@pizzagirl, I would definitely be proud of her if I were her mother.
I’m also proud of my basketball playing daughter.
I agree that she (and her mother) have every right to be proud.
I was just being selfish; reading the essay, if I was asked, would lead me to suggest rather heavy editing. I am a bit worried that I don’t know how to evaluate an essay for the intended audience (adcoms).
But, my D is necessarily shooting for the same schools, although she will be doing scholarship essays as we chase the merit aid.
Perhaps D will find a more trustworthy editor.
Not sure how we have gotten to a world where any publicity is bad publicity. People used to get written up in the local papers all the time for things like achieving Eagle Scout, winning essay contests, and tons of other things, and still do in most places. She is probably mature enough to know that anyone that wants to dis her for what is a GREAT essay is, in fact, a very small person who is likely envious of her accomplishments. Because guess what. You certainly can have whatever opinion you want but the opinions of the people that counted at these excellent schools were spot on, that this is a person with talent, keen perception, wit, and potential.
What do you think, exactly, the purpose of local papers outside of the NYT (which isn’t really local of course) and a few others is? There is a huge percentage of local residents that follow high school sports. Why is it such an automatic thing to assume that because one doesn’t follow it and doesn’t think it is important, no one else does? One can get national and international news from hundreds of sources. Who else is going to report on the most mundane local happenings that have importance to some subset of the population? Here in Rhode Island, there is one paper for the entire state population of one million and people here love high school sports. The outcry if the paper stopped writing about it would be huge. Anyone can certainly make snide comments about that if they want to, but again that says more about them and their attitude towards anything they find unimportant than about Rhode Islanders.
Wow, really? That is the depths of triviality you want to plumb?
BTW, I am quite confident that all these “expert” editors and critics on here would have rejected and/or heavily edited Faulkner and Hemingway, not to mention John Irving, if they had submitted essays that mirrored their most highly acclaimed writing.
No need to be insulting. It is a perfectly legitimate opinion that the essay is poorly written. Now we seem to at the stage of preferring bad writing as showing authenticity, and not believing that good writing indicates a good writer.
@fallenchemist Agree 100%. I didn’t find the essay to be poorly written. It also is far more interesting than 90% of the essays I have read (I worked for admissions for a couple years after graduating).
As an aside, the fact that the essay was over the word limit has been noted by several educational college consultants. It’s not trivial. There is a word limit and the essay exceeded it. Apparently it was overlooked or didn’t matter. But I guess they (someone) decided rules can be ignored. That’s really not the message they want to send to college applicants. Several of those excessive adjectives/adverbs metaphors or analogies could have been eliminated to meet the word count and not ruin the essay. The essay is different, it is interesting. It is clever and engaging. But IMO it is overwritten.
@fallenchemist, there is a big difference between your standard paragraph in the local paper and this.
BTW, when I was in HS in CT the NYT had a page or more covering HS football games in our area.
The fact that it’s overwritten makes it more appealing, as it is clear she didn’t have a professional or skilled editor.
Can’t win with you people - if it’s too polished, then it would have signaled professional involvement, but if it’s not, then she’s not good enough.
To each his own. An essay is supposed to sound like “the voice” (in generalities) of the writer. Even if writing affords the opportunity for some poetic license, what 17 yo talks like that?
“Which is exactly why I ask what publicity whore shopped this out to the media?”
Wow.
“BTW, I am quite confident that all these “expert” editors and critics on here would have rejected and/or heavily edited Faulkner and Hemingway, not to mention John Irving, if they had submitted essays that mirrored their most highly acclaimed writing.”
I claim no expert status, but I was paid for my writing and editing abilities. I’ll point out that all famous authors were edited by their publishers, and many of them were outright rejected over and over again for years. The only world I know of that’s more subjective than the literary world is the art world, and one man’s credential is another man’s hustle.
“Even if writing affords the opportunity for some poetic license, what 17 yo talks like that?”
Writing voice and speaking voice are often very different. I’ve read and judged dozens of teenager-written essays, and her exuberant “voice” is not that unusual.
What is unusual is that writing voice combined with her background, combined with her grades, combined with her test scores, combined with her STEM leanings.
