PEOPLE who can't write their own admissions essays don't deserve to be here. Getting your mom, your best friend or your English teacher to look it over is fine, and makes sense. But now you can pay consultants or get essays on the Internet.
Most schools, including the University, know plagiarism is a problem. Some actually have put measures in place to address it. The University should make it clear to prospective students that honorable behavior begins before admission, with the application essay.
The college admissions essay is one of the most important papers students ever will write. For this reason, even the best students find it nerve-wracking. The essay is the point in the application where the student's personality and ability to communicate become visible.
As such, many college administrators find it much more helpful than teacher recommendations, grades or SAT scores. Administrators accept that students will have people they know read the essay and suggest improvements. Only a person who was arrogant or didn't take it seriously wouldn't do this. But usually, the effort is the student's.
What worries admissions officers is the introduction of other sources of aid on admissions essays which involve help from experts or outright plagiarism. These sources thwart the intention of the admissions essay.
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Cheating on admissions essays is not entirely new, and not always high-tech. For example, at Case Western University, officials read an excellent essay that seemed really familiar. Additionally, the student had great grades and SATs, but his teachers said his writing was weak. The student's sister was a student, and on a hunch, they pulled out her admissions file. The essays were identical.
The Internet, however, means that you don't have to know a genius. Over the last three years or so, Internet essays have become a problem, with over a dozen sites posting essays to answer fairly typical questions ("Duke Asks Students if they Received Help on Their Admissions Essays," Chronicle of Higher Education, March 1).
This is less of a problem when colleges come up with their own idiosyncratic questions as opposed to using the standard question that asks students about their greatest accomplishment, a life-changing experience, etc.
The rise of professional essay services, however, complicates the situation. These services charge up to $5,000 to polish a student's essay to a professional level and offer assistance far beyond the parental advice of which admissions officials approve.
Using Kaplan to help you learn tricks to survive the SAT is one thing. Using services that practically write your essay for you is dishonest and subverts the purpose of letting the admissions office get to know you. It's also horribly unfair. Only a tiny percentage of students' parents can afford these services, particularly when applying to multiple colleges with very different essays.
To counter what it sees as a growing problem, Duke has begun asking students whether they received aid on their essays, and if so, to describe the source and type of assistance. Very few admitted to using consultants, which causes some to question the usefulness of the question.
On the other hand, very few denied getting any help, and students generally were very forthcoming in their descriptions. Officials also learned that students did not usually make all the changes suggested.
There are some applicants who believe that giving these details hurts their chances, and some critics think these students' experiences will encourage others to lie, thwarting the purpose of the question. But if phrased in a way that both presumes students have received some form of assistance, and in conjunction with instructions that set clear guidelines that exclude professional consultants and the Internet, these questions can be a good way to preserve the usefulness of an admissions essay.
No matter what, there are some people who will lie about the help they received, no matter what admissions officers do. Some of those plagiarisms will be recognized, and some won't. But there are many people who will use everything they are allowed to use, particularly consultants. These people, when they know admissions officers don't want a perfect essay without personality, will send us their work.
At the University, the application clearly states that applicants have to be willing to follow the honor code. The University admissions office might as well place the essay under the honor code and specify what qualifies as too much assistance. It won't work perfectly, but it will work well enough to be worth it.
The admissions essay is valuable to the college admissions process, and admissions and Honor need to work together to preserve it. The best way to keep this place honorable is to use the admissions process to make sure only people who are prepared get in.
(Elizabeth Managan's column appears Wednesdays in The Cavalier Daily. She can be reached at emanagan@cavalierdaily.com.)
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