<p>:rolleyes:
It helps to actually know what youre talking about. Admissions officers can in fact tell when it is not an adolescent voice, most of the time. Anyone who has been thoroughly trained and experienced in education, along all the levels through college, can also spot this. We know how expression develops. Ditto when an adolescent is trying too hard to be not the age he or she is. Whether it was actually written by an older person, or whether the applicant is doing a clumsy & unnecessary job of trying to please invisible people, based on assumptions of what will please them, is immaterial. The attempt fails<a href=“backfires”>/u</a>.</p>
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<p>It doesnt matter. If it is patently not a 17-year-olds experience/perspective, nor expression, and further, has been obviously pieced together (some parts sound student-written; others sound adult-overlaidedited), it is assumed that an adult wrote it or heavily edited. And there is even a difference between adult expression and adult perspective; the former can be mimicked by an adolescent; the latter can rarely be mimicked. Of all the essays I have read, I have never seen a successful attempt at the latter. Do you know how you will feel, think, and contemplate on your life when youre 80? (Answer: no.) </p>
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<p>Yes, the students report it to me, after Ive seen both submissions, and further seen the entire final application packet. Many of my colleagues report likewise.</p>
<p>“It helps to actually know what you’re talking about. Admissions officers can in fact tell when it is not an adolescent voice, most of the time.”#401</p>
<p>Can they also tell when it is not a Caucasian voice, not a Latino voice, not an African American Voice, not an Indian voice, not a Chinese voice?</p>
<p>I am not an expert when it comes to writing style. But I think it is possible to detect someone´s age, nationality, sex through their writing. </p>
<p>D2 is going to an international school, most of those students are fluent in English, but their word usage is still different than native American English speakers. I work with with a lot of Brits, their expression is very different than Americans. We say “calendar,” they say “diary.” We say “resume,” and they call it “CV.” They love to say, “I am not too keen on that.” I also have a lot of Asian colleagues, and their emails tend to be more formal.</p>
<p>D2 is a good writer, but you could still tell she is a young person. What she thinks is exciting or interesting may not always be the same as us. She wrote a thesis paper on a book this summer which has been read and dissected by many well know adult researchers, but she still brought out a fresh view which other adults never noticed before.</p>
<p>There is no such thing as an expert all the individual writing styles out there. I’d say that is particularly true when it comes to age and sex. At best, those sitting in judgment make educated guesses. They no doubt get some wrong and some right. </p>
<p>If such a style can be judged to any degree of certainty, then it can be mimicked.</p>
<p>Epiphany, just as an fyi, I know I’ve seen posts more than once on homeschool lists describing frustrating experiences kids have had when they took a class at a high school or cc after years of homeschooling and the teacher did not believe they had written a paper they did indeed compose.</p>
<p>I agree. Writing styles can be mimicked. Just as some good actors have a talent for mimicking accents, a good writer often has a facility for assuming a particular voice. Sometimes an imitated style can be detected when not done well enough, sometimes its indistinguishable from the real thing.</p>
<p>I am in the ambivalent/resigned camp about ghost-written essays. If we all know or think we know that some applicants are not writing their own essays, then certainly Ivy adcoms know this too. I just don’t think the difference between a serious Ivy-candidate’s original essay and a ghost-written one could possibly make much difference in the admissions process. </p>
<p>Presumably, the essays of all top Ivy admitted students are pretty great. If you want to argue that Joey Clark, who has a 4.0, 2200 and is a math/science/writing competition winner or legacy or athlete or first gen or URM or famous person or world chess champion (because he’s likely to be outstanding in some way like that) should not have been admitted because his essays were not 100% his own, well…I think you are splitting hairs. By this, I am NOT saying that cheating is okay. What I am saying is that I don’t the essays are make-or-break criteria at the top Ivy level, unless they are pretty bad. And no, I am not “one who knows.”</p>
<p>GAmom
I never assumed anything, they are questions with ???
are you still mad at me? have you get to read what I wrote in geez which thread was that…
I said in there you shouldn’t have “assumed” I was spying on you.</p>
<p>and I do like Jack Kerouac because of his baseball thing, but no, not his character nor writings.
I want my kid to be able to somewhat support self and respect passer by women.
I do understand why someone would adore him. It all depends.</p>
<p>MomofWild
why didn’t you say so on your post #377 already?
did we get crossed, or you waited for your red carpet rolled out? this is third time you’ve waited if the water is nice.</p>
<p>can you understand what I wrote here?
no?
OK</p>
I’m not “one who knows” either, but I’ve always thought that the essays had more weight at Ivy or equivalent schools - that the only, or best, way to differentiate between those scads of outstanding applicants was by what was said in the essay. It would be interesting to know for sure.</p>
<p>One of the Harvard admits from our hs in the past several years was an outstanding student, but not the val, not one of the 3 kids with perfect SAT scores that year, not one of the All-State orchestra kids, not a recruited athlete, etc. BUT she was a great student with excellent SATs, who won a prestigious national writing award. I figured that writing exceptionally well, with an individual voice, was probably her hook. But I could very well have been wrong all this time, too … it’s happened before.</p>
<p>This is what happens when you write in a foreign language and then use the English language translator on the word processing program. It doesn’t make any sense.</p>
<p>Who has seen the book of essays written by Harvard students? I remember them all being very intellectual and way above anything I or my kids would write. There wasn’t a hint of anything resembling what is being called an adolescent voice.</p>
<p>If the average amount of time given to an applicant package is only a few minutes, how can there be much time to read an essay?</p>