When I was a kid, I was bullied constantly because I used vocabulary words they other kids didn’t understand. They thought I was trying to put on airs. I used to cry to my mom that I would be happy to use the words they other kids knew but I had no idea which ones those were. I’m sure I used a host of fancy words in my college essay.
The other issue is that so many kids are crafting and polishing their essays as part of class assignments. After all the rewrites and attempts to conform to the teacher’s expectations, how much of the kids’ writing is really left?
I like the idea of having a scored essay that can only be drafted during a testing environment, under pressure. If you rely on graded HS papers, who knows if the kid even wrote it by his or her self? You can’t “fake” a written and graded essay in a test environment. There is way too much grade inflation in HS and this is one way to see if that student can really write well and be persuasive; skills that are important in both college and the real world.
While I understand the quandary that college admission officers face regarding the authenticity of college essays, the author’s example of “Mikey” uses facts and circumstances that do not exist for a college admissions officer. In this example, personal knowledge of “Mikey” was used to determine if the word usage in an essay made sense. That’s what intelligent people do, leverage what they know to determine if what they don’t know makes sense.
Using that same argument for college essays, however, falls apart with even a small amount of scrutiny. The college admissions officer reads literary hundreds of essays within a short time frame. Each essay is read without personal knowledge of the who the writer is nor how long the writer obsessed over the essay. An essay where the writer spent 1-hour polishing versus 50-hours polishing would read very differently, and yet they would have been penned by the same author.
Can college admissions officers accurately identify how much help a parent or other adult provided? The answer is perhaps but there is no feedback loop. How would a college admissions officer ever know if they are wrongly identifying those who received little to no help while passing on those whose essay was essentially written by someone else? According to the article, these omnipotent gatekeepers easy identify “incriminating fingerprints” that cloud a student’s authentic voice.
Alternatively, I view this as a self-congratulatory viewpoint in that any assertion can be considered to be correct. You identify the essay as being written by the student - correct. You identify the essay as being written by someone else - correct. As you’ve never been proven wrong, you must, therefore, always be correct? Hardly!
@“one+two” You don’t need to worry about your kid being rejected for having a large or quirky vocabulary as long as his voice is consistent. I know what you mean about an old soul. My daughter is the same way. Words like “heretofore,” and “alas” made it into her essays and she made it into college!
My D, who was homeschooled from 7 yrs old until going to college at 16, always has vocabulary and writing style of people much more mature than she really is. The main reason is that she took many classes from Stanford EPGY, and learned from the instructors (we parents are immigrants to the US), most of them PhD students or PhD degree holders. Even the way she talks is very formal and elaborated.
In her AP English Language and Composition on-line class, the instructor commented on one of her essays, “I could not believe that this essay was written by an 18 year-old. I thought the writer must have been much more older.” To that, she replied, “Sir, I’m not 18 years old. I will be 13 this October.”
I don’t think there are simple ways to tell who actually wrote the essay.
Note the irony. A pro college essay counselor telling us what’s wrong with too much adult involvement. Ugh. It’s sort of self marketing.
It’s possible for adults to write convincingly ike 17 year olds. But RARE. Of course kids use words like henceforth. The editing you need is to find the right topic and keep it relevant for a college app essay. It’s not a hs essay.
Really, one space or two after the period? I certainly hope no AO is as shallow as that. This helicopter parent beat the 2 space rule into their kid by 3rd grade.
I think it’s much harder to tell age of writer in an academic essay than a personal essay with gifted writers. If you are writing your common app essay like an academic essay rather than a personal narrative that reveals something about yourself, you probably won’t win any awards in the admissions offices regardless of your vocabulary. But at the end of the day if your stats and grades are good, that’s going to weigh heavier.
I do agree many students and some hovering parents probably overthink the essay. I also think the notion of a consultant likely charging $$$$ criticizing over zealous parents is a bit amusing. Though I assume this was a kid he communicated with regularly and knew this didn’t sound like his voice. It’s hard to fake an authentic voice. I don’t doubt there are parents like that out there but I don’t think I know any personally and I’m certainly not. At this point I’m like I don’t care what you write kid, just get something to paper and push go on the thing already.
@socaldad2002 so did the College Board for a few years when they insisted that a writing section be added to the SAT. Trouble was…The colleges did not see it that way, and most didn’t bother with that score…never mind that it made the SAT test longer to take.
It’s because colleges think requiring the writing section will reduce the number of applications they receive vs their peers, not because they think it isn’t useful.
Not true. College applications increased over those years that the SAT written section was administered. The students had NO CHOICE…it was part of the SAT test. A third section.
BUT colleges didn’t use it in their admissions decisions. They used the CR and Math only…so the College Board no longer requires that written part…back to a two part SAT.
I wasn’t talking about the absolute number of applications, but the RELATIVE number with respect to peers. When the written section was mandatory, of course it would have no effect on the number of applications. However, when it became optional, colleges that require it would be at a disadvantage in terms of the number of applications they’d receive vs their peers that don’t require it (unless they belong to the small group of hyper selective elites).
When I read drafts of my kids’ college essays, I made it a point to keep THEIR voice, even if I corrected typos or infelicitous phrasing. Their essays were authentic. That said, my son had a very sophisticated vocabulary because as a debater he read a lot of sophisticated literature.
My D is a better – and more creative – writer than either DH or I. We all have edited each other’s work, and all have learned from one another.
D wrote all of her application and scholarship essays; we edited and occasionally opined. Her English teacher also proofread and made a couple of suggestions that were spot on.
“henceforth” sounds a lot more like a word a kid who’s trying to sound like s/he belongs at an Ivy League school would use than like a word a parent who’s trying to sound like a 17 year old kid would use.
Our kids never let us read nor edit their work. It made life simpler for them and us. They both are good writers—Scis very concise and D is much more descriptive.
I do recall D’s great indignation when she was accused by a middle school teacher of plagiarizing (early in the term). She has always been a voracious reader and has a matching extensive vocabulary.
The teacher quickly came to realize D has a vocabulary and advanced construction the teacher didn’t expect for kids that young but came to understand that’s how D expresses herself, orally and in writing.
“will reduce the number of applications they receive vs their peers”. No, it’s because the writing section was new and imperfect, not a good measure of writing. Nor was it as personal as the Personal Statement is meant to be. They watched it for a few years, gave it less weight, before some decided to ignore it.
These standardized tests aren’t perfect miracles, just because they exist. And the process isn’t all about the mean colleges doing what they can to thwart a kid. You can’t blame everything on them.
Besides, how do you claim it reduces apps and still want to see it relied on, without knowing more?
