Ethics and the College Process Part One: The Application Essays
This is the beginning of a series of short articles to get students and parents thinking
about the College Process in a different way, and to examine the process in the context
of ethical behavior. I do not propose any easy solutions to the problems inherent in the
process, though some may be suggested, but rather want to bring to your attention
places in the process where ethics are tested and how to 11dO the right thing" may be
conflicted and unclear. One of the reasons college counseling stays interesting for me is
that these situations offer students, parents and counselors a chance to examine
themselves and confront preconceived notions that are rarely tested. These situations
often force us to think rationally regarding situations about which we often have had only
unexamined emotions.
Because it is the fall, I have decided to make parts of the application the first two or
three subjects of these essays. Most provocative of these are the application essays,
usually two or three, consisting of the Personal Statement, the short extracurricular
statement of three or four sentences, and the essay asked for by many colleges
requiring students to state why they have chosen the particular college to which they are
making application. Most seniors will begin writing essays in late August and September
and will be finis~ed with their first set by November first.
Most of the ethical issues around the essay stem from issues of ngamesmanship, n a
term you will hear me use many times as these articles progress. On the field being
able to ngame your opponentn is an admirable quality but I cringe every time I hear this
applied to the college process. Trying to anticipate what a college or particular
admission officer will want to see and creating something with this as its central purpose
is at the center of most ethical issues connected to applying.
So what was the application designed to do? It is intended to be a straightforward
representation of the student, written by the student, his teachers, and his counselor in
essays, recommendations and grade records. There are several questions in the
application for each one of these people because the college wants to know the student
in different ways: academically, emotionally, socially, extra-curricularly, creatively and
personally. The purpose of getting to know the student is to make a good match
between the student and the university, primarily so the student will graduate
successfully and secondarily so the student will go on to bring glory to his or her alma
mater. (Yes, awkward teenagers do, sometim~s. give indications of glory in their
applications!)
The first ethical issue appears obvious. The application needs to be written by the
student so the admissions officers can see how well the student can write. He or she
needs to pay close attention to this task so that the grammar, structure and tone are as
strong as he or she can manage. But then things get confusing. Can the student get
help? And who should help? When I worked in the Princeton admission office we talked
about how it was a good idea to have a parent or counselor do a grammar check. But it
was not acceptable for the counselor or parent to restructure sent~nces, making them
more complex and thoughtful. It was fine for the helper to ask the student questions
about the topic, but not to suggest new lines of thought to deepen the essay. How many
people understood that this is what we wanted? I am not sure, but if we felt that the
application had been "overly tutored~~ it was not good for the student.
Was it unethical not to explain what we expected? I know that part of our evaluation of
the essay was an evaluation of how the student decided to answer the question, and
this included whether the product reflected that the student had written it alone, or had
chosen to get lots of help until the essay was a mere shadow of who the student was.
The fact that we did not make this clear worked back then, when the process itself had
not been over analyzed by media and spin doctors in the form of private counselors,
SAT tutors and the like. We wanted to see the decisions students made about these
issues on their own and could have reasonable expectation that they were in fact the
primary architects of the application. If they decided to receive inappropriate help, it was
usually painfully obvious from the rest of the application: in their grades, scores and
what teachers and counselors said about sophistication and ability.
The generation which put "baby on board" signs in the back window of so many cars
has encouraged self promotion and self consciousness to such a degree that almost
anything an admission office tries to do to encourage an authentic application from a
seventeen year old will immediately be over analyzed by that same student, his parents
and a host of professional adults around him at least in the private school environment.
No question is taken at face value and ulterior motives are assumed. This brings up a
host of ethical issues in itself. How many adult opinions can be a good thing in the
process? In this situation is good parenting leaving the student to manage on his or her
own? When does the application stop being a representation of the student and when
are the parents or counselor applying to college themselves? The college may well
judge a student's application for its authenticity, but as soon as it claims to do this, this
statement will provoke a new analysis: I can see the titles of the books now. How can
we help our children to be more authentic? What does AUTHENTIC sound like?
