Next challenge - Essay

Parent Cafe
1

<p>Looks like the standard test part of application is in the bag. Per my understanding, essay is really more important than the test scores. That is my big challenge. If I could write 1/3 as good as DD I would at least pretent to offer something constructive. </p>

<p>For those of you who did not stand 10 ft away and let your children do this by themself (I am sure there are some of you out there), what tip could you give me? </p>

<p>BTW, here is my understanding of the importance of the factors</p>

<h1>1 GPA - within the content of the school and class rigor</h1>

<h1>2 QC and teacher recommedations</h1>

<h1>3: essay</h1>

<h1>4/#5 depend on school: EC and standard test score.</h1>

2

<p>No suggestions, except that it’s important to realize that it’s not “essay,” it’s “essays.” </p>

<p>There is one long essay and one short one on the Common Application, but not all colleges use the Common App, and many that do use it have their own supplements, which may require additional essays.</p>

<p>As specific college applications start to appear online during the summer, your daughter may want to look at them to get an idea of what essays she will be asked to write.</p>

3

<p>Dear laserbrother - If there is one area where you really need to stand 10 feet away, this is it! </p>

<p>What you can do:
– Buy DD a good college essay book - Harry Bauld’s is great. Let her read and absorb. </p>

<p>– Since her English is better than yours, suggest that she show her essay to a teacher or counselor for proofreading and general comments. </p>

<p>– Encourage her to speak from the heart. After reading some successful essays, she will understand what this means. She needs to show her personality through the writing and write about something meaningful to her.</p>

<p>–Suggest that she put whatever essays she writes away for several days and to come back to them later. Usually kids know when they have “the one” that really speaks for them, but putting them away and then taking a second look often helps them refine the work.</p>

<p>– Don’t suggest topics! MAKE HER come up with them. This is hard for some kids, but I really think that the best essays are about things that only they could write about. If you or anyone else suggests a topic, right off the bat, it’s no longer their own, and it usually shows. </p>

<p>Encourage her to have fun with it. This also usually shows, and makes for fun reading. Fun reading is good!</p>

4

<p>This is an excellent resource from the University of Virginia:</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.virginia.edu/undergradadmission/writingtheessay.html[/url]”>http://www.virginia.edu/undergradadmission/writingtheessay.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

5

<p>Her main personal essay does not need to be about something intellectual or school-related. In fact, it is important for her to show another side of herself than her excellent academic record, which speaks for itself.</p>

6

<p>LB,</p>

<p>My son just finished 12th grade, so I’ve been through this recently. My advice to you, and anyone else who is interested, is to stand back and get out of the way unless your daughter actively seeks your input. I do think my son is an extreme case, very independent and determined to be in control of the college app process himself, so he may not be a good example, but I did not see one word of any college essay, long or short, nor did we discuss topics or even a general approach. I was not too happy about the situation, given that my husband and I both have a lot of college degrees and think we know something about the subject. However, attempts to get ourselves included only succeeded in pushing him farther away, so I backed off pretty quickly and spent several months worrying and fretting that he was going to blow it by being stubborn and ungrateful.</p>

<p>Then, I made a discovery while picking up stray trash in his room–two months after all apps had been submitted–and realized that all my agonizing was misplaced. Crumpled up under his desk was a copy of a Univ. of Chicago essay describing himself as a mathematical function. The essay was incredible, very funny, very smart, a completely accurate description of himself that made it very clear that he was the kind of student U Chicago was looking for. I didn’t see any other essays, and I haven’t asked him to show them to me, yet, but I’m operating on the assumption that he did a fine job on the others also. He was accepted to 7 of 8 schools to which he applied, and will be attending a “top 20” (according to USNWR) university on a full merit scholarship. (And I didn’t even know he had applied to this school; he heard there was merit money, so he did it on his own.)</p>

<p>I hate to admit it, but I would have just been in the way. Your daughter has proven herself to be a great student, so perhaps you should have confidence in her ability to handle the applications herself.</p>

