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</p>
<p>The actual writing is of minimal importance. It’s the subject matter and what information is conveyed people pay to get assistance for. Otherwise you could pay a tutor $50 to edit anything.</p>
<p>The writing is important, too: the style, the voice … Only extraordinary professional editors could rewrite a piece of ordinary writing to make it extraordinary in terms of its style and voice – while it still appeared to be the work of a high school student.</p>
<p>
True.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t blame the universities…I’d blame the institution that we call selective college admissions.</p>
<p>Some insight from Dartmouth where the Director of Admissions explains they are not reading for writing skills:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.hudson.k12.ia.us/HEF%20Essay%20Article.pdf[/url]”>http://www.hudson.k12.ia.us/HEF%20Essay%20Article.pdf</a></p>
<p>This was true for me as an adcom at Penn years ago. We had kids from all different backgrounds, some of whom would have to take remedial writing. It was all about WHAT they wrote.</p>
<p>My niece has been working with an excellent essay person this summer. The value is in the fact that she’s writing about something she had never considered. The coach helped identify something about her that would make her stand out in the pack from the dozens writing about the exciting day they won the big game or the prize at state or their passion for boring subject X…</p>
<p>just tell him you’ll give him 3x the money if your son gets in, but you want a 450$ refund if he doesn’t</p>
<p>Whatever happened to only needing hard work and dedication to get into college?</p>
<p>Whatever happened to only needing hard work and dedication to get a job or keep a job? Or maybe it never happened.</p>
<p>^ If courage and dedication were the only thing, I don’t think that you would find website like CC to come here and vent your jealousy.</p>
<p>A bunch of you who are talking are just jealous of the guy. </p>
<p>This former Harvard interviewer should sit back and stay quiet because the kid is just trying to make a living like the owner of this website or anyone who work as an admission consultant does.</p>
<p>If he had proposed to do it for free, all of you would have PM the OP and ask for the kid’s email so you could send your please read my essay, please rate me, please what are my chances.</p>
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</p>
<p>What’s reasonable is to quote accurately.</p>
<p>The suggestion was to blame the universities for what the universities (and not the applicants) control. If you want to additionally blame applicants for what the applicants (and not the universities) control, such as the veracity of the submitted material, that’s also good. However, it should be noted that the universities create enough incentives to lie, cheat and over-compete in the application process, that it is a statistical certainty (as the universities know) that these incentives will lead to the applicant behavior you find disagreeable. By requesting evidence of achievement from students almost all of whom have little to show at age 17-18, the schools are inviting inflation, and falsification, of application materials.</p>
<p>hmom5 has a great point about ‘not reading for writing skills’ and
northstarmom hits it on the head.</p>
<p>Any student who withstood the Expos grilling and did markedly well (A- or A)
ought to be able to turn an essay around splendidly but northstarmom seems to make
a great point about the loss of innocence in ones voice. I am not sure if my
high school-voice-of-innocence is still around or my attempts at an essay would
simply be a sapid offering devoid of the anxieties that should garnish my state.</p>
<p>Readers will certianly be able to tell the difference?</p>
<p>Hmom’s assertion that the subject matter is more important than the writing may have some basis, but also stands in contrast to the opinion of many others. </p>
<p>from: [Essays</a>, Admission Information, Undergraduate Admission, U.Va.](<a href=“http://www.virginia.edu/undergradadmission/writingtheessay.html]Essays”>http://www.virginia.edu/undergradadmission/writingtheessay.html)</p>
<p>“A good essay is not good because of the topic but because of the voice. A good writer can make any topic interesting, and a weak writer can make even the most dramatic topic a bore”</p>
<p>Voice doesn’t come under the heading of good writing skills or anyone with good skills could be Hemmingway. A great topic must be pulled off which is voice.</p>
<p>" However, it should be noted that the universities create enough incentives to lie, cheat and over-compete in the application process,"</p>
<p>That could be true of anything that is considered desirable. People who lack ethics will always find a way to blame others for their doing things like lying and cheating.</p>
<p>" A great topic must be pulled off which is voice."</p>
<p>The topic isn’t as important as how the essay is written, and that is what is voice. </p>
<p>Excellent writers are thoughtful, creative people who can write about the most mundane subjects in a fresh, interesting way.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Not, it’s true very specifically of the admissions practices of elite universities. For instance, an essay topic might ask students to describe important challenges that they have overcome. For many (or most) applicants the only honest answer is that under ordinary definitions of the word, no serious challenges have been faced. They can provide that concise and honest one-sentence answer, or they can dishonestly fill the page with a command performance of rhetorical falsehood at the behest of the admissions office.</p>
<p>OP, if your family is super rich, what is the harm behind letting that student doing for your son? Try to investigate his background, and take off a month or two before answering.</p>
<p>Getting consulted for your application essay is basically the same thing as taking SAT prep classes. Tell me how this is morally wrong and SAT classes arent?</p>
<p>“For instance, an essay topic might ask students to describe important challenges that they have overcome. For many (or most) applicants the only honest answer is that under ordinary definitions of the word, no serious challenges have been faced. They can provide that concise and honest one-sentence answer, or they can dishonestly fill the page with a command performance of rhetorical falsehood at the behest of the admissions office.”</p>
<p>The colleges are just trying to see what the student considers to be challenging, how the student addresses challenges and what the student learns from such experiences. One doesn’t have to have been homeless, have had a parent die or have experienced cancer to have faced challenges.</p>
<p>Challenges can be as simple as figuring out how to cope with the betrayal of a friend; a friend’s getting involved in activities that are against one’s ethics; balancing one’s extracurriculars with one’s academics; moving to a new city that’s very different from one’s beloved hometown. …</p>
<p>Students who make up things to impress admissions are missing the point of such essays and may be rejected if the admissions officers find out they lied.</p>
<p>“Getting consulted for your application essay is basically the same thing as taking SAT prep classes. Tell me how this is morally wrong and SAT classes arent?”</p>
<p>Paying for someone to “heavily edit” (i.e. rewrite) one’s essay would be like paying someone to take the SAT for you. There’s a big difference between rewriting someone’s essay and giving them advice on essay topics, etc. The latter is more analogous to having an SAT tutor.</p>
<p>"For many (or most) applicants the only honest answer is that under ordinary definitions of the word, no serious challenges have been faced. "</p>
<p>When talking about the essay topic a couple weeks ago, DD told me her biggest challenges over her almost 17 years of life was taking the AP physics and got a B in 1st semester, but she pulled up to an A in 2nd semester. I replied, pass it, do they have another prompt?</p>