College admissions officers who are thinking with integrity about this process are upset
by the lack of trust of them this suggests. I had one colleague at a very selective college
say to me, "why can't families assume that what we ask them is simply what we want to
know?" This may sound naive, but it hearkens back to a time when we all thought
differently about the process. One of the problems is that admission offices have not
worked hard enough to understand the complexity of the challenge to the ethics of this
process, coupled with the fact that students are not independent from the adults around
them. Most students care very much about what parents think and have respect for
counselors and media; there is a lot more apparently valid information available to them
from authorities they respect than the colleges acknowledge. Colleges assume that they
are the only true source of information, and may be so, but that is not the perception of
most of the world around the student. This is rarely addressed directly. (One of the
reasons I am producing these articles.)
A few colleges ask that the student sign a statement that the application is his or her
own work, but it does not specify what this means. Other more creative offices ask the
students to state what help they have had on the application. Here it is obvious what is
the right thing to do, but hard to make oneself do it. One of my favorite answers to this
task was three pages long. It enumerated every punctuation change and every
comment the student's parents, counselor and friends had made. In the end, the answer
to this question was more interesting and more humorous than the essay itself! Other
students decide not to reveal any help, thinking that it will hurt them. I feel this is wrong.
If you get help, you need to say so. One of the issues is that most students believe they
need to be perfect to be admitted. This is not really so, and perfect is subjective. When
a teenager tries to be perfect he or she generally becomes a mere shell of a person,
both on paper and in reality, and empty shells are boring. Advice to the student
applicant: if you have to lie to be perfect, it is not ethical, no matter how you look at it.
You don't have to describe all your flaws, and it is a great idea to tell them all the things
you are proud of in the application, but perfect is not necessary. The worst thing about
lying on the application is that if they admit you for the lies, you will probably have to
keep them up once there, which will be very difficult and make you unhappy. And a lie
does not have to be a direct statement of untruth. It can be as simple as an over tutored
essay that makes it look like you can write better than you actually can.
Students worry about this problem. Most want to be admitted to college for who they
are, not because they have, in the worst case scenario, paid for an essay written by
someone else. But many feel the task is so daunting at this point in time that they are
paralyzed and find essay writing for the college process almost impossible to do. They
feel that the application, and this part of it in particular has a great many secret rules
that they need to figure out. It is in this self conscious "decoding" of what was meant to
be a relatively straightforward assignment that the threat to ethics emerges.
Choosing a topic for the Personal Statement is the first big hurdle. The first thing the
student thinks of is that they must have a topic so original that it stands out from all the
others. Ironically, when most teens try hard to do something outlandish and original, it
immediately becomes stereotypical and dull, and often they feel they need to make
something up that never happened. Lots of books on college essay writing urge them
towards this unwittingly by providing samples of essays from physics geniuses, people
who have in fact done extraordinary things, students who really can write like Faulkner.
Even admissions officers play into this, telling students in informational meetings not to
write about their summer vacations, sports, or the death of a person close to them.
None of this advice is pertinent except in the abstract. Many of the students sitting there
may in fact find themselves in these very topics; the point of all this rhetoric is to get
them to be authentic and not boring, but it is taken literally and often misinterpreted. I
have read a lot of the generic "summer vacation essays" that admissions officer is
talking about, but I also have read some very good ones. The way a student reacts to
the death of a close friend in writing may reveal his core. In fact if the student can focus
down on something really hers, even some event or experience that made an
impression but may be mundane, and describe it really well, the essay will be fantastic.
This takes some experimentation and work, but is well within the grasp of the student.
Writing about what she actually cares about rather than what some adult has told her
will look good in the application will answer the bill just fine. It seems to me here that
the student has to focus her own ethicallense: if the topic feels artificial and stilted, if it
bores her, and most importantly if what she is saying does not feel true to her in all
respects, it is probably a bad choice. But judging one's own work this way requires an
ethical perspective--maybe this is where parents and counselors can help.