<p>One other note: while nosy parents were not in the inner circle that got to preview the essays, he and a bunch of friends did have a last-minute essay reading party, where they shared their essays with each other to gauge reactions–is the funny essay really funny, that sort of thing. They had a great time, lots of laughs, I think some minor modifications, judging by all the laptop action. Son’s friends are all fantastic kids, fun and smart, so I think the peer-review approach was probably a good idea.</p>

<p>My suggestion to you is the same that my son gave to me all of last year: “Mom, get a hobby. This is my thing, not yours.” It was hard to hear, to put it mildly, since I have been a very involved parent for all of his 18 years. However, I do take some comfort in the fact that he has turned out independent, sure of himself and more than competent. </p>

<p>Best of luck to your daughter.</p>

7

<p>midmo, thank you very much. </p>

<p>My DD did write one piece the other day and sent to some of her “Friends”. The resposnes are very positive. DD’s reaction, “I am done”. Hopefully she is just kidding. </p>

<p>About the hobby, I did just start one - digital photograpy. Three days into taking photo, I show some to my colleagues, and they could not believe I took those. It is fun and get me going outside a lot more.</p>

8

<p>LB,</p>

<p>Congratulations on your new hobby. Maybe you would be willing to post some of your photos online? At <a href=“http://www.■■■■■■■■■■%5B/url%5D”>www.■■■■■■■■■■</a>, for example?</p>

9

<p>You go Laserbrother! On to the essays indeed!</p>

<p>As ASAP pointed out Harry Bauld’s, On Writing the College Application Essay is a great resource. Bauld focuses on students finding their voice, knowing their audience, a bored adcom, and the evolving re-writing process. I had my S read it, and though inspired, he still wrote one of his essays on a stereotypic topic that Bauld warns against. To be fair, he did take a unique perspective that could only be his own. I also liked the the UVA link.</p>

<p>Midmo is making an important point. Since you’re not going to college with your daughter, it is important for her to get there under her own steam, imo. You have to trust their instincts, and it’s not easy. My H and I were both uncomfortable about one of our son’s essays that he loved. Particularly because he mentioned me and my H in it. It was honest. It was him. We hated it. It went un-edited. (I don’t know what gives my boys permission to constantly use me for their comedic material!)</p>

<p>The other thing we learned is not to rush the process. The concensus on CC was that it was advantageous to start their essays in the summer. I know everyone is different, but our S was not ready to write at that point. He had a greater sense of himself after his summer activities, fall ECs and college tours. This may pertain more to boys. I don’t know. He didn’t begin his essays until October and was still tinkering with them and writing new ones as different deadlines approached. It worried me. They were always the last part of his applications that he completed, if I recall.</p>

<p>I think it was easier for my S to start his activity list at the end of the summer before he could think about essays. He needed that list to give to his GC and his teacher recommenders in early fall. Lot’s of self-discovery there as well—what to include, what to emphasize and prioritize…you get the idea. I think for the first time, he could ‘see’ how he presented himself on paper. After that, the app was easier, and then he could focus on the essays.</p>

<p>Now, the most rewarding part of the entire application process is seeing how our son applied what he learned back then to his internship application process in the winter of his freshman year. He sought out his career center, took the counselor’s advice regarding job research, r</p>

10

<p>aDad. Can you see this one?</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.78fz.com/bbs/78fzattachments/month_0706/20070619_d45f2f5ddb6d7b3d757eEPSDaTCGmaXw.jpg[/url]”>http://www.78fz.com/bbs/78fzattachments/month_0706/20070619_d45f2f5ddb6d7b3d757eEPSDaTCGmaXw.jpg&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

11

<p>Not aDad, but pretty orchids!</p>

<p>Don’t panic if your daughter procrastinates a bit on the essay. They aren’t much fun to write.</p>

