How Important Is The Essay?

How Important Is The Essay? Some parents can act as a sounding board without taking over the project, while others cannot. No, your middle school grades occurred too long ago to really give colleges an accurate idea of your current academic abilities. Colleges have many other pieces of information that are much more useful for figuring out which applicants to accept, so they don't use middle school grades. If colleges see that you've stuck with an activity since middle school, it'll show them you're passionate about it and can really dedicate yourself to an activity. 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. 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. I don’t understand why I’m being punished for being honest. Is this really something that’s worth complaining about? The important issue is to write the best essay you can, not the length of words. 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. However, you do want the essays to sound like you; it should be your voice. That is, an assignment, essay or paper will likely be assigned as 1500 â€" 2000 words rather than 3 â€" 4 pages. This way it is much more difficult for the writer to “game the system” by using large fonts and excessive spacing to meet the writing criteria. What you write in your application essay or personal statement should not contradict any other part of your applicationâ€"nor should it repeat it. 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. If you’re focus in only on the words and not what you’ve written, your writing is never going to be good. Focus on what’s important, not on things like this. Since there can be a large variation on the number of words needed to fill a page, most papers are no longer assigned by page count. 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. But resist the urge to rewrite everything in the way you might express it. This isn't the place to list your awards or discuss your grades or test scores. A student who can make an admissions officer laugh never gets lost in the shuffle. What you think is funny and what an adult working in a college thinks is funny are probably different. We caution against one-liners, limericks and anything offâ€"color. 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.