“and when i read his essays they seemed very “processed” they did not reflect the spark of his own personality. Is this a common issue when a consultant is involved ?”
It’s a common issue with essays, period. Most kids struggle to get their voices across. There are a lot of ways to end up with a dry finished product: it’s possible that the consultant helped a lot and that the final version reflected huge improvement over the first draft; it’s possible that what you read was the best the student could do at this stage of his life; it’s possible that the consultant gave bad advice.
AdComs are usually really good at ferreting out essays that have not been written by 17 year olds. This has nothing to do with grammar or syntax. Like you mentioned, it has to do with the real kid coming through.
This is where the interview can be helpful for it allows the AdComs to get a real sense of the applicant (usually). I always ask about ECs - and sit back and see how the student reacts. I don’t care what the EC is (it can be basket weaving), what I am looking for is real enthusiasm. Even the quietest kid will usually light up when they are talking about something that interests them. I also often ask them to tell me something about themselves that they were unable to put in their application.
“AdComs are usually really good at ferreting out essays that have not been written by 17 year olds. This has nothing to do with grammar or syntax. Like you mentioned, it has to do with the real kid coming through.”
They think they are, but good consultants are focused on the issue of bringing the candidates voice through clearly and in a meaningful way. The facts are that, like anything else, there is a wide range of quality to these consultants. Some are hugely helpful and some are just awful. The better they understand what Adcoms will find meaningful and the better they can write themselves, the more helpful they can be. A parent can do this too, but again, it comes down to what the parent knows.
It is going to be interesting for next year’s juniors when it comes to which test to take, ACT or the new SAT. The new SAT is going to go live next spring. If a junior were to take the SAT in fall and want to retake in spring, he/she would need to study for the new SAT without any prior tests. The consultant we worked with is going to advise all of their students to take ACT next year. He is going to spend over 1 mill to come up with a new curriculum for the new SAT.
“Like you mentioned, it has to do with the real kid coming through.”
Don’t assume that 17-year-olds are any good at letting the real kid come through. If you read dozens or hundreds of kids’ first drafts, the biggest problem you see over and over is the kid putting up a front. They often need help taking off layers of froufrou. Good help will make it sound more real, not less.
Essays are tough, anyway. My son agonized over the Why Here? essays the most, because even when he knew why he wanted to attend, he found it really difficult to express it without sounding sycophantic (SAT word! but those are natural to him) or just too drab. He does a lot of writing (I think it’s wrong to say he loves writing, because writing is such hard work), and he was very perfectionist about the essays and about getting the voice right. I think several of his essays (I think the Williams one in particular) were off; he just couldn’t find an approach to the prompt that worked for him. OTOH, the Pomona one just set him off, and his essay was truly excellent, I think.
The trouble with this is that I think he would do just as well at Williams as at Pomona, and if the adcoms are really taking the essays into account, he won’t get into Williams (never mind that Williams is a huge reach; if he doesn’t get in, I’ll be blaming the essay. If he gets into Pomona, I’ll certainly credit the essay. I may well be wrong about both). Perhaps, had we hired a consultant, she might have helped him tailor his essays to the school better, or at least to finish them sooner so they could be polished more.
I just read Early Decision, a novel about a college consultant by a woman named Lacy Crawford, who supposedly worked as a high-end college consultant for 15 years. It’s not exactly great literature, but it’s a pretty good book about writing college application essays, with a little plot and character – some hackneyed, some not – salted in between. It presents the college consultant as a sort of prose therapist, coaching kids to work through their issues with their parents and their own self-esteem through writing Common App essays and diverse short answers. And also functioning as a sort of lubrication between parents and children, keeping the pressure down, avoiding conflict, and adjusting expectations. Not always successfully, by the way. One of the themes of the book is that in the end the parents are much more important than the counselor; not only to they get their way, but they get children who think like they do even if that isn’t in the kids’ best interests.
Just mentioning: many kids, after a few years of the hs ‘hypothesis statement’ wringer, miss that the app essays can be far more casual. I’m sorry they took out the challenge prompt because it lends itself to telling a tale.