12

<p>Lovely! Thank you very much. Please let us know if you post more.</p>

13

<p>You should definitely stand way back on this one, LB!</p>

<p>Encourage your daughter to work hard on her essay. Few people can write fantastically the first time around, but even those people can improve their writing with careful thinking and editing.</p>

<p>Encourage your daughter to discuss her essay (and not just show it to) a favorite English teacher and her college advisor, if available. She should be careful not to show too many people because then she will lose her natural “voice,” which the colleges want to hear.</p>

<p>She should be honest, clear, and concise. I’d say honesty is #1, both in the subject matter and in the writing style. </p>

<p>She should write and perfect several essays on different topics and with different focuses. This will help because she will be forced to write more than one great essay and then choose the greatest among those and because she will have more material at her disposal for particular schools.</p>

<p>If your daughter is a private or particularly independent person, don’t panic if she doesn’t want to show you her essays. I showed my parents one (which we had to write for a school assignment that was meant to get us writing college essay-type material) to get them off my back. I also ended up showing my mom my Johns Hopkins essay for her to proofread it since I had decided to write their optional essay a few days before the deadline during school vacation week in December. The essay I sent to many schools (in various forms, depending on the question and the school’s personality) my parents never read. I was also left alone to write my essays when I felt like it, and I wrote them all extremely quickly and sometimes very close to the deadline. It was the opposite with my sister. My parents discussed her essay (she only used one) with her at length after she had written a draft, but my mother actually “forced” her to work on it on weekends in the fall. We have different personalities, attitudes toward word, and skills, so we went about the process differently, which my parents were sensitive to.</p>

<p>I never used an essay writing book. My instinct is that a good one could be a big help and a bad one could point her in entirely the wrong direction.</p>

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<p>[take two and call in the morning](<a href=“http://www.guzer.com/pictures/chill_pill.jpg”>guzer.com)</p>

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<p>midmo - we used to have a thread - I forget the title - where we nominated posts for College Confidential Writing Awards. I think we called them the COWARDS. We had a lot of fun with it, but we were dead serious in acknowledging posts of great value and beautifully written.</p>

<p>Your post #6 here is one of them. IMHO.</p>

16

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<p>I’ll second most of the advice shared in this thread, EXCEPT for the part of seeking advice from high school teachers, and especially English teachers who have little experience with college essays but a distorted view of the purpose of the exercise. Simply stated, people at your high school are rarely a good source of CORRECT information!</p>

17

<p>I love the idea of a peer review party, but I don’t know how it would have gone over. I happened to get to see my son’s best friend’s essay because he resent it from our computer (his was acting up). I thought it was too saccharine. (But what do I know - it got him into Princeton.) Mathson’s was just the opposite. Just the facts ma’am. Though at least it had an amusing beginning. I’ve come to the conclusion to a large extent they’ll write the essay they are capable of writing. You just have to hope that it will appeal to the colleges they like.</p>

18

<p>Xiggi, that depends very much on the school and the particular teacher. In any event, I think that actively discussing the essay in detail with someone who is willing and able to provide useful and interactive help is invaluable in almost any writing process, hence the popularity of writing seminars and other group critiques/discussions in advanced English classes. Most high schools, though, are lacking in an interested and able peer group who can provide this kind of help. For that reason, the student’s best choice in circumstances where parents and peers can’t play this role is to seek help from a good teacher. In terms of brute writing, of course, an English teacher can at the very least help with structure, grammar, punctuation, and other proofreading.</p>

19

<p>Corranged, while I don’t disagree with your points on a theoretical basis, I maintain what I said on a practical level. </p>

<p>Unless the teachers happen to have learned something about college admissions --from having children going through the process or having read accounts of professionals–it would take a GIANT leap of faith to believe they’ll have much to offer in terms of structure and choice of contents. </p>

<p>This is an area where incomplete knowledge might actually hurt. In some terms, it is similar to asking your English teacher to write or edit your first r</p>

20

<p>Teachers from very competitive high schools understand how to write the college admission essays. Again, it depends on the school, I wouldn’t discount the high school teachers.</p>