Should parents help with college essays

Me back to all counselors answered:Is it okay for parents to help edit their child's college essay? In this ant dean of sity of it okay for parents to help edit their child's college essay? Is my video response to the parents -- you all know the difference between fixing typographical errors and making massive substantive changes to your child's essay, right? Be really disciplined about not crossing the line between "good help" and "too much help. Remember -- the admissions officers read thousands of essays every admissions season, and they can spot an overly polished essay a mile away. Yes -- it's fine to take a quick read to look for spelling errors, but it's not fine to write your child's essay for him or it okay for parents to help edit their child's college essay? Parents, with only the best intentions, will often offer lots of input and comments, which their child will gratefully accept. There is a certain "voice" that defines a young person about to start college and if it is lacking in an essay, admissions directors will quickly pick it up. But resist the urge to rewrite everything in the way you might express o'brien ional advisory preference (and admissions officers') would be that parents are minimally involved in the essay.

Believe me, those admissions officers are experienced and they can definitely spot the difference between a 50 year-old businessperson's phraseology and a 17-year-old senior's own voice and manner of prep & college to proofread not than any other element of the application, the essay gives insight into who a student really is. So it should “sound” like the applicant, revealing personality, interests, quirks, personal style, and voice. Some parents can act as a sounding board without taking over the project, while others cannot. It is okay for parents to suggest topics, point out unique experiences or strengths, and help proofread the final product, but parents want to make sure the essay showcases the ideas and voice of an educated teenager rather than that of a middle-aged collegiate s and the it is okay to have a parent proof an essay, they are not always the best option. While parents mean well, any constructive feedback may be misinterpreted, creating conflict at what can already be a stressful time. Teachers, guidance counselors, even friends are viable candidates when looking for a second opinion on your e & career town high it okay for parents to help edit their child's college essay? Parents may know other details about the student that they should include in the essay. I would still suggest that a english professional still read over the essay for expert editing r, parents should not try to change the voice of the student, which can be difficult to refrain from. The essay needs to be a reflection of the student's creativity, writing ability and personality; not the ndent educational college depends upon how you define "help" !

Have seen too many essays where parents "helped" and as result, the essay lost the student's voice. College admissions readers are bright and intuitive and can tell when an essay has been "helped" too much. I see no problem with parents doing a grammar/spelling check as well as offering suggestions on how an essay could be improved. However, some parents are able to understand that over-editing essays is not a good thing. Everything should be spelled correctly, with correct grammar and punctuation, but the essay should sound like a high school student wrote it. Most of the time i see that parents get into an essay and take away the student voice... Colleges get suspicious when they receive an essay that sounds like a phd wrote counselors 's ok but it's not the best ts may ask their parents for editing the essay, however, they better off asking their english teacher for such task. Of course, some parents are in the position to do a good job, in many cases, they are not suitable for the we made it official and moved in together! Addition to scholarships, you now have access to colleges, internships, careers, and a whole lot more — all with your same login.

You're now part of the most extensive college network on the planet, with incredible resources to help you at every step of your have good news(and we have bad news). The dean expert s to questions about the admissions process, financial aid, and college search by college confidential's resident dean! Read & learn   >   ask the dean   >   posts   >   can colleges tell when students don’t write their own essays? Although i browse college confidential, i have not much glanced at the essays section until yesterday, and a question pops up: to what extent are colleges aware that applicants receive so much essay writing help, editing, revising, etc? What do they do if they find out that the college admissions consultant wrote the essay? College folks claim that they can usually sniff out essays that are not the student’s original work. Of course it’s true sometimes … particularly now that a growing number of admission officials are requesting the writing-sample portion of the sat or act so that they can compare work that was done in proctored conditions with that done at home–and which may have passed through many drafts (and many hands) before college staff, guidance counselors, and teachers there are two camps. The first includes those who say, “admission officials should use only the essays that are produced in proctored sessions to be sure that the applicants themselves are the authors. The other camp, however, maintains that even the best writers deserve a chance to edit and revise and that a short and pressured test administration does not produce the sort of writing sample–or revealing information about the applicant–that the traditional college essay is designed to ally, while i can see where each argument has its merits, i land in the first contingent.

