<p>A friend is a private college admissions counselor. Friend has been doing this for 7-8 years. Friend has built a very good business, taken seminars, traveled to visit campuses, etc. At first I was skeptical, as this friend doesn’t have a college degree or any background in education, but now I am impressed with what has been accomplished.</p>
<p>Now friend has secured a position as an applications essay reader for a very prestigious university. When I asked friend how this was accomplished without a college degree, friend deflected the question and talked about seminars and training attended.</p>
<p>This is really eating at me, as I feel there has been some deception on friend’s part where resume is concerned, and I can’t help but wonder how all of the kids who spend hours on their essays, and their parents, would feel if they knew that someone with no formal college education was passing judgment on their essays.</p>
<p>Any insights? I know I shouldn’t be getting upset about this- after all there are much bigger problems in the world - but somehow I can’t let go of how much its bothering me.</p>
<p>Obviously being an admissions counselor outweighed her lack of a college degree in the unversity’s decision to hire her. What surprised me about your post is that she has been a successful admissions counselor for 7-8 years without ever having gone to college herself. I guess you’d start there. </p>
<p>Taking seminars and visiting schools seems that it would hardly qualify someone as an admissions counselor, but this is America. I’m like you, these things tend to erk me, but some people know what they do well and don’t waste time with the “stuff” that won’t matter. She’s not editing or correcting essays, she’s just reading the essays to see if they “fit” the college’s image. Guess she’s qualified for that.</p>
<p>Some of the smartest, most savvy and insightful business people I know never received their degree for some reason or another.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t necessarily look at this as deception; I’d look at it as a good example of that rare bird who has used his/her innate abilities to find work that fits well with his/her overall karma.</p>
<p>Do what you like, and like what you do. Don’t we all wish we could pay the mortgage this way?</p>
<p>I am not sure if what bothers you is that your friend has a job that either (1.) didn’t require a college degree, yet she is “passing judgement” on future college students or (2.) she feels she may have fabricated her education to earn a job.</p>
<p>I certainly hope she would not have fabricated her resume as we all know that will eventually come back to bite one on the backside. With that aside, I am sure Bill Gates, Michael Dell, Steve Jobs, Debbi Fields, Rachael Ray, Walt Disney and Frank Lloyd Wright, would stress to you that a college degree has its merits but in no way was it a part of their individual successes. Now to validate the cause, there are many ladies and gentlemen sitting in the federal correctional system who are Ivy League and Tier 1 educated and for whatever reason chose a morally void path which landed them there. Education does not make the person, and drive and work ethic are not taught in text books.</p>
<p>I agree with other posters on this. From my view from inside academia, I have never thought of an admissions officer, let alone an essay writer, as a high status job requiring a lot of education. If she has great English skills, I honestly don’t see the relevance of a degree for this current job as essay reader. Experience counts for a gigantic amount and I would assume the college that hired her had a reason to hire her. </p>
<p>If there is any parallel, I have been a tenured professor teaching students at a top school I could never get into as a student and nor did I never work as hard as some of them are working now (and I know a ton of colleagues who could say the same thing!).</p>
<p>It sounds like she may have shaded her resume. You need to chose better friends and mind your own business on the ones you have. Of course, IMHO…your mileage may vary.</p>
<p>If her lack of degree bothers you because you don’t think this job can be done without a degree, I think you are mistaken. As had been mentioned, lots of very successful people (including Bill Gates and Steve Jobs) have no formal degrees, yet are doing a great job at whatever they are doing. Even more are working in areas completely unrelated to their degrees - so much so, that having the degree has no impact on their ability to do the job.</p>
<p>If what bothers you is that “there has been some deception on friend’s part where resume is concerned”, that’s a legitimate concern. And if she gets caught, she’ll get fired. Which will be embarrassing for her, the institution, and everyone involved…</p>
<p>Thanks for all of your insightful comments. I am not disputing that one can go far without a college degree, as mentioned by collegeshopping. And obviously academic success is no sure indicator of future success in life.</p>
<p>Starbright, its very interesting to read your perspective as someone inside the academic world. For those of us who have been students and now parents of applicants and students, admissions officers can sometimes seem to be the most powerful people we encounter. Once in college, though, they do tend to recede into the background. </p>
<p>I guess I just assumed that when working at a university, evaluating university applicants, it would be important to have a university degree. My assumption appears to have been wrong - not the first (or last) time this will happen to me!</p>
<p>I’m guessing that you think the university doesn’t know that she does not have a college degree because she lied on her job application. That is problematic on an honesty level for your friend. That sort of lying will catch up with you one day.</p>
<p>Being an application essay reader for a prestigious university is probably not the kind of job where credentials are verified. Retired English teachers at our high school can often pick up some extra money to do that kind of stuff for the local UC. I suspect that the readers are given pretty tight instructions on what to look for and how to “grade” an essay.</p>
<p>I know exactly what you mean! I think we do put them (and these schools more generally) on some kind of pedestal in part because they really are perceived to have so much power. But even I get sucked into it…and I find it odd how I have two very different perspectives in my head. </p>
<p>I’m someone who writes letters for faculty to get positions in these schools, I have served on advisory boards for academic review bodies, I am often an invited guest speaker and I work with colleagues at these top schools. That sounds boastful and I apologize as not at all my intention. My point being despite all this, and after a few decades of it, I can’t hold them in special regard. Meeting a faculty member or Dean from X no more impresses me than meeting a faculty member from “lesser school of X”. </p>
<p>But then the other part of my brain has children who might apply to such places in the future and that parent part of me sometimes says things like, “oh wow, that student got into X!” or “wow, the admissions counselor from Y emailed back!” I imagine I’d even be nervous if I was with my child talking to an admissions counselor at a prestigious school (despite me and same child having known many more central people such as Deans at the same schools). </p>
<p>It makes no sense other than legitimate authority really is very context or relationship specific.</p>
<p>You should read Bauld book and you’ll be not surprised. His book mentions what/why/how to write an essay and describes the type of people that will read your essay.</p>
<p>True, but pretty much all these people achieved their great success by founding their own companies or businesses rather than working for other companies in jobs that traditionally require degrees. The only possible exception here would be Frank Lloyd Wright. Since architects now almost always have a degree. But he was born way back in the mid 1800s, when it was much more common for people to acquire their professional training by apprenticeship - as Wright did under Louis Sullivan.</p>
<p>Are you concerned because you think she lied on her application for the job? Or are you concerned because you think she is not qualified for the job? If she lied on the application, that’s her employer’s problem and stupidity, not yours… if she didn’t lie, then her employer thinks she is qualified for the job, and again… not your problem.</p>
<p>Or are you perhaps jealous that she got a job you’d like and that you think you’re better qualified for?</p>
<p>I suppose the necessary qualifications to be an essay reader depend on what the college is looking for. If it just wants to get a sense of students’ “real selves” from their essays, then an intelligent but not necessarily well-educated person will do. But if the college wants a critical assessment of students’ writing abilities, then a higher level of education is necessary.</p>