What to do? I hate my son's common app essay!

<p>A year ago at this time, I had a similar experience with my son. My background is journalism; I write for a living. He sent the first of his apps, and showed me the essay after it had been sent. I told him I thought the essay was incoherent. That was my exact word. This school was a bit of a reach for him according to all charts. He tweaked the essay with some (not all) of my edit suggestions for the remaining apps. </p>

<p>Guess what? Eight of the nine schools to which he applied accepted him, and the school that gave him the MOST merit aid – just dumped cash on the kid, it was startling – was that first reachy school. He ended up choosing another school, so it was a moot point. But, just goes to show you…</p>

<p>I can answer the question in post 56, since I am the one that posed the idea.
Very simple really. Student asked more than the 2 he needed to do a lor. Of course son thanked, in person, and in writing all those that provided one for their time, effort, and kind words. If we had more than enough, or if one was more tailored to one school over another, we turned in only those we thought the most valuable.</p>

<p>OHMom provides a very funny scenario, but in real life it went nothing like the scenario proposed in post 56.</p>

<p>Adcoms are not English professors. They have to read 30 mindnumbingly similar essays daily. A sentence fragment can be interesting. Quirky. The pros that he gets from waking up the adcom will outweigh the cons from writing in a fragment. The major point of an essay is to let your voice and personality shine through and that can be done in a “fast read” and is at some level entertaining or interesting, rather than crafting some dense essay filled with SAT words to give the appearance of intelligence. With his grades and ACT scores, the adcoms will know that he knows the basic rules of grammar.</p>

<p>At our school teachers expect to mail in the LORs directly. They don’t usually show them to the students and most students feel that they are better off signing the waiver to see the letters.</p>

<p>If the “Clam Fart” kid can get accepted to Yale, I think your DS is probably fine! ;)</p>

<p>OP: Congratulations on letting go. This approach will be very useful in the time to come when they start to disregard a lot of our advice!</p>

<p>Good luck to your son. May the admissions god smile at him ( no disrespect intended to religion – just playful metaphor.)</p>

<p>“Et tu, Brute.” <------ a sentence fragment</p>

<p>Right! It’s the quirkiness that is amusing and gets attention. My son’s essay was funny, ironic and said volumes about who he was as a person and student in exactly the number of characters he was told to use. It broke rules while following the rules. I realized I had to let his voice lead. I had my own chance on my college essay. Glad you are backing off OP!</p>

<p>As for LORs, my son would not have asked more than 2 teachers. These things are work! He waived his right to see them, but the one we did see, because his teacher gave it to him, was absolutely tailored to him in every sentence. This was no form letter, it was all about him and obviously took time, care and effort. This is a public school and teachers don’t get extra pay for writing these things. They do it because they care about the kids. If I thought he needed anything extra in his apps, I would have suggested that he ask for ones from his drama coach or his Scholars Bowl coach as supplemental recs, but I decided that was overkill and kept my mouth shut. My tongue must have been bleeding from the number of times I was biting it.</p>

<p>If there is a rejection, it’s far better if it’s you wondering if he would have been accepted with your version of the essay than him wondering if he would have been accepted with his own version.</p>

<p>Thanks again to all of you! I have really enjoyed reading the comments on this thread. I actually laughed out loud and at times, got a bit teary eyed so thanks for sharing all of your experiences and advice. Letting go is such a relief for me and when my son came home yesterday, I DID give him a big hug and tell him how proud I was and I could see the relief in his face. I think he was waiting to rehash it all again and it was nice to not have to go there. Lesson to anyone else in my position-just LOVE them and support the them. </p>

<p>As for the lor, he actually asked 3 teachers but only one was science/math. One teacher was from 10th grade but is the head of 2 clubs my ds is in and also taught him in an Honors class so some schools said he could use her. She took him to Europe and loves him so we knew she would probably write the best lor and we used hers whenever it was acceptable. </p>

<p>The other teacher STILL has not done hers. It says started but nothing else so she now knows he used the back up lor for his first app. He’ll have to go back and talk to her again because a lot of his schools must have a junior or senior teacher lor. </p>