There is not only rampant “cheating” out there–with students paying ringers to compose their essays (or to whitewash their fledgling efforts beyond recognition), but also there is way too much gray area when it comes to what is ethical and what is instance, i read acceptance, by dave marcus (a book i highly recommend. It shadows one outstanding guidance counselor in long island and shows us what the guidance gold standard should be for all our kids. The seniors at oyster bay high school, who were profiled in the marcus book, took a fall-term elective class called “essay writing for college,” which was co-taught by the head of guidance and the ap english teacher. Even if the instructors did not write a single word of the student prose, certainly the advice they provided, their attention to detail, and the time allotted to the task gave oyster bay students a huge edge over their counterparts elsewhere who didn’t have access to comparable rly, many high schools that do not offer a dedicated class like the one at oyster bay nonetheless include college essay-writing as part of the english curriculum. College officials will rarely know if an essay has had the benefit of an english teacher’s intervention nor how extensive this intervention might have ally, i have seen hundreds of essays that i am certain are not the student’s original work … even some pretty lousy essays that reflect their too-many-cooks construction. I’ve also seen some wonderful essays that i’m sure had no adult intrusion and yet might still trip the sensitive seismographs of suspicious admissions gh application forms commonly require students to supply a signature that attests to the originality of all materials, it’s not really clear where one draws the line. I have reviewed countless essays myself over several decades, and yet i continue to struggle to find that fine line between “editing” and “altering. I ruled the world, entire college applications would be done under proctored conditions in a single saturday-morning session, much as the sat’s and act’s are conducted now. But in my application utopia, these questions would vary from year to year to help guard against professional tampering.

Back to your initial question: most college admission officials claim that they are aware that essay doctoring is out there, but i think they often repudiate just how rampant it is. They fail to take appropriate steps to safeguard against it, and they also fail to set consistent guidelines to define what sort of help is permissible and what isn’t. For instance, an independent counselor friend of mine recently told me that a current client is irate because she refuses to write his essays. The parents claim that the other private counselors in their purview always author the essays. The vast majority of cases, college officials can only guess that a personal statement is not original. Then he turned the computer screen from my prying eyes and tackled the task without , my son got the job anyway, but i realized that afternoon that i might have to steel myself for the day when he sends in all his college essays while i–despite my eons of expertise–get nary a peek. But, even so, i have to hope that–for him and for all others like him who know in their hearts what is really their own–the loss of admissions advantage will be supplanted by a lifetime of good karma a question about college search, the admission process, or financial aid? I wanted them to understand that the process of learning to express themselves in clear, concise and lively prose could be an exercise in emotional archeology, an intellectual then there were the , some of my best friends are parents. But i’m not sure it’s always the right thing for the i do college counseling (which i do now mostly for the siblings of students i’ve already worked with), i see the dangerous good intentions these teenagers are up student kept writing the same bad essay.

This time he didn’t let his dad touch s who have raised good kids should trust them. Parents who haven’t had the benefit of reading thousands of essays don’t know the clichés of the genre and steer children away from anything that might be “risky,” though essays that deal with hard stuff — sex, drugs, religion, family strife — are often the most affecting. Can understand how difficult it is for parents not to be able to advise their children. Toor is an assistant professor of creative writing at eastern washington university and the author of “admissions confidential: an insider’s account of the elite college selection process. Please use the comment box below to let us “tip sheet,” the choice periodically posts short items by admissions officers, guidance counselors and others that might help applicants and their families better understand aspects of the admissions process. Click here for an archive of essays in this ts are no longer being sting. Of valedictorians and kids with perfect sat scores, it’s extracurricular activities and the personal statement that will separate the acceptances from the pretentious idea behind the college essay (and the entire application process) is that admissions officers will “get to know you as a whole person” instead of the simpler task of assessing whether you can do the academic work. Hey if your father is a great writer along the lines of james joyce or james michener, they are always intrigued by writing in specific restricted formats like a college entry essay. College essay is a pedestrian thing that will be read by less than a dozen people and discarded in a shredder.

I could tell just by reading it that it had been thoroughly masticated by her parents prior to my ever having seen it. Why would i sully the process of college admissions gauging my son’s abilities and true soul, by inserting myself into it, you ask? It was the dramatic change in tone that surprised e there are so many services–indeed, an entire pre-college industry–that “help” students with the essay, it’s hard to believe that any seasoned admissions officer can take them at face value. The reason why so many parents write their kids essays is that they cannot get their kids to write the darned oldest, who is presently an editor of a financial publication, and who spent his years at college working up to editor-in-chief of his school paper, absolutely wouldn’t write his college essays. The only reason they were ever written is that the guy who was coaching him on choosing a school came in one day, saw that nothing had been done, packed his bags and said to my son, “i’m not going to take money from your parents for doing nothing. The very next week all the essays were ive delay in writing the essays is the reason why parents do their kids essays, not a desire to be creative. They just want to get to sleep at night knowing that their kid has finished his importantly, don’t let the parents fill out the roommate selection let me get this straight…. She confesses to encouraging kids to apply who have little chance of getting in, presumably to collect the fee, and then berates the parents for being dishonest? I thought, “well hell might as well give ’em what they want” so frustrated with the admissions process i went home and wrote a poem about who i i then used as one of my college councilor (again, boarding school)said it was one of the best things she’d read in years.