The extra curricular essay; is a fairly simple, several sentence paragraph about a
favorite past time. Students do not have to choose the thing they have done that seems
the most interesting, or that they imagine will be interesting to college admissions
officers; they should choose their favorite activity, as they are asked to do and write
about it in a concise, clear manner. Again, the rule is don't second guess--just be
truthful and don't talk about something you have already written about somewhere else.
More tricky is the 11Why do you want to go to------- college?u Sometimes this is
supposed to be a whole page long. Most students do know, or think they know why they
have chosen to apply to the places on their list. And if the only answer is 11 because
these colleges are easy to get inton they probably should change their list or at least
think a bit more deeply about it. Usually a first draft response to this question begins
with flattering the college, because the student feels this is somehow necessary. It is
not, and actually does not answer the question. Maybe if the nyoun in the question was
in italics, this would be easier to write. The colleges know they are strong academically;
they also know that the student wants to attend (otherwise why would he or she be
applying?) What they do not know is how good a match the college will be for the
student. So this question needs to be about why the student feels the college is a good
match and fleshed out with either experiences the student had when visiting or
information gleaned from research combined with information about the student that
shows he or she will fit in. Flattery, invention and bargaining (since ---is the best college
in the country ... or, as the smartest student applying from my school this year, I
feel. .. or, if you admit me I promise ... ) are ethically unsound and will not provoke
admission!
I wish the colleges would eliminate this question as these days it is the one that prompts
the most manipulation, posing and anxiety. Many students do not have time or money to
visit every school, and many of these visits are cursory. Most college websites these
days are put together by marketing companies and seem deadening and similar. And
often students are unsure about why they want to go to college in the first place, so
being able to be both intelligent and specific about why a particular college is for them is
maybe the toughest part of the application in an ethical sense. The temptation and for
some the seeming necessity to make something up is enormous. I would once again
encourage students to give in a first draft the real reasons they chose the college (even
"my counselor said it was a good match for me" and why that is), then evaluate
themselves and learn from this before rewriting.
A couple of years ago I had a student who was applying to the University of Miami
solely because the girls were the prettiest he had seen on any campus and stated this in
his first draft. (Here is a great reason to show your essay to your counselor!) I
humorously and I hope tactfully complimented the student on his honesty and clarity but
then suggested that perhaps there would be better reasons for choosing a college and
that he needed to think a bit more about why he was interested in higher education. We
talked for awhile and he ended up with a nicely balanced essay that actually did mention
the opportunities for a great social life humorously and quite specifically, and how
healthy and happy everyone seemed on campus, which he had legitimately noted, and
also what he loved about the marine biology program there which was going to provide
him with ocean based research, something he had done one summer after junior year
and loved. Most important were the specific anecdotes he provided about his own
experience and what he could do on campus. What mattered to me about this was that
the essay was still true to who he was, and in writing it he had deepened his thinking
about going to college. The result was ethical, thoughtful and well researched, the prose
simple and direct.
At Fieldston we believe it is ethical to help students with their essays, but we are very
careful as we work with them. We try to calm them down and help them to open up
rather than shut down. Most of us have had experience teaching students to write in
other contexts, and we use some of these techniques as we work with them. Sometimes
we edit a bit, sometimes we proof for grammar. We never restructure sentences
ourselves, but we may urge the students to rewrite. But in all the work we do with the
students we never forget who they are, academically and personally, and the job of the
essay, which is to accurately represent them to the college. Sometimes to get a student
who is bright but an uncomfortable writer to do this is excruciating. Often the brilliant
mathematician needs to prove herself with test scores and comments from teachers and
an explanation of a theorem that she found particularly interesting rather than a moving
personal essay about something that happened with lots of elegant sentences. And
sometimes a great dancer is better at expressing things with his body than on paper.
But the great thing about the college process is that if the dance tape shows how
talented he is, the essay can be workmanlike and it will be consistent and fine for the
application. Again the reminder: the application as a whole is supposed to show who
the student IS.
