Timing is everything; reading Patrick Rothfuss during college apps motivated my already “word nerd” kiddo to make every word relevant. A sentence that supported “henceforth” would have been an absolute windfall.
The writing section is certainly imperfect and NO ONE is arguing that it could be a replacement for the Personal Statement. The argument is whether it would be a more reliable tool to check whether the kid wrote his/her own essays (than simply checking vocabulary).
Again, NO ONE is arguing with that…
What does app reduction have to do with reliability? I don’t see the logic here.
I would be much happier about the essay portion of the standardized tests if they were used by the colleges as a writing sample. However, I have no faith in the ability of an army of graders to assign them a value.
@kokotg said “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.
Exactly. If I read this essay I would assume that the kid wrote it himself without any help, including editing/proofreading.
My kid is a Shakespeare nerd, he uses henceforth and forsooth in daily conversation. Having words like that in his essay is a sign that he wrote them.
Although I did have to go in and force him to take out a sentence that said “(place name) holds a special aorta in my heart”. Um, honey, that’s not how the word is used.
I think there is a lot more “helping” going on than is admitted. I remember some years back that someone admitted that they had sent back “gazillions” of edits for a client’s college application essay. “Gazillions”?
I also think that adcoms don’t have any way of reliably figuring out if the applicant had (inappropriate) help or not with their essay.
It does bug me when posters edit for a kid in a thread or claim to do so in PMs. Often, not sense of what it should be, just an idea of better writing, in general.
One key to help on the essay is whether the other questions are answered with the same level of writing skill. For kids heavily dependent on help with the PS, it can show.
These poor kids are in a very difficult position. For those kids who are naturally gifted writers with an interesting story to tell, its no problem. But for many, writing is not their strength. But they are being told that they need to write something engaging, interesting, and thoughtful. Something “real” but that grabs the attention of bored AOs. Something touching, but not too dramatic. And, it should also tell something about their interests, what they will contribute to the campus, why they love their major, how they overcame adversity. It should be humble but it should display all their strengths. They are told that the essay is the only thing they have direct control over. They are told stories of kids being accepted on the strength of great essays. They read posts here on CC that tell students who are disappointed in their admissions result that poor essays may have been the problem.
I could go on and on forever. It is no wonder that kids are having panic attacks and parents are shelling out money for dubious services.
I am absolutely dreading the essay with my S21. He’s detested personal narratives since he was in elementary school. He doesn’t TALK about himself, let alone write about himself. I may start searching now schools which don’t heavily weight the essay.
@Darcy123 I can see a topic here, “How I overcame my fear of personal narratives” 
@gallentjill Hear, hear!
This was exactly the way my D was (and is). She is a very good writer, except when it is about herself.
Don’t despair and don’t just focus on “schools which don’t heavily weight the essay.” For personal essays, my D wrote about her curiosity and her passion with research, which made it a bit easier for her. She ended up at a school that (I think) heavily weighed the essay: UC Berkeley.
For my S19, everything is black and white when it comes to a personal narrative. Give him something creative and he will eat it up. The common app essay has been a challenge for him and he scored a 36 on English and 34 on reading on the ACT so its just not his thing.
My kiddo used big words when he was younger. In preschool, he once saw a buddy walk in the door and said “oh, you’ve arrived!” At eight, his favorite word was “farfetched.” At nine, he got into a fight with a classmate. Asked why he hit the other boy he replied “he merited it.”
His fun with language became a bit of a family joke and he watched it in his written work. But unchecked, he’d be the type to use “henceforth” and he’d be grinning as he typed it.
I read a lot of essays here and I can’t necessarily tell when a parent writes it but I can tell when a consultant/agency did it…and if I can tell, 100% an admissions counselor would know.
@SouthernHope do you see a lot of consultant/agency-written essays here? Students (parents?) are sharing them with you, and admit to such? What makes them stand out?
@CTTC one of the biggest ways is comparing the language of how the kid first contacts me compared to what his or her essay sounds like…I’ll generally ask several questions (via the PM box here) to better understand the prompt and why they chose it and you can really get a sense of the cadence of the kid (and i’m sure admins can pick up a similar tone difference when they read a entire application).
The next clue is that these agency essays tend to be very generic…and that’s an odd thing to say because the essay will be specific to an event that happened to that individual person and yet the essay almost feels like it’s been written to a template (sentence to get the attention of your reader. Then 1st main idea. 2nd main idea. 3rd main idea. Restatement of initial prompt. Insightful ending sentence). I mean, lol.
And then finally, no bumpiness…a smooth essay…written by committee and it shows…
Very interesting, SouthernHope. Thanks!
@SouthernHope disagree on the sentence to get the attention of your reader.
Everyone is told that…well almost everyone. AOs don’t have alot of time, so it is better to write something that “hooks” them in from the beginning!
My student had to write a separate essay for honors admission. He wrote about a Dyson sphere 
I certainly couldn’t have written that essay; heck, I couldn’t even edit it!
(from Wikipedia: A Dyson sphere is a hypothetical megastructure that completely encompasses a star and captures a large percentage of its power output.)
^Without the definition, I would have assumed he wrote an essay about a vacuum cleaner.