I did a terrible mistake of letting my parents ask my former tutor to write college essays for me.
I already submitted one written by him to a commonapp university.
Now he’s asking for money to my parents, saying he’s gonna let not just the school i applied for early action but also all the other schools that my essay is written by him.
Do you guys think that there’s anyway I can get out of this…? Even if I withdraw from the school i already applied, if he goes on to notify the college, would other colleges also know?
I shouldn’t have let this happen. please give me some advice guys…
not really but he does know most of them, and i guess he might just notify the schools that i might apply to… cuz the range of schools i will be apply for is quite narrow
Look if your parents had the $ to pay for the cheating, then they should have the $ to pay the blackmail. Pay it and move on. Try and negotiate a lower payment. If he reports you to the common app, it could pollute everyplace you apply electronically. Find a school that you can apply directly and bypass the commonapp if you want to call his bluff
plus, there’s no guarantee he’ll stop this one time. 2 years from now, when he wants a new car, he’ll come calling again… 5 years. 15 years… You might want to consult an attorney.
I think you have to cut your losses. Either apply to a new set of schools with your own essays or take a gap year and apply next year with a new application and all new essays.
I agree that if you pay him now, you’ll be paying for the rest of your life.
I hope this shows you that this was a big mistake and that cheating is never a good choice.
So if he writes them all, and they take it seriously, how can he prove it really? Did your parents write him a check? I'm not usually one to advocate not taking responsibility for mistakes, but I also don't like the idea of a slime ball black mailing people either.
Would you consider contacting, say your first choice school, or your safety or whatever, and admitting this and offering to submit your own essay and basically put yourself at their mercy and ask for a second chance? Are your other stats and recs good?
Along that line, is there someone who might write a letter for you stating that you made a mistake but that this is not indicative of your character and basically vouch for you?
I don’t think you can ‘get out’ of it. You’ll have to prepare for the worst, face it and hope for the best. I would not pay that person and in fact if he is a tutor I would report him, go on social media and put him, whatever. Yes, you all made a huge error but he could’ve said no to writing the essay and he would’ve if he had integrity.
Ask your parents to have an attorney draft a contract of services with this tutor. On the contract stipulate the services that he performed and suggest all that he did was EDIT your essay and have him agree to the contract saying the essay is all your original work. Then agree on a price and pay it. In the future you will have a contract stipulating what services he performed and that is that, he cannot threaten you after that. Of course this means you have to pay him the extortion money.