@STEM2017 Both my sons had English classes where they did some practice college essays. One was an AP class, the other non-AP. I think the AP class did it in the month between the AP exams and the end of school. This is at a school where the overwhelming majority of kids go on to a 4 year college. The teacher for one of those courses is a college app reader.
My D’s AP Lang teacher read a few pointers from a book on college essays in class. She offered to lend the book out and proof read essays for her students. At least my D is hearing about the importance of college essays from someone other the me.
My D17 has writing a draft CA essay as her summer assignment for DE English, and I’m glad she does because it means at least she’ll be guaranteed to have something to work with in time for EA applications, schools with scholarship deadlines, etc. Somewhat similar to @STEM2017 's kid, mine is much more likely to produce for a teacher on a school deadline than she is to write something that doesn’t have a deadline she actually recognizes as consequential. I think it’s only kids in the DE English class who have this assignment though, probably with the understanding that the kids in this class are the most likely to be moving on to 4 year colleges.
I actually also like the idea of writing an essay for each prompt (not necessarily as a school assignment, just as an exercise) as a way of lessening the perceived importance of any one of the 5. One thing I know hits my D with the procrastination bug is thinking of something as being so BIG and IMPORTANT - how can one 650 word essay encompass all of that? I’m sure it’s one of the reasons she hasn’t started.
I am pretty sure this is how my D feels about the entire process. Hence the standard “i don’t know” response to every single question.
The idea of assigning college app essays in English classes is nice and all, but only a minority of high school graduates are going to be going to a college that requires an essay, if they go to college at all.
And many of them are, to be quite honest, not necessarily at the point of being able to write a coherent essay of that type. As someone who teaches at an open-access university, I’d like as much time available in high school English classes for more general writing issues of clarity and mechanics. Yes, advanced students should get a chance to write in more specialized genres, but that’s not where most students actually are at that point.
TL;DR: College Confidential is a weird place, with expectations and experiences not matching the general population.
@thermom Love your profile picture!
My D feels the same, how can she demonstrate who she really is in just 600 or so words. I know she can write a great essay, but it may not be the essay she really wants to write, so she procrastinates.
D was nominated to run for president of one of the honor societies she is in. That would to add to her app if she wins, unfortunately the election is not until 9/16. So we must hold off submitting apps until at least 09/17, that has given her another reason to procrastinate.
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I got my son to stop procrastinating and worrying about the essay by suggesting (after we talked for a bit) that he write about 1 hobby of his that he really enjoys. He wrote about the hobby and how that hobby relates to school and how it will help him in the future with jobs, big decisions, overcoming obstacles etc.
I think the essay gives the reader an insight to his life, but not in all encompassing way. I think the reader will think they learned something about my son ( a hobby outside of school) and that he has learned some good life lessons along the way.
Do I think the essay is perfect? No. Do I think it’s decent? Yes. I don’t think after reading it the admissions people will not like it, and there is a decent chance they do actually like it. I don’t think the essay will have a huge impact either way, I just don’t think it will hurt him. He’s not really applying to schools where I think the essay will have a massive impact on admission chances.
I’m glad he’s done with it. We can move onto other things. It is what it is. Son17 likes the essay and is comfortable submitting it. Done!
@RightCoaster — I like your assessment. I do feel that we put too much weight on these essays (OK, speaking for myself here!). I believe that some percentage of essays at the top and perhaps a larger percentage at the bottom
–maybe 5-10 % at top and 10-20% at bottom—are so amazing or so terrible that they make a difference. The middle 75-80% are as you describe.
Meanwhile, son is approaching essay writing as if it is a research project. This is completely in character, but I would like him to just start writing!
It depends on the school… Our school has in its name, “College Prep Charter School” so they are an outlier and do things very differently from other schools. The families are relatively affluent as well. PTA routinely raise over 200K.
Such as requiring 100 service hours for graduation. I assume it is to help college admission but DS won’t have those hours until after the applications are done. >:P
Our school mission and vision statement has “Provide … access to … liberal arts, college preparatory education” and “will inspire students to fulfill their academic dreams for college.”
Based on the school email,
Overall graduation statistics for the Class of 2016:
- 129 out of 130 students are graduating this May (one student still in progress)
- 100% of graduates applied to college, and were accepted
- 100% of graduates are either matriculating at a college, or participating in a Gap Year
Four-year college attendance: 93.9% (121)
-Public In-state: 47.3% (61)
-Private In-State: 6.2% (8)
-Public Out-of-State: 11.6% (15)
-Private Out-of-State: 25.6% (33)
-International College: 3.1% (4)
Two-year college attendance: 4.6% (6)
Undecided to date: (indicated Gap Year, but no college decision) 1.5% (2)
Application details:
–Total number of applications in 2016: 848 (2015: 1034); (2014: 1002); (2013: 868)
–Average applications per student: 6.6
–Overall acceptance rate: 68.2%
Scholarships Offered: $14,333,230 (currently missing 28+ students’ results)
“Most schools have the English teacher requiring at least one common app essay”
Not here…
Makes sense to me to have kids in an English class write a common app essay. Even if the kids are not going to college, the essays are open ended and involve writing skills and some creativity. They could (and presumably will) write other essays as well. What is the harm?
D17’s AP english class did have the common app essay as the last project and counted for grades. She got a high score on it. But she has since wrote it again and is very happy with her new version.
Something I learned today: if you want to see your student’s competition for admission to a particular school, take a picture of the school Naviance graph now. Then as Naviance is updated, you can see the new dots/squares that represent 2017 applicants.
@itsgettingreal17 — I don’t see how that would work. Unless a school had rolling admissions and/or EA, the admit/defer/reject data point could not be plotted on the scattergram until after your child will have applied.
Does your school’s Naviance have another set of scattergrams for stats of applicants submitted but not het processed? I realize that each school decides which data and how to report it, but I have not yet come across applicant scattergrams before decisions are rendered.
Our school collects the acceptance data from the students in May and enters it sometime during the summer after graduation.
So jealous of all of you who have Naviance. SIGH.
I can see where at a school like @payn4ward the essays as a school assignment make sense. For many I think the situation as @dfbdfb describes it is more apt. I do see harm to be honest. While I can appreciate the time spent to help kids write better essays…and if one is taking a creative writing class it could fall into the curriculum nicely for others…I personally fail to see where the essay fits in the AP Lit curriculum at all and thus detracts from the content of that course. At best I do not think that more than 50% of the senior class will need an essay for an application based on historical data. For the kids that do not it not only may not be a great use of their time, it may cause mental harm as they know they won’t be using them for applications versus classmates needing them. Why reinforce that? Our school does offer a personal statement workshop in the evening for kids to attend. I am not at all convinced that translates into something terribly helpful for essays but perhaps it does. At present we have zero intention of attending. Perhaps we should but it’s far too close to the first app due dates to make much sense to me.
Working on a spreadsheet of application deadlines, etc. I am certain it pales in comparison to most of yours! But I did remember something we learned in the Whitman info session that I wanted to pass along-- the application fee ($50) is waived if you submit before Dec. 1…
@CT1417 It only works for results. I played around with it and some students have already posted results. At D’s school, the students enter results themselves. So you’d see your student’s circle and then any new results. Really only helpful for rolling admit schools and EA/ED results. Very helpful for my D since only 1 regular decision school on her list I believe.
@itsgettingreal17 — got it! That makes sense.
While we have a lot of students who apply ED/ED/SCEA, there aren’t many who apply to rolling schools.