Parent’s of kids applying to college are like mother’s of the bride…they just kind of go temporarily insane until the acceptance letters come it clean, write about your passion and have fun with ’s also a book about 100 great harvard essays that i found hilarious and extremely there a difference between actually writing the essay for your child and editing/proofreading it? There were some typos and grammatical errors – i corrected those and made suggestions for improvement in some places – some of which he incorporated and some he that, we parents keep getting mixed messages about what is important and what is not in an application: test scores matter and do not matter; gpa matters and does not matter; extracurricular activities are important and not important and now essays are carefully read and discarded after a cursory the end, after reading several columns in this blog, i get the feeling that either the process is arbitrary to the point of being ridiculous or there is some secret formula that no admissions officer is willing to reveal to the general is one major issue about going on just scores – especially gpa. I was fortunate enough to go to a college prep high school and worked along people who were clearly very bright. In college when discussing amongst friends our backgrounds, i learned that many took ap classes with the subsequent boost in gpa that affords without sometimes taking the tests or doing very poorly on them. By demonstrating that i could write clearly, insightfully, and with the occasional dose of wit, i managed to get into some top colleges (barnard, university of chicago,etc. But “don’t cheat – you’re much worse at it than you think” is probably a more convincing parents were immigrants, so they deferred to me for the essay on more practical grounds for themselves, as well: they weren’t familiar with the college application process in this country. Think this applies generally to most parents – it seems like standards for college admissions change pretty often. If that’s the case, chances are kids know what they’re doing better than their parents do, by default. Usually parents at least put the essay in their kid’s hands on its way to was difficult to convince mom that the admissions process was about finding a school that was a good fit for her son, as opposed to easing her own y, her son was precocious enough to insist that he be allowed to write his own ’s reassuring to know that this is one area where parents are likely to be their children’s own worst enemy, at least most of the time.

When i read my daughter’s essays, i did point out little grammar, spelling or punctuation mistakes, but suggesting any real change was absolutely off limits, her orders. Of the happiest of my peers, i would say most have found their niche with very little guidance from their parents. Give them opportunities but let them do as they a college instructor, i’d have to say being able to write an essay is extremely important. Whether it’s research or an opinion paper it still requires that g quiet about a daughter’s college choices. Father’s acceptance: his son won’t be following his ivy choice blog’s times has discontinued the choice blog, which was created in 2009 to help students demystify college admissions and financial  more…. Summer reading suggestions from college admission ion deans and college counselors suggest summertime reads for college-bound students, their parents and anyone who enjoys reading for  more…. Sheet: determining college fit and cordes larson, the president of bentley university, suggests questions that prospective students might ask to determine if they have found a college that is worth the  more…. Things graduating seniors should know about authors share advice for incoming college freshmen, including what is expected of college papers and when a student should declare a  more…. Nytimescollege on i worked in admissions at duke, i said a lot of things on the recruiting trail that weren’t exactly genuine: “your combined sat scores are in triple digits?

Nytimescollege on here to turn on desktop notifications to get the news sent straight to seven years as a professional application-essay coach, i've come across countless parents who, while genuinely wanting the best for their sons and daughters, hit one pitfall after another around the all-important college-application essays. To move smoothly through this tricky territory, become familiar with the 5 biggest traps for parents to sidestep during college-essay season:Counsel your daughter on her application essays. And yet, even under those circumstances, you're just about the last person who should help her with the personal statement and supplementary essays. Pitfall prevention: take a step back, and you'll not only give your daughter a tremendous sense of empowerment but also avoid potential strain in your relationship with your son to spend most of his college-prep time on training for standardized tests. His personal statement and supplementary essays are the most effective way for him to stand out from the crowd -- to highlight his best stories, forge a powerful emotional bond with the admissions committees, and move the needle in his favor. Pitfall prevention: have a conversation with your son -- preferably early in the college-prep process and definitely in a relaxed tone -- to ensure he appreciates the role the application essays play in determining admissions decisions. This way, he can apportion his efforts e that the whole point of the application essays is to get your daughter into her favorite schools. Your daughter's application essays, if excellent, will certainly be her greatest ticket to admissions success. This exercise in self-exploration will make her more mature and far better equipped to maximize her opportunities in age your son to spend a lot of time on the personal statement and virtually no time on the supplementary essays.

And yet the supplementary essays (written responses to most individual colleges' additional prompts) are just as important! Admissions committees hate coming across an application with a good personal statement and sloppy supplementary essays (or worse -- essays written in answer to other colleges' similar questions). Inspire your son to invest as much energy in thoughtfully writing the supplementary essays -- and even the short answers to prompts about, say, notable activities or impactful books -- as he does in crafting his personal help from your daughter's english teacher or your cousin-the-writer. Everything from brainstorming and identifying good ideas, to developing and drafting well-structured text, to paring essays down to fit the word limits can be extremely challenging, even for the most talented teenage writers. When it comes to the college-application essays, many parents believe they're stepping forward onto firm ground, only to discover that they've landed themselves -- and their son or daughter -- in quicksand.