Well I guess that is up to the paper that originally went with the story, which appears to be The Business Insider. While they are international in scope, they have local reporters in major spots, like in Delaware because of DuPont. given the dateline (April 1) on the original story http://www.businessinsider.com/high-school-senior-who-got-into-5-ivy-league-schools-shares-her-admissions-essay-2016-4 it seems pretty clear this was the original, which NBC then picked up 5 days later, giving no credit to the BI. This was followed up by publishing her other stats. http://www.businessinsider.com/brittany-stinson-got-accepted-into-5-ivy-league-schools-and-stanford-2016-4
Alas, they do not give her SAT/ACT score, for those that I am sure are curious. I think it is a safe bet they were excellent. Apologies if any earlier posts already caught this, I didn’t read through them all, I just scanned.
So I don’t at all understand “beating up” on the student or her parents. Maybe the BI writer is a neighbor, or the parent of a classmate, and thought it would make a good human interest story. Reporters pick up stories in lots of ways. How can we know? Honestly, talk about making a mountain out of a molehill, some people seem to want to make a major cause of everything that happens. This is a simple story about a student that did something a little unusual and at least one reporter, their editor, and subsequently a major news organization (NBC) all thought it would be interesting to millions of people. If you don’t agree, I mean really. So what? Can no one just drive on by something that they don’t like but is really trivial, not to mention assuming the worst of all involved?
Please show me one student whose EC’s included coming up with a cure for a disease. No, none? Then I guess the highest level the EC’s can reach is excellent.
Well, apparently going over the word limit by that amount was trivial as far as 5 Ivies and Stanford were concerned, along with NYU, BU, JHU and several others to which she was accepted. I would submit that with such a broad array of top schools who could look for any excuse to choose between exceptionally qualified students but instead accepted this student, it must be pretty trivial.
Also. as was mentioned, voice doesn’t mean literally one’s oral voice, or that your writing is supposed to mirror how you speak. Given the lingo of most teenagers, it is a good thing that it doesn’t. The essay isn’t supposed to be as polished as a college graduate or a professional writer. It is supposed to give the readers in admissions insight into the intelligence, wit, personality, perceptiveness and general appeal of a candidate. Even with a few $5 words in there, this essay accomplishes it admirably and originally.
Any school that would reject a kid for going over 5 words is not the kind of school I’d want my kid to attend. How petty. I can see that they don’t want to read War and Peace, and that’s why the word limit exists, but 5 words? Yeah.
I completely agree with you that all authors are edited and many get rejected before finding acceptance and very occasionally fame. But that wasn’t at all my point. It was instead that most of these people that are bashing her essay don’t know intelligent writing when they see it. They don’t have to like it, I don’t care for Hemingway myself but I certainly know that it is highly intelligent prose. In other words, I would never reject such an essay simply because the style was not to my taste, but hopefully I am well read enough to recognize writing at a high level even when I don’t care for that form. And in this case, of course, the purpose isn’t to recognize a best seller, but instead to recognize a student whose writing supports the rest of her credentials in telling me that she would make an excellent student at my school. If I were the admissions reader, that is.
If her mother shopped the story around the media, does that make her a helicopter or concierge mother? ;)) I think the girl was packaged.
(Found her mother’s FB query about whether or not one of the articles had corrected the number of Ivy admissions to be revealing.)
When online news outlets instituted the public comment section. People become awfully brave and cutting behind a keyboard.
Many computer sites and some applications/essay contests cut off what can be types at their maximum word count… If the CA has a word limit (or individual school apps) theirs should (and I believe does). Otherwise why bother giving a word limit in their essays or activities list. They should perhaps call it a suggested limit, not a limit. If its a rule/policy or whatever, then everyone should follow the same rules. Some people follow the rules and others decide the rules are meant for someone else. Its possible this published version of this essay that we are all reading may not be the exact version that was submitted. As per this article linked below, the CA would not permit over 650 words in their word box, and they point out that students should follow the rules and not exceed the word count. As ther author says, good students know how to edit, and how to follow rules. A rule isn’t “petty”. Its a rule. http://collegeapps.about.com/od/essays/a/college-essay-length-limit.htm
My argument re: word limit is that sometimes there’s a reason to follow the letter of the law, and sometimes there’s a reason to follow the spirit of the law. I find people who can’t perceive the difference as annoying as people who think the rules don’t pertain to them.
Neither of them understand the beauty of a nuanced life.
And my argument is that they impose limits for a reason. Trying to rationalize/justify why someone doesn’t need to follow them, or can’t figure out how to remove 5 words is annoying. Read the article by Allen Grove in post #117. He knows a lot about college admissions, from inside and out… And IMO he is spot on.
http://collegeapps.about.com/od/essays/a/college-essay-length-limit.htm