<p>The rather melodramatic title to this thread is actually the title of one of the most famous essays written in the 1960's. Roland Barthes, one of the most influential literary critics in history talked about how the text (he used this word) should be divorced from the writer. In other words, he thought, as many American academics at the time did too, that the words on the page were all that should be important. It was the reader, not the writer, who should be the creative genius who determined its meaning.</p>
<p>I actually think Barthes was a genius. But in this essay I also think he was dead (sorry bad joke) wrong.</p>
<p>What follows is my attempt to prove this using a college essay as proof. I have posted this essay on CC before but it is no longer available so I will repost it. After that are the comments of a very respected college counselor. This counselor has experience as both a AdCom at a very highly selective university and over a decade of work in some of the more prestigious secondary schools in the world.</p>
<p>After the essay and the comments, I will simply ask a question or two and see if some discussion about the importance of context and individualized advice on essays might be something work thinking about.</p>
<p>The short answer essay question asked from a university is:
what is your favorite word and why?</p>
<hr>
<p>Pander: After Reading Bishop</p>
<p>In that most nihilistic of Shakespeare’s plays Troilus and Cressida, Pandarus opens the door for what we would call illicit sex that then leads to as bleak an ending as anything the bard wrote: the loss of love and the death of Hector (and the end of Troy thereafter). Today, at this moment (and this too, every second of every day) Romney and Obama and Paul all pander with promises that they know are not true. And my grandfather called that black and white animal at the zoo a “pander” too.
Words are all slippery when wet, they get slapped on a deck, then get gutted, and soon cooked up fresh from the sea, that wine dark sea, that goes back again as far as Homer and Pandarus.
Some words we throw back, just junk, the way an old worn boot ruins our hooks and tangles our lines. But I think I have fought with a whopper, though nothing as big and as menacing as the dark shark from Jaws or a Shakespearean pimp.
So pick up your iPhone and click a photo with me smiling and holding it up. I caught the thing and, perhaps in the struggle, I hope I caught you too. But I promise I will never pander in class for a grade or in an activity for a leadership position. I will take my words by the gills and hold them up, proud to show off to the world what I have wrought from a single word-- the soft white meat just underneath a glistening well-turned thought.</p>
<hr>
<p>I guess if anyone could be certified an 'expert' at reading application essays it would be the following reader. Not many have had many years of reading and writing from both sides of the desk at a highly selective university and several highly selective secondary schools. And not many have talked on writing in national forums as well. This reader has all that so these credentials should prime you to respect what is said:</p>
<hr>
<p>So here's my reaction: I knew it would be interesting just from the title, which tells me that this applicant reads, and that he/she reads someone named Bishop whose first name he doesn't name, which implies that she is probably more well-read than I am, which in part impresses me and in part makes me dubious . . . but having been an admission officer and read thousands of these, I'm hooked because this student talks about READING. College. You read a lot in college! Are we talking slam-dunk for this applicant?</p>
<p>(It's probably the poet Elizabeth Bishop, which still tells me that this person is more well-read than I am). </p>
<p>The other thing in the title that makes me perk up is its form: "After" reading something harks back to the title of a Romantic poem, perhaps Wordsworth? There are many poems entitled "Upon reflection on a golden afternoon" (I'm making that up) or "After having seen . . .." That kind of title sets up the reader to expect a lot, because it says the writer is going to make a connection between two things. College. Liberal arts. Making connections. Duh.</p>
<p>And then we learn that the writer claims to have read Troilus and Cressida, which surprises me for a high-school student (I don't think I read it until grad school), but I'm sure it's possible. </p>
<p>So I'm dubious, but at the same time I'm saying, "Are you crazy? This is brilliant. I love love love the movement from Pandarus to pander, from Shakespeare to 2012 politics to his grandfather calling a panda a pander, all in a paragraph. Brilliant.” I've read a lot of essays and you get maybe one a year like this.</p>
<p>I love the second paragraph, I love the third paragraph, for their poetry. I'm not completely sure how they relate to "pander," but they show me that this person reads and loves to write and makes a whole bunch of connections. They show me this person will come to class and read and talk to her professors and keep writing.</p>
<p>The last paragraph . . . not as satisfying (I wanted to stay in the poetry all the time, and not be reminded about not pandering for grades or leadership positions . . . ugh, "leadership" in the midst of slippery wet words slapped on the deck and gutted . . ) These self-referential sentences actually seem like pandering, and lead me back to my doubt: did this applicant write this, write all of it, from his own experience? Did he get help? Did someone else write it? No, no, no . . . that's the thing about us admission officers, at least the ones I worked with: We want to like these kids when they manage to break that ever-so-difficult barrier and rope us in with an essay. We--I--don't want the disappointment of suspicion that this isn't the student's work. </p>
<p>The other unsatisfying thing--not perhaps suspicious, but glaring to me, and unsatisfying--is that I'm never told how Pander relates to Bishop or which Bishop it is. Now, maybe I'm getting all English-teacher on this kid, but it IS in the title, in bold.</p>
<p>So I'm tantalized, thrilled, all gooey inside and drooling over this essay (75% of me). The other 25% is dubious. I would know for sure, I think, after reading the rest of the application. If the recommendations praise the student's breadth and depth of reading and writing ability/accomplishment/ambition; if the other essays confirm that this student is sincere; if (this would be a lot to ask) a teacher’s rec mentions that this student read Troilus and Cressida; if something tells me or even hints to me that this student would never let someone else write his essays; then I'd be in love. Slam dunk. This student would gobble up what's on offer in college.</p>
<p>Thanks! A wonderful exercise. I'm eager to read what others think.</p>
<hr>
<p>I agree almost completely with this reader. There are some who have read this essay and hated it but the majority of seasoned readers I have polled have said this is a winner. This includes one of the more famous writers in the US today so that at least in the writing community this essay should be a winner.</p>
<p>But what I want to focus on here is not the merits of the essay. That will come at another time perhaps.</p>
<p>The point I wish to make has to do with the title of this thread and with the reader's comments.</p>
<p>If we can start this philosophical exercise by rating the essay itself as great, then here are the questions that I have for myself at least.</p>
<ol>
<li>Could a student really write this? </li>
</ol>
<p>Its level of sophistication and wide-ranging references make anyone who reads thousands of admission essays a bit suspicious to say the least. </p>
<ol>
<li>If I am am suspicious should I downgrade it to the no pile? Why or why not?</li>
</ol>
<p>I think the other reader's instincts are correct. There needs to be support in the recommendations and other essays; otherwise, red flags go up.</p>
<p>This brings me to point of the thread. An essay is never just an essay. (Apologies to Sigmund Freud.) An essay always must be read in context.</p>
<p>For example, if I told you that the essay was submitted by a home-schooled student whose parents are both English professors and who submitted a reading list of books that would put even a PhD in literature to shame, then I would be very likely to say this is the real deal. Especially if the testing was, say, 790 CR and 800 Writing. </p>
<p>But let's say this essay came from an international student whose first language was not English, and whose CR was 520 and writing 490? Well, in all honesty if I had this essay from that student I would likely say no. The pieces do not fit. Testing does measure something; if not, then schools should not use the scores at all in evaluations.</p>
<p>But let's say the student was in the top 5% of a good suburban high school, taking AP classes in English lit and Writing with a 4 and 5 score. And a CR score of 690 and a Writing of 750? The English teacher rec is effusive but not very specific--the kind that says great and wonderful student but is too short to really know what this means (yes, a split infinitive, big deal).</p>
<ol>
<li>What should I do then?</li>
</ol>
<p>And that is the question I will end with.</p>