I know we aren’t supposed to post blogs here, but go to The Critical Reader Blog by Erica Meltzer and read her entry for Oct 30th, “The biggest lie in college admissions”
I just read it and wow, lots to process.
To summarize a few of (many!) points:
College essays can be bought even easier than test scores – no matter how much time and money is spent on test prep, the student still has to take the test alone.
Colleges don’t know and maybe don’t want to know how many good essay “fixers” there are out there. These services, like most other advantages in admissions, are available primarily to the wealthy and in-the-know.
There’s no proof that essays add to the admissions goals at selective schools, since alternatives aren’t being tried.