assignments. Well, maybe once that I can recall. In my former life, I was a writer and editor. On the other hand, he DID let me help him edit his application essays. </p>
<p>Later, I spent a lot of time helping a friend’s kid with his essays, while his mother wasn’t allowed to look. Admittedly, writing is not her area of expertise, but still. </p>
<p>Go figure.</p>
<p>As long as someone who knows something about the mechanics of writing is functioning as a second pair of eyes, I think you have to let it go.</p>
<p>If she is an exceptional writer and has a great teacher reviewing her essay, I would give her a little slack. I would just say that since you are paying for her applications, you do reserve the right to read it when she feels like she is really close to her final draft. My D is also a great writer and very reluctant to let me read her stuff. Since they really need to sound authentic and true to their own voice, I think sometimes we parents can “get in the way.” With them almost 18, leaving the nest in a year, I think we have to give them some room. You might also insist that in addition to her English teacher, her college counselor takes a look at it before she submits it to any school, too.</p>
<p>I allowed my mom to see my essay but not my dad. They’re just very personal in a way that the readers can see them because they don’t know you but sometimes it’s hard to let people in your real life see them. I wouldn’t be worried especially since she’s having someone read it to make sure it’s up to her normal high standards</p>
<p>I am not sure our GC would have agreed to do this… every college my D applied to required a supplemental essay (or more than one). I think she had a total 14 essays – that is a lot to ask a GC (or for that matter a teacher) to do.</p>
<p>I would not play the money card. I think that that’s a bad precedent. It smacks of buying a person’s privacy/free will. She may decide to show you her essays after all. My friend’s kid eventually showed me an essay about HER that he didn’t feel comfortable sharing until he had worked with me a bit. Later, he showed it to her.</p>
<p>I never saw my older D’s essays, and both my H and I are writers. She got into every college where she applied. I don’t ever remember reviewing her homework once she left elementary school, unless she asked. </p>
<p>And excellent writer with a professional reviewing the work should be fine-this isn’t the time to micromanage.</p>
<p>As long as some knowledgeable adult is reading it, I don’t think you should be concerned at all. It is very nice of the teacher, if that is really the case. I don’t think it is smart to send an unreviewed essay, though. Maybe the essay is personal and she will feel inhibited in the writing of it if she has to show it to you. There is definitely such a thing as too personal or inappropriately personal and I’m sure the teacher will be in a position to say so. The position of I’m paying so it is my right is an ugly one and I wouldn’t play that card. For a good writer, parental input is just not necessary. I would have been surprised and a bit letdown, but accepting.</p>
<p>This situation is pretty common. When my 3 kids had to write their college essays, I gave them photo albums and a biography they had each written in middle school, and pretty much stayed out of it. Two of them did let me read the final essay, but it was done by then. Our school didn’t have any essay coaching or anything, but I think the third one had an English teacher look at it.</p>
<p>We forget that the essays were originally, in theory, really supposed to be entirely written by the applicants, without any help. Nowadays there are college essay classes in schools and a whole industry focused on helping with college applications. As result, I don’t think colleges really put that much stock in the essays. They know a lot of kids are getting help. I have also read that adult involvement can ruin a fresh, if imperfect, essay and that the applicants own “voice” is what colleges most appreciate.</p>
<p>If your son or daughter has some skill in writing and wants to do it on his or her own, I would rejoice, because that lets you out of all kinds of ethical dilemmas.</p>
<p>p.s. Originally SAT’s were to test aptitude and we were told, way back when, not to study for that reason. My own kids (ages in early to mid 20’s) didn’t study either. So that’s changed too.</p>
<p>When S1 was applying for full ride type scholarship, he had to write a couple of essays. He wrote/submitted them at his gf’s house! I never saw them.
When he applied for a smaller scholarship (done at home), he let me proof read the essay.</p>
<p>Neither of my kids did any kind of SAT prep either. S1 spent the night out with friends the night before the SAT. He strolled in the back door the next morning less than an hour before the test and said “what time is the SAT again?”</p>
<p>Didn’t let my parents read my essays.</p>
<p>I literally had no idea about what my son wrote about in his essays. I must admit this had me kind of nervous. I did finally get to read his Common App essay at the end of the year as it was published in the Senior literary magazine. It was pretty good, probably better in the end without my meddling! I had to trust in his talent and just let go. Not easy!</p>
<p>I read my son’s common app essays. The first essay he wrote was very poetic but didn’t reveal a thing about him. Certain lines were poetry in motion, but the essay as a whole was meh (as the kids say). I tried to convey this to my son, but as I am just his mom, he wasn’t having any of it. Fortunately, he showed the essay to his English teacher from sophomore year who told my son the same thing. 
</p>
<p>My son went back to the drawing board and wrote an essay that revealed all his quirkiness. The only thing I was allowed to read it for was grammatical structure and flow. If you read the essay, you would have true insight into what makes my son tick. </p>
<p>I think it may actually be better to have a third party read it as he/she has almost no biases and you are emotionally invested and related! ;)</p>
<p>I don’t think you should be worried about it at all. No one read my college essays–and I never would have let my parents read them–and I ended up going to my first choice school. You say your daughter is an exceptional writer and her AP Lang teacher will be reading her essays. It really sounds like it’ll be fine. Don’t worry about it.</p>
<p>IMHO, generally speaking, parents, friends, and people who get paid to review are awful reviewers. Ask teachers.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone…I feel much better.</p>
<p>Yes, I wouldn’t worry about it either. Just another note, the admissions officer gave the students great advice at one of our college visits. He told the applicants to be very careful when they write their essays. He said they can see their essays from the SAT/ACT and they can tell if the common application essay was written by them. He kept saying over and over: “Be careful!” That was a very good point. So it does need to be written and edited by them.</p>
<p>I didn’t read any of DS’s essays for high school. So I did not give any input for his college essay’s. He also did not have anyone else read them for comments or suggestions.
I did read a couple of them when I submitted the credit card number for the applications.
I figure he was the one going to college not anyone else so they need to see what his writing is like.:)</p>
<p>How does it measure a student’s writing ability or his/her ability to choose and develop a topic that reflects something about him/herself, if there are adults editing and otherwise guiding the process? A lot of the essays I know about through friends and their kids are formulated by a paid advisor, a parent, a book – how does that reflect the student’s writing strengths?</p>