Interestingly enough, I think that “Why here” essays are, on the one hand, are answers to one of the dumbest prompts possible, and, on the other hand, the simplest to write effectively. For the record, it should be a cinch to create and edit one in less than one hour for any candidate and sound absolutely “on the mark” to the readers. The key is simple as it boils down to identify a couple of specialties of the college and link it to one strong interest of the student. The beauty is that it does NOT have be true – but is obviously better if true!
As usual, the biggest problem with essays is that applicants overthink the entire process and spend their wheels trying to write THAT amazing essay. The reality is that it is much simpler to start with a simplistic essay that does not sound like a Nobel prize acceptance speech or a WH one. From there, a series of mild revisions (over an extended period of time) and powerful spellchecking (and grammar) in the end is all that is needed. The next step is to share the essay with a couple of adults (and preferably NOBODY from the high school, and especially NOT the English teachers) and … disregard any comment beyond the occasional typo or word they happen to not understand.
All in all, the essays are not hard and offer the very best tool to show angles that nobody but the writer could relate. Little slices of life work great and there is no need for deep introspection. KISS and keep it lively are good mottos. However, nothing beats starting waaaaay early with several simple drafts in thinking about the drafts during “wasted” time. When the time comes to fill the applications, all those drafts can be patched together in a compelling way and dropped into a multitude of applications. Again, most people overthink the process massively.
My son found a great formula for the “Why here” essays. He started off with all the reasons he thought the college would be wrong for him and then refuted those reasons one by one. (Chicago is on a coast, just not the Atlantic or Pacific, for example.) I know someone at Chicago thought it was funny because they mentioned it in their holiday card to him.
Dumb question here, but one I’ve always wondered about: Are students expected to disclose to a college if they’ve paid a private contractor to review their application and provide serious coaching?
I didn’t get involved with the minutiae of my son’s applications, so I don’t know if they ask applicants that question outright. And I know adcoms pride themselves on being able to tell when a student has been overly “packaged,” but if they don’t ask, how are they to really know? Do they just assume anyone in a certain zip code or applying from a pricey private prep school has paid an outside counselor if the application is a standout?
I mean I have no issue with someone paying for extra, and expert, advice, but I feel like intense coaching along the lines of what’s described in the link below, should be disclosed:
If students from privileged backgrounds attending competitive high schools are judged according to the standards of those schools because of a built-in “advantage,” shouldn’t someone who hires a private and well-connected coach be evaluated within that context as well?
Along the same lines, it would be unfortunate if the college assumed, based on your zip code, that your kid has received substantial test prep, and discounted his SAT scores accordingly, automatically. I know, because my nephews went to school in Scarsdale, that prep is practically universal there, but here it really isn’t, despite this town’s being a relatively wealthy one. The amount of test prep, after all, isn’t disclosed on the school profile.
Do athletes disclose they have private coach? Are they judged differently than someone who is a “free range”? I hire an accountant to do my taxes, but I pay the same whether I do it myself or have someone do it for me.
Under privileged students are viewed differently. They are read in the context within their school/state/region. If adcoms could truly tell a student is packaged, the student maybe read differently. I guess the trick is to make sure adcoms couldn’t tell.
I don’t think adcoms “assume” much. It’s true there can be commonalities in a zip- eg, poor demographics or an abundance of wealthy. But each app is its own. The rich kid in the poor area isn’t assumed to be poor and fist gen. I also think adcoms are aware many many kids get help- but there are still many things that affect the whole opinion. (Remember, a growing number of poor kids are getting some savvy help from various programs.)
Xiggi is right abut a nice, relaxed essay that hots the mark. I think a great essay starts with the core idea. I sometimes suggest they write a if recounting to a trusted adult (not teacher) who wants to hear the tale, wants to see what you got from the experience or how you evolved, but doesn’t need the fluff or elf-consciousness.
I don’t really find those things analogous, though.