<p>I didn’t know the teachers could see everything on the common app pertaining to the lor. I didn’t even know they could see all the schools he is applying to so that was a surprise for me. If she ever gets it done, we’ll switch out the first teacher and add her instead. This was a big surprise for me! Since DS asked so early (Aug) I never thought he’d have any problem getting the lor. His class in not that large, under 300 students and only ~1/3 go to privates that require lor. We just assumed that it would not be a big deal for the teachers but another lesson learned! I think the kids have all asked the same teachers so it must be a daunting task to do around 100 lor. I guess that’s what they get for being so well liked and such good teachers-no good deed goes unpunished!</p>

<p>Thanks again! I appreciate all of your posts and the time it took to write them.</p>

<p>Et tu, Brute is not a fragment because of the implied clause (have also done this to me) in the same way commands are not fragments because of their implied subjects.</p>

<p>Oh Fidoprincess! I just saw this thread for the first time! I am so glad you found some relief and everything worked out! </p>

<p>BREATHE!!! LOL</p>

<p>Seriously…have you tried yoga? ;)</p>

<p>I haven’t read the entire thread, but I agree with the respondents on the first two pages. It’s his essay, and he’s good at English, and he clearly wrote the sentence fragment for a reason, and the essay is supposed to show his voice. My son is a mediocre writer, and his essays looked like they were written by a 16 year old, but he got into several top-20 schools.

In particular, my son also wrote another entire essay in the additional info section.</p>

<p>About the teacher’s recommendation, I’d say to submit the application with whatever your son controls, and nag the teacher daily for the recommendation. </p>

<p>Chill. Have your valium (I’d prefer Ben & Jerry’s myself). When he is accepted, celebrate with him. When he is rejected, don’t claim it was because of the essay, because you honestly have no way of knowing that.</p>

<p>Younghoss, that’s an interesting idea but I don’t think it will work in most instances. Our school sends LORs directly with GC and transcript info. Students don’t see it in advance and don’t get to weigh what they want to send.</p>

<p>Have DS keep nagging the teacher and it will get done. The problem was that he asked in August. There are a few types of letter writers. There are the organized ones that will keep it on their to-do list and get it done fairly quickly or have annual times of the year routine when they will get them done, and there are the ones that don’t really get to writing them unless there is a looming, close deadline to give them a kick in the pants (the procrastinating type). The latter breed will forget the deadline if asked in August, but will appreciate the nagging towards the deadline. (I am a proud person in the latter breed). </p>

<p>Additionally, it is an insult to tell someone that they are a backup. LORs take time and effort and if the writer knows that it is as a backup, then they won’t write one or may write a lukewarm one.
Don’t let her know that she is a back-up. If she already knows, then I would tell her that she is off the hook and does not need to write it, or that she is NOT a backup and it will definitely be sent.</p>

<p>It’s good to get a LOR from a teacher that doesn’t have many LORs to write. D got hers from a Spanish teacher.</p>

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<p>This is my favorite of everything I’ve read on these two pages . . . it is so true.</p>

<p>Fidoprincess - I know you, I love you, and it’s time for you to take a step back and let him do this himself. Your job is to support him . . . not change him, and not even push him. Let him nag the teacher if he chooses . . . or not. But let him do it his way. You raised him . . . now you have to trust him.</p>

<p>And, in a year, when I’m going through EXACTLY the same thing, would you do me a favor and send me a PM with a link to this thread? G-d knows I’m going to need it!!!</p>

<p>I don’t get the LOR tailored to the school approach. While off topic, none of my kids saw any of their LORs and that was three kids in two different schools. They were either sent directly or sent along with the GC from the file. Also, I don’t think even the GC ever saw any of our daughter’s applications in full (her essays etc).</p>

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<p>I can certainly see the wisdom in asking for 3. In my S’ case, though, he couldn’t turn in or not turn in LORs, the teachers always had to do that directly. He never even saw his LORs.</p>

<p>College essays aren’t graded English papers. They’re judged based on what they express about the applicant and how effectively they express it. No one will take a red pen to his sentence fragments, but they will look down on an essay that doesn’t sound like your son and has clearly been tampered with by his overbearing parents.</p>

<p>If he changes the essay, the outcomes (especially the rejections) will cease to be his and become yours. You don’t want this responsibility. If the rest of the writing is good, the admissions person will recognize the use of the sentence fragments was intentional. She’s not an English professor. Those guys are home nagging their kids to take the sentence fragments out of their college essays.
I like your son. He sounds smart and confident.</p>