<p>I wonder if kaaya plagiarised her admission essay.</p>
<p>My kids too have been admitted to Brown and Vassar with no packaging and not even a very large number of AP courses. The younger one is coming from an inner city school where just over 50% go to 4 yr colleges. Of course it is possible. My older son’s app to Brown was almost illegible (they could read it I guess but I could not; I could not even read it enough to proof read it. I thought it would be an automatic reject.) I doubt KC would EVER send Brown an application like that --can you imagine a mess like that coming from her!-- but yet he too was admitted.</p>
<p>And in fact, my younger son is a writer and quite a gifted one. He has won awards and been accepted to prestigious programs in writing (for high school students.) I have many connections in publishing, more than Katherine Cohen. The idea of setting him up with a book deal NEVER occurred to me, and if someone had suggested it I would have rejected it out of hand as placing way too much unfair pressure on him --how ridiculous. The idea is and always would have been unthinkable to me. If he wants to become a published writer he can do it like the rest of us, by working his way up in the real world. And if someone had told me that is what he needed to do to get into Harvard, then I would say well …in that case Harvard is not for him.</p>
<p>cloverdale, thank you for bringing up a point that occurred to me when this story first broke. Where were the responsible adults in her life? Most parents might think twice before sending their D or S off to their first year of college with a deadline for a first novel hanging over their head. I had wondered why she didn’t take a gap year to write. Now, it’s pretty clear. The novel wasn’t the goal. The $500,000 advance and two-book deal wasn’t the goal. It was Harvard all along. The book was just the key to Harvard, so of course, her parents wouldn’t recommend postponing. It just never occurred to me that she wasn’t a writer first and foremost who just happened to want to go to Harvard (I guess the investment banker goal was a clue, but I’m pretty dense.)</p>
<p>How deep does this run?
<a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/03/business/03cnd-raytheon.html?ex=1304308800&en=5d9d12818ed27ef4&ei=5089&partner=rssyahoo&emc=rss[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/03/business/03cnd-raytheon.html?ex=1304308800&en=5d9d12818ed27ef4&ei=5089&partner=rssyahoo&emc=rss</a>
These are the “role-models” the young learn from.</p>
<p>MomOf2…that’s the thing behind these stories and even some of the stuff I see with Ms. Cohen’s philosophy…it is about picking things to do in order to get into X college. It is an idea that never entered my kids’ minds and I have come to observe it now in posts I read and then in more extreme cases like these on this thread. Maybe I am naive but my own kids did things because they simply wanted to do them even if they never were going to college. These other cases seem to scream: “do X and it will get you into Y.” and “we’ll help you attain X so that you can get into Y.” </p>
<p>It seems like the goal behind the networking to write a novel was that it would be a great hook for Harvard. A lot of the stuff that the Hornstine’s did, had that same tone to it. Look at all the kids who get in who just were themselves and did their best in the areas they loved and then documented it on their applications. Maybe I am naive but that’s all my kids did. They didn’t set out to do a thing with college admissions in mind (again, with the exception of trying to do their best academically), but were just themselves. There was no talk of what should I do to look good for college this summer, or for extracurriculars. They wanted to do whatever they chose because of their love of the activity and motivation to become deeply engaged in it and to achieve in their endeavors. For one of my kids, her EC passions have become her college major and life’s work. I don’t even get that this girl wrote a novel but her goals have nothing to do with that but are investment banking. But surely being a published novelist would be a great hook for college and she had an advisor who knew how to pursue that. And then there is the engineering/molding/finagling of Blair’s situation. Again, adults/parents surrounding them likely felt they were doing what had to be done to get their kids in but my feeling is that the girls likely had the qualifications to make them viable candidates and that left to their own devices, and less molding and shaping, they’d have made out just fine. And look at the repercussions now. Not a pretty sight. </p>
<p>Cloverdale, a little like one of your kids, my girls went to a school where only 2/3’s of students go on to four year colleges. They made out just fine and got into very selective schools and where they wanted to go. I’m almost wondering what an adcom might think about how a student got such a publishing contract and probe some…if it was on her own, or through connections that adults lined up, or just what. Those kinds of stories would make me want to understand the bigger picture.</p>
<p>In this girl’s case it is so clear she had to have been packaged. In part I think that many kids who make it to Harvard may be packaged in some way, even if not to her extent --not all of course, but a number of them, especially those without the ace academic credentials. And those adcoms are used to it. How is a high school student going to get a book deal like that on her own: for half a million dollars no less. Most of the writers she stole from, who are much more gifted than her, have never seen advances like that.
