<p>My first irreverent thought is that if the Harvard student is really all that, he’s setting his price awfully low. Harvard students generally are not idiots. Offering to get someone into Harvard for a mere $800 sounds foolish from a business standpoint. The OP’s son is going to apply to 14 schools. The Harvard student is offering to help shepherd him through the entire process for 5 months for a grand total of up to $800. If the “consultant” is really going to put in the work, that doesn’t sound like much of an hourly wage, unless Mr. Crimson is looking on this as a way to start up a future business.</p>
<p>OP, you’ve not mentioned your son’s stats. If your son’s stats and/or activities put him in range for an HYP-type admit, getting professional essay help might be worthwhile. If, on the other hand, your son is a wonderful kid whose test scores and GPA aren’t at the tippy-top level, then paying the money for this type of help wouldn’t be a good investment of your money.</p>
<p>I don’t know how all of you can look at 800 bucks and saying it’s so less. That’s a lot of money in my opinion…How is it foolish? If you only do 10 kids that’s 8K…</p>
<p>Yes, 5 months sounds like a lot of time, but he’s obviously not going to spend every single day going over this applicant’s resume… All he can do is edit the essay and answer some questions, right? Unless there’s something I’m missing here, that doesn’t sound like a lot of work.</p>
<p>Whether or not he is thriving at Dartmouth is irrelevant – there are thousands upon thousands of kids that could thrive at top schools; there just aren’t enough spaces for all of them. What is relevant is that he received a spot over a more qualified applicant because he had someone else put his app together for him. If taking away a 4-year ivy league education from a more deserving applicant isn’t unethical, I don’t know what is.</p>
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<p>I think this is the crucial difference. Pointing out problems is one thing, but when you’re inserting your own words into someone else’s essay (aside from a change in word choice here or there), something’s wrong.</p>
<p>I highly doubt that his mother did much. I mean the essay is only a very small part in the whole application, and as they say, it can “revive the living but not raise the dead” (or something like that).</p>
<p>Possible, but the poster did say that he wouldn’t have gotten in without his mother’s help. The phrase “packaged her son” suggests she did more than just edit his essay.</p>
<p>Ultimately, if a student can get in on his own merits, he doesn’t need a lot of outside help, and if he can’t, it would be wrong to get in because of what someone else did.</p>
<p>Had you up to here. As many people have pointed out, there’s no such thing as a “more deserving applicant” because of the rules of admissions. I mean sure he got in over a more qualified one, but as you noted, there are lots of qualified students and I’ll extend that statement to say that many of the most qualified ones won’t be admitted. It’s sort of a free for all when it comes to college admissions as long as you don’t break any hard and fast rules.</p>
<p>Having someone else make major changes to your app is essentially lying, because you’re passing off someone else’s work as your own and pretending to be something you’re not. While applicant quality can be a fuzzy topic, I think not lying during the application process is a pretty hard and fast rule.</p>
<p>But it’s not so clear and cut! There’s plagiarism which is a hard and fast rule which one would not want to break. But where does “major changes” change (pardon the pun) from another advantage to plagiarism? It’s tough! So I wouldn’t necessarily look down on anyone who employed the help of such people…even though for my own many personal reasons (none at all to do with ethics) I wouldn’t ever pay for help on an application.</p>
<p>how do you know how much to drink before it affects your driving skills? Surely drinking just a little bit won’t have much effect on you…</p>
<p>So should you drink a little bit? I don’t think so. For me, ethics is more important than anything, and I would die than be unethical (on purpose). So if it’s not clear whether it’s wrong or not, just don’t do it.</p>
<p>“One more thing. I have a friend who plans on writing an essay about his background that is absolutely not true. The subject matter can’t be verified, so the colleges won’t know he’s lying. He’s very creative and loves acting. In an interview, he’d have no problem pulling off the lie. I wonder if this is more common than we think?”</p>
<p>I’ve been an alumni interviewer for Harvard and have caught student in lies during their interviews. I also caught a student who was trying to pass off an essay as his that he obviously hadn’t written. (Student brought the essay to the interview, and it reflected a far higher level of thinking than the student displayed during the interview, in which when he was asked what his favorite book was and why, he responded the “Illiad,” and then in tedious detail told me the whole story…")</p>
<p>No, those students didn’t get acceptance letters.</p>
<p>Wow Northstarmom, that’s pretty scary. When you catch them in a lie or plagiarism (sp?), do you bust them right then and there, or do you just make a note in the file? I’d love to be a fly on the wall for a day of college interviews.</p>
<p>BTW, when I said way back there that upon request, I will edit D’s papers for spelling, punctuation, & grammar, I see now that “proofread” would have been a better word. To me, “proof” is at the level of minor technical errors, whereas “edit” carries the connotation of working on ideas – re-writing, or suggesting themes, concepts, examples. I never do the latter. Perhaps it’s a distinction without a difference, but that’s how I rationalize it. :)</p>
<p>Control over who is offered 4-year ivy league education is in the hands of the universities, not the applicants. Place the blame accordingly. Universities invite applicants to game the system by using selection procedures that are subjective, manipulable, and in many ways rigged. The result is predictable: public suspicion, and an arms race. Consultants at 800 or 18000 dollars are not a surprise. If these effects trouble you, blame the schools, not the applicants.</p>
<p>Marketing/packaging - this kid had a particular interest/EC. His mother told him to research all of those top tier schools to find schools that got funding/grants for his EC. Dartmouth got such funding, he also found out which professor(s) did. He visited them and exchanged emails with them for over a year. The mother put his portfolio into a nice package - resume, awards, prints. His mother advised him to use information he got from those professors in his essays. He also got recommendation letters from those professors. Would he have thought to do all of that by himself? No. Did he get in because of his special EC (hook)? Maybe. His mother said to me, “College admission is all about marketing, and what people find hardest to do is marketing themselves. You have to sell what they want to buy.”</p>
<p>“Is it normal for students to bring their essays to interviews?”</p>
<p>Most don’t. When I call students to arrange their interviews, I tell them to bring to the interview anything that they think will highlight their strengths. This particular student chose to bring a copy of their essay and a book that he claimed to have recently read. Unfortunately the book – not a well known one – happened to be one of my favorite books, and from what the student said about it, it was clear to me that the student hadn’t read it, but was just carrying it to try to make an impression on me.</p>
<p>I don’t understand why one would want to have someone “improve” their essays to gain admissions: if their writing isn’t of that school’s caliber, then does having a good essay, written largely by someone else, somehow instill the skills they need to thrive at the school?
God, these little strategies for hire really cheapen (pardon pun) the whole experience of getting into school. If one needs to put on a facade, designed by professionals, to appeal to the admissions committee, then that student shouldn’t be applying to that school, bcause he/she obviously doesn’t fit in, and is not self-sufficient enough to get in on his/her own skills.</p>
<p>I think that is more than a bit unreasonable. I’m not prepared to blame an institution for somehow making an applicant be dishonest on their application.</p>