Athletes are recruited for their skill sets, so if a kid can launch a football 50 yards effortlessly and accurately, the fact that he needed to hire a $3,500-a-week “Quarterback Engineer” to help him develop to that point doesn’t change the fact he can throw that football. Similarly, if a gifted writer spends money to improve her skills and then can independently write an inspired essay, more power to her. [Also, the football player no doubt will cite his having attended the Manning Passing Academy (or whatever) and the aspiring writer, likewise, will tout her summer spent at the Sewanee Young Writer’s Conference in their college applications. That’s quite different than submitting a video that suggests that a pass launched by Peyton Manning (that you could sort of imitate at another time) was actually thrown by you.]
But if you’re literally paying someone to come up with the subject of an essay and then to work with you to rewrite it until it displays some kind of “authentic” voice, then you’re utilizing the services of a professional ghostwriter. For the student to present that finished essay without giving proper attribution to the co-writer while pursuing admission into an institution where failing to give proper attribution can result in accusations of plagiarism, well, that’s where I have an issue. (And by not asking for disclosure up front, are adcoms sending a mixed message?)
Similarly, if you take a “service trip” overseas to volunteer for some charity and then make a movie about it, which you also use as a fundraising vehicle for said charity solely to help you get into an elite college because some very shrewd paid consultant suggested it, then the adcom should take that into account when judging whether or not you’re more desirable than the kid who just volunteered to, I dunno, help foks OR the kid who attended the school where it is well-known that “volunteerism” is required and packaged to impress elite colleges.
It is an impressive story, and I’m assuming the funds raised from showing the film really did benefit the rehab center, but all of it, IMHO, was highly staged and motivated mainly by this kid’s desire to get into an Ivy. That doesn’t make him a bad person or his expensive investment in the “Ivy Coach” dishonest, but it does seem like the kind of thing an adcom should inquire about and consider when weighing his credentials against kids who just do good things because they think it’s important and don’t expect to use their good works as a ticket to admission into an elite school.
And what about using a paid consultant’s connections to land that vital research gig that ultimately leads the applicant to the Holy Grail, a Harvard acceptance letter?
That’s another one that, IMHO, should require some disclosure. If adcoms are going to assume (and factor in) that one kid used his parent’s (obvious) professional connections (e.g., Dad is an M.D. at CHOP and the kid lands a position in the lab of a CHOP researcher), they should also be aware that “Kim” above paid someone to make those connections on her behalf. Again, I find nothing particularly untoward in either case except allowing it to appear that the student did this all on her own without any help.
The first case in that Ivy Coach example is one that seems like a very prudent investment to me, helping a student target the RIGHT schools, given his personal and academic profile.
It is an unfortunate part of the current process that nothing in essays is fact checked, there is no way to know who wrote the essays or how much help was involved, and few of the other items on the application are fact checked. Colleges don’t know who really wrote any of them or whether any of what they write is really true. Other than the transcript the test scores, and the reference letters, Adcoms don’t know much for sure.
I realize that, @Much2learn, but the colleges could ask anyway, couldn’t they? I mean they ask all KINDS of stuff. It would be up to the applicant whether or to disclose that information honestly.
Life (including college admissions) is unfair and it’s impossible to completely equalize the playing field. I think we have to trust adcoms to be able to detect when someone has been “packaged.” In the example above, the adcoms had to realize that Deepak (the kid who made the Mumbai documentary) had lots of resources and help doing that. But they were presumably impressed nonetheless. But there is no end to the ways that some applicants have advantages over others.
For example, my kid is heavily involved in speech and debate, but she goes to a public high school where the team just has a faculty advisor and no professional coaches. The kids have to teach and mentor each other. She and her teammates have to compete against lots of schools (especially private schools) with great resources including a large professional coaching staff. It gets even worse if you make it to the national circuit where competition is dominated by kids from expensive private prep schools or a few publics with large well funded programs. Not to mention the network of national coaching/judging connections. You walk into the room for your round and the other team is obviously big buddies with the judges whom they know from all their connections. The kids from low resource schools have to work twice as hard and the outcome isn’t always fair. I’m sure there are a million examples of this. If you started requiring disclosure of your “advantages” where does it stop?
