Writing your own college essay
By Haewon Helen Whang
A recently published Boston Globe article, “Fight to find cheats takes schools around the world,” identified two types of companies cropping up in China ― one helping students cheat their way into American universities and one exerting quality control to stem the rampant cheating.
The article mentioned sensational anecdotes from college admissions officers: a student’s poorly written email accompanied by a flawless essay; an essay plagiarized from a translated Korean pop song; one admissions officer’s puzzlement about a black cat on a girl’s lap during a Skype interview only to realize it was the student’s mom lying on her lap feeding her the responses.
The publication of this Boston Globe article was followed by breaking news of the College Board canceling the SAT in China and Macau due to a cheating scandal, which mentioned that the last time the College Board canceled the SAT was in 2013 in Korea.
It is hard not to sympathize with the plight of immigrants or foreign students who face the daunting challenge of writing college essays in a nonnative language, while many American students applying to elite colleges have English-speaking parents who can edit their college essays. This was the justification given to me by my friend who approached me to be a ghost writer for her mom’s college consulting business in Korea.
I declined because in addition to my ethical objection, ghost writing is a disservice to students who should be learning writing skills to succeed in college.
Back in the early 1990s, many of us applied to colleges without the benefit of college consultants or Google results on “best college essays” or “how to gain admission to the Ivies.” For me, applying to college was a deeply personal experience. I had no clue what a good college essay was supposed to be.
I bought a “Barrons’ Guide to Colleges” and picked the colleges I wanted to attend and requested an application. I then sat in front of a typewriter with White Out and an essay outline and poured my heart out explaining why Cornell University should accept me. As an immigrant kid, I had neither the benefit of English-speaking parents who could proofread my essay or an English-speaking mentor consulting me on how best to market my resume.
In retrospect, I shudder at the possibility of grammatical mistakes and awkward wording in my essay. Yet, whether my essay was error free or not, I feel a sense of peace that the feelings and the words conveyed in the essay were my own. My college essay was a way for me to confirm why I wanted to attend that college, and a way for me to show the college how the college would benefit from having me as a student.
Once admitted, I asked my parents for their tax records, filled out the financial form myself, and obtained a world-class education for a bargain. That is how I and many of my friends applied to colleges in the 1990s, and we are richer in intellect, independence and self-discovery from this experience.
If there is one takeaway from this article, please know that college is not a final destination. Many Asian parents see college as an end game, but most well-educated Americans I know see college as a beginning. There are plenty of successful people who didn’t initially attend Ivy League colleges such as Steve Jobs, Google co-founders, YouTube co-founders, and Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey.
As a mom, one of the most important lessons I can teach my sons is to work hard and be true to who they are, not cheat their way to the top. I don’t want to teach my kids that they need to be someone else to be admitted to a top university; that they aren’t good enough to earn it on their own.
Besides, it isn’t right to cheat and take away another student’s place who actually deserves it. If you are admitted to a college because someone else took your SAT or wrote your college essay, you don’t deserve to be there. Your fraud may haunt you for the rest of your life, or your college may realize the cheating and expel you.
After Michael Bloomberg donated $1.1 billion to Johns Hopkins, he said, “They took a chance on me” despite his mediocre transcript. Why don’t you take a chance? The right college may actually like you for who you are, flaws and all.
Haewon Helen Whang is the founder and CEO of English Hound (www.EnglishHound.com), a New York-based online tutoring company promoting English literacy, creativity and self-expression in every child. She is also an attorney and lives in New York with her husband and her two sons.