Doesn’t it make you wonder whether Harvard is used to so many packaged kids it has lost the ability to tell the difference?</p>
<p>And keep this in mind: She was caught because her activity was public --a publication distributed in mass and with great publicity. Someone who packaged themselves in a quieter endeavor might never be caught. </p>
<p>When you hear the Blair story, and this story …you have to wonder what kind of superkid gets to Harvard, and you have to ask how a kid who is a KID can orchestrate that kind of thing alone, and still be a kid…it is a stretch. It is hard to imagine.</p>
<p>Cloverdale:</p>
<p>Eleven kids got into Harvard from my S’s school last year. As far as I know, not a single one of them was “packaged.”<br>
20/20 vision is much easier to achieve in hindsight. The school KV attended has produced internationally recognized students. If KV’s school performance was okay, there was no reason for Harvard to doubt she would be a more than acceptable candidate.</p>
<p>And let me add this: My two kids have gotten into two elite schools. Their applications were not massaged like these, but they did have the advantage of my sophistication in navigating this process. If there was ever a time, as an employer, that I would have considered a kid from an elite school a superior candidate, it is over. My eyes have been opened …and if someone comes to me from Podunk University or from Yale it will make no difference to me whatsoever. I have lost the faith if I ever had it that the elite college kid is actually smarter in any way.</p>
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<p>Soozie:</p>
<p>The problem is that some schools are used to applicants who are well connected to different worlds, including the publishing world.</p>
<p>Marite --Perhaps Harvard, seeking the extraordinary, is more vulnerable to this kind of packaging? Just a suggestion. I mean …why would they question how a 17 year old got a $500K book advance? Do they live in this world? That is what I am asking --the only people who would be fooled by something like that are people who live in a world beyond the real one, a fantasy world where these things actually just happen …It is a matter of common sense. If this is something they accept without question, perhaps there are other, quieter things that they also accept.</p>
<p>Well Marite --If the kid got the deal because she is connected, if through her connections she was sent to a book packager and packaged, why should that impress Harvard? Is it really impressive to have all these handlers, and to accomplish something like this through connections? The Bergen Record had to edit her HEAVILY. Now suddenly she is one of the best paid writers in the world, and Harvard doesn’t blink here? Yes you are right, it is used to its candidates having these connections …but I have to question what the connections have to do with actual ability.</p>
<p>I think part of the problem for Harvard lies in the fact that they attract truly amazing kids who aren’t faking it or packaged. Take, for example, a world-class pianist. There’s no way to fake that level of talent in piano. Or a mathmatician with competitions and high-level classes. Or an athlete. Or an actress. There really are kids who have achieved at least close to the equivalent of $500,000 advance and two-book deal but they have done it mainly through their own verifiable talent. It’s got to make things more difficult for the admissions office.</p>
<p>Cloverdale:</p>
<p>It is very possible that someone on the adcom read about Christopher Paolini extraordinary success and thought that KV was another such phenom, but one that the publishing world had identified from the get-go. Paolini’s book, if I remember correctly, was self-published until some publishing company picked it up. My S, who reads tons of sci-fi and fantasy fiction, thought Eragon derivative. I understand that, derivative or not, Eragon is being made into a movie.
