Writing
Wrongs. It Was Supposed to Be 'Inspiration.' Turns Out, They Turned in
My Work
By Bess Kargman
Sunday, January 15, 2006; B01
College admissions officers around the country will be reading my
application essays this month, essays in which I describe personal
aspirations, academic goals -- even, in one case, a budding passion for
the sitar. What they won't know is that I actually graduated from
college more than a year ago, and that the names attached to these
essays are those of my duplicitous clients.
Until recently, I worked as a freelance editor for a college
application consulting firm. A friend had told me that online essay
editing provided her with a flexible schedule and decent earnings, so I
thought I'd give it a shot. A quick Google search produced a lengthy
list of potential employers. I chose one at random, e-mailed my
résumé with a writing sample and was hired as a freelance
editor the following day.
Initially, the arrangement seemed ideal. The students who paid my
employer $150 to $200 for my services mostly needed proofreading help.
The ideas were theirs. Occasionally I would shift a few sentences to
reshape a paragraph or introduction, and I would e-mail the essay back
with comments and suggestions.
I enjoyed working with these kids because it was evident how much they
needed my help. Most spoke English as a second language or came from
less advantaged communities, where experienced proofreading advice from
a parent or friend was hard to come by. It was completely ethical; as
one admissions officer later told me, everybody should have someone
look at their essay before sending it off.
Then my employer suggested that I could earn more money working as a
"comprehensive" editor. The pricier and very popular Comprehensive
Package, I was told, provided students with a more thorough form of
assistance, including the "model essay" option. It sounded like a
promotion to me.
My instructions were to call the clients and get a better understanding
of their expectations. After a few days of e-mail correspondence, I
would churn out the model compositions, which the students were
instructed to use for "inspiration" during the process of writing their
own. I didn't question why a student (or, rather, a parent) might be
willing to pay as much as $399 for a service that provided nothing more
than inspiration. I was optimistic that my creativity and enthusiasm
would rouse the undiscovered essayist within my clients.
But it soon became apparent that these clients paid more because they
needed more from me. Trying to frame their model essays, I had to fish
for ideas. When I asked one young man to tell me what exactly made him
a unique candidate for college admission, he e-mailed back: "I stand
out because I have a lot of outstanding ideas. . . . This is because I
am an individual and I have no problem thinking outside the box."
I asked another client, whose first essay dwelt too much on her unhappy
youth and trouble with the law, to give me an example of how she had
grown and changed. "I passed candy out at a hospital over Halloween,"
she told me. "Feel free to elaborate."
Several weeks into the process, I found out that my first comprehensive
client had in fact included my essay with his application -- verbatim.
(I asked him about it after discovering that the submission deadline
for his top college choice was less than an hour after he received my
"model.")
I wasn't helping these kids, I was faking it for them.
I confronted my supervisor: How could the company offer a service that
was so easily abused? She said unapologetically that the firm's
practices and intentions were legitimate. I was taken aback by this
blatant indifference. Actually, the company's only real response was to
stop sending me any clients altogether. After all, they have a whole
slew of college graduates willing to do the kind of bogus work I've
decided to turn down.
This form of organized, for-profit cheating was unfamiliar to me, so I
decided to look into how pervasive it might be. Of the 30 online
editing companies I checked, four list the mock or model essay as a
service. A handful of others offer varying degrees of application
assistance. The least impressive but most affordable allow students to
scan thousands of sample essays from a database, arranged by category,
for a mere $20 a month.
At the other end of the spectrum is the fully commissioned piece
written on a student's behalf -- of course, always for "inspiration."
They call it the "authentic" essay. The hypocrisy isn't subtle. On the
Web site of one such service, which also offers term-paper writing, is
a blinking banner proclaiming: "Worry about plagiarism? Aaaaaaaaa! We
write only original papers!"
I should point out that, as far as I have been able to determine, many
of these companies are legitimate. They do not offer "model essays,"
just proofreading and light editing. Maybe I just picked one of the bad
apples. But any company that offers something like the Comprehensive
Package and then turns a blind eye to the possibility of its misuse
inevitably facilitates cheating.
The Internet has made it possible to cheat with unprecedented ease,
speed and sophistication. "Cheating is nothing new," one college
admissions officer told me, "but organized cheating in the college
application process is a growing problem." Like all the admissions
officers I spoke to, he was aware that, as schools become more
selective and applicants come under increased pressure, there's an
obvious market for companies that, however unethically, will sell
students a competitive edge.
Does this kind of deception get caught? The college officials I talked
to said they try to "connect the dots," comparing an applicant's essay
quality with his or her grades, standardized test scores and
recommendations, scrutinizing a little harder when a kid whose essay
reads like Thoreau barely passed creative writing.
If the dots don't connect, I was told, the school might investigate
further. More likely, it will just "drop the envelope." In other words,
the punishment for getting caught is a rejected application.
Having braved the application process myself six years ago, I fully
sympathize with how stressful it is. But there's a significant
distinction between hiring a professional editor and buying an
unethical product.
Students who believe they are ready to attend college should not be
searching for this form of application assistance. My clients thought
they were gaining something by hiring my professional services. But in
the process they were losing something far more important: an
opportunity to define their own authentic voices.