How Important Is The College Essay?

How Important Is The College Essay? However, you do want the essays to sound like you; it should be your voice. There should be some consistency between the essays and interviews. The emphasis must be on “help” and not, “take over.” Parents, with only the best intentions, will often offer lots of input and comments, which their child will gratefully accept. The danger there is that the essay starts sounding more like a forty something adult, instead of a high school senior. There is a certain “voice” that defines a young person about to start college and if it is lacking in an essay, Admissions Directors will quickly pick it up. Last year's Operation Varsity Blues scandal means that college admissions can't return to business as usual. We need to ensure that the admissions process is fair and equitable, that we don't allow those with money to cut in line and that we don't reward those who make things up or embellish their credentials. Whether it’s alumni from your school, older delegates you’ve met at conferences, or chairs who are already in college, MUN provides a network of people you can reach out to for advice. Jim Jump is the academic dean and director of college counseling at St. Christopher's School in Richmond, Virginia. He has been at St. Christopher's since 1990 and was previously an admissions officer, women's basketball coach and philosophy professor at the college level. Jim is a past president of the National Association for College Admission Counseling. Yes, it is perfectly okay to have your parents edit your essays. However, the key is to edit, not to write them for you. They can help with typos, grammatical errors, and help you to be clear, concise and compelling. They know you best, sometimes more than you know yourself so they may have good suggestions. I told him that any college admissions officer would detect instantly that the story was not genuine. I think it is always best for a student to have an impartial person do the proofing. It is difficult for parents to remain unbiased and often it can cause a lot of added tension between the student and parent. It is, however, a good idea for the parents to help the student brainstorm ideas for the essay prior to writing it. Exhibit #2 is the Operation Varsity Blues scandal. As we enter a new admissions cycle one, of the challenges for our profession is mitigating the damage done by that criminal conspiracy and trying to restore public confidence in the college admissions process. We shouldn't abandon a process based on trust, but we also need to make decisions based on information that is verifiable. How can colleges be trusting without being naïve? The keys are making sure that a student's application has integrity and that decisions are made on information that hasn't necessarily been verified, but is verifiable. I responding by suggesting that he call the dean of admissions at his first-choice college and ask him the same question. His reluctance to do so showed that he already knew the answer. I hammered home the point that misrepresenting himself was wrong and an honor offense, and that colleges are interested in authenticity rather than heroism. But resist the urge to rewrite everything in the way you might express it. More than any other element of the application, the essay gives insight into who a student really is. So it should “sound” like the applicant, revealing personality, interests, quirks, personal style, and voice. Some parents can act as a sounding board without taking over the project, while others cannot. If they read through and make light edits, grammatical and typos, yes. If the parent re-writes or writes the essay the answer is no. My preference (and admissions officers’) would be that parents are minimally involved in the essay. Believe me, those admissions officers are experienced and they can definitely spot the difference between a 50 year-old businessperson’s phraseology and a 17-year-old senior’s own voice and manner of expression. In most cases, your essay isn’t the factor that determines your admission to college. However, an offensive, off-putting, or forgettable essay can hurt your chances.