Another thing: KV’s opus, while apparently plagiarizing chick-lit works, may have been perceived by the adcom as a variation of another genre: the “how an Asian girl (the protagonist is usually female) got into Harvard.” The Chinese girl of one such books got so wealthy from the proceeds of her how to book that she was able to fund her own education after the first couple of years (she’d gotten a free ride); I understand that she earned over $1M! Her book was followed by an opus from a Korean girl which did just as well. How-to books are not expected to be original the way fiction is; and they usually sell better. So it may not have rung alarm bells which in retrospect should have rung.</p>
<p>Do they know how to tell the difference? The instances you cite would be impossible to fake, but so many other instances --as we see in Blair and “Opal” are not. Don’t you think Harvard should have a “fake meter.” Look it is common sense --some high school kid is going to be the math champ. High school is set up to feed into that competition. Some high school kid is going to be the best pianist. But NO high school kid gets a $500K book deal. It should be a red flag. Actually these things are not the equivalent: Because every single year there is a math champ. The book deal actually REQUIRES insider connections.</p>
<p>Cloverdale:</p>
<p>In response to your post #152, I was not trying to suggest that Harvard would be impressed by connections. I was trying to respond to Soozie’s query. The fact that Harvard (and Yale and Princeton) are used to admitting the children of the well-connected may be the very reason why its adcom did not wonder what it took for KV to get her book accepted by a publisher;connections DO open doors.</p>
<p>Marite, I realize at Harvard that they do see things like this all the time and so it likely doesn’t raise an eyebrow as much. I am in a more simpler world, so when a kid tells me they got a half mil publishing contract, I’d be probing how that came about, etc. On a much simpler note, if I interview a kid and they tell me of some internship, sometimes it becomes clear it was at dad’s office or is dad’s best friend, etc. That is not so terrible but sometimes something can sound almost “too good” and I want to learn more about how it came to happen. </p>
<p>My feeling is that this girl was likely a very good candidate without this book. The book maybe sealed the admissions deal but I doubt she was lacking academically. It just seems like a search with some adults who pushed the idea, to find some big hook that would really put KV on top. I am not clear that she wants to be a writer. It also must have been a lot of pressure to produce this book while being a student. </p>
<p>I agree with you that PLENTY of students get into Harvard who don’t have handlers orchestrating their lives and plans to create a polished candidate. I think some of the parents who go so far as these particular cases noted here, should know that it is more than possible to get into Harvard without pulling those strings or molding an image or a resume. And frankly, a very bright and accomplished person need not attend Harvard to have a very promising career and future either! It seems like a Harvard or bust mentality. Don’t mistake me, as I think it is an amazing school (I even went to grad school at Harvard and am sure one of my kids would love the graduate program there in her field where she spent one summer at an intensive) but that is different than feeling it MUST be Harvard. And it is different to feel one must do X to get in, rather than just being who they are and getting in that way because plenty accomplish that just fine the old fashioned way. A bright and accomplished young person can be an excellent candidate without some master being the scenes sculpting a plan.</p>
<p>Soozie:</p>
<p>I agree with you. Very likely, KV could have made it without the packaging and the $500k book deal. But it was the combination of aiming for Harvard and attending a pressure-cooker school that may have inspired her parents to get her packaged. And I put a lot of blame on Ivywise for having made her feel that her scribblings would be attractive to Harvard and to publishers. Heck, my S began writing sci-fi in 6th grade and continued on through high school (and perhaps beyond). But even I, his fond mother, did not care to read it, much less shop it around publishers or make it a cornerstone of his college application! Since we did not hire a college packager, I’ll never know what literary masterpiece the world is missing. :(</p>
<p>Am I misinformed or did she get the book contract one month into her freshman year? She didn’t start writing it until the summer after her senior year in high school. Therefore, the book contract was not a consideration for the admissions committee.</p>
<p>I for one think the admissions committees at elite schools are pretty savvy. I see them accepting the really brilliant kids and rejecting the “grunts” over and over.</p>
<p>I read in one article that she had told the Today show that she was taking a leave of absence from Harvard. I wonder if she’ll ever return. I think this is a tragedy.
.</p>
<p>Cookiemom:</p>
<p>My understanding is that the contract was not inked until all the ducks were in a row, and that included Alloy. Ivywise introduced KV to a literary agent who introduced KV to another literary agent who told KV her original story line was too dark and to make it lighter; then introduced her to Alloy. Then there must have been negotiations about copyrights and royalties. At the time of the application, when Ivywise was already on the scene, KV would be able to state that she was writing a novel and had a literary agent and was in negotiations with a publisher. Impressive enough.</p>