I read a lot about the dangers of editing essays too much for highly selective colleges, and how admissions officers “see right through” any overly edited, assumed unoriginal essays. What do those essays actually look like? I think I “write like an adult” naturally and am afraid of coming off badly for that in my college applications, even if I don’t have excess parental involvement in my applications.
An essay probably won’t sound overly edited if it isn’t. What admissions officers are talking about is how they can generally hear if the essay was written by an adult, or written by a 17-year old.