Because at Fieldston our load is small enough that we have time to do this painstaking
work with students, we counsel them to work only with us on the essay. This is not
about territorial issues, but about the fact that we know them better than an outside
counselor can, and we know the process as professionals better than their parents or
tutors. We also understand the context of Fieldston. And selfishly, as the essay
develops, we get the chance to REALLY know them, in a deeper way, understand how
they think and work, and can then convey this to the college in our own
recommendations, which will then be consistent with the essay and the rest of the
application. This careful balance prevents ethical problems, but it is something we are
continually re-evaluating with each student, and asking ourselves, how much is too
much?
In a world where the economy appears to be flagging, it is harder and harder to get a
job and many students from privileged backgrounds feel that they will never be able to
live as well as their parents, the stakes seem very high and the pressure to second
guess and manipulate a process the admissions officers at their best would like to keep
straightforward is intense. More bodies in the process and the production of lists of
rankings of colleges in the media have not helped this. One of the things that provokes
"gaming the system" is the idea that a "best" or "better" college exists and that each
student deserves to go there, wherever that is. Believing this, the student that does not
attain such an admission will haye failed, or will fail in this competitive world later on.
This fear of this or entitlement to it, depending on how intense, can justify almost any
behavior.
With all this going on, it is hard indeed to make ethical concerns of foremost importance.
Some students, parents and even counselors and teachers think, "well, I will bend the
truth a little, just this once. After all, no one writes essays on their own these days.
Everyone has a tutor to help. Some students are even paying for others to write their
essays, so it is not a big deal if just this once 1.." You get the idea. This feels unethical
to us because it is, but also it does not HELP the student to make an application that
veers from the truth enough to alter on paper what the student is actually like. It may
even result in rejection in the process or student unhappiness at the college. I would
also argue that an inauthentic application alters elementally the process for the student
and changes the quality of their eventual admission to college and even the experience
there. If they can slip by the portals of admission, students whose applications do not
represent their work feel that the college might not have wanted them as they are, or
that they would not have been admitted without the manipulation. They may even feel
that who they are is not enough for the adults around them who seem so intent on
making them different, suggesting that they cannot get to an appropriate college as they
are. It doesn't seem worth it, even if it works, and we eschew the ethical argument.
Another worry clouding the ethical path is the one mentioned before. With so many
people getting unmonitored outside help, hiring consultants, paying for high priced tutors
of various kinds, is not the process itself already corrupted? Can anyone with any flaws
be admitted without doing these things? And we are stuck with the process as it is, so
shouldn't we manipulate it the best we can? It is true that colleges spend more and
more money on marketing to attract more and more applicants so that their ratings
increase. Many also manipulate yield statistics, and seem to choose students primarily
to enhance their numbers rather than to make a match. Whether they do these things to
please alumni, board members or are simply "gaming the system" because they believe
they have to to stay open and viable, the ethical way for the student to behave in the
application process seems more and more obscure. There is, I believe, a way to reason
and feel ourselves back from the brink. Focusing on what we, counselors, teachers and
parents, are teaching the students, rather than what the process has become can guide
us to ethical behavior and still not prevent admission to an appropriate and fine college.
Sometimes even after almost 30 years of thought about these issues, I still let concern
with outcome overshadow the ethics of the process. It is hard not to value admission to
the place the student REALLY WANTS over the ethical rules of the process, which are
often not even clearly stated. When I find myself wanting an admission so badly for a
student, that I am beginning to step over the line of what feels like proper counsel, I
remind myself that the college for which the student is unable to write a successful
application on his or her own is probably not where he or she should go. This is fairly
simple, and is the underpinning of most of what we do in the process. It is also what
keeps us honest. Even if it seems I am working to make the student happy, it is
important to look deeper. What kind of happiness am I thinking of? Does it have an
ethical base of deeper value? And on this deeper level, will what we all do, student,
parent, counselor and teacher, achieve this satisfaction?