Trot on over to Eduwonk, where guest blogger J.B. Schramm, Founder and CEO of College Summit, is turning in some substantive posts. He ends each day by pasting excerpts of student admission essays:??
While the importance of research, policy and debate within the education community cannot be overstated, it is also valuable to be reminded of "what it's all about." During our week here, we'd like to conclude each day with an excerpt from a student's college admission essay that he or she developed at one of College Summit's annual summer workshops.
One is immediately struck,??upon reading??these essays (or at least the two so far posted), that the writing is all about suffering???about feeling lost, about feeling burdened, about feeling like an outcast, etc. Quite frankly, the pieces??resemble the weepy and gaggingly emotive memoirs (some true, others not) that clog bookstore shelves.
It can be supposed that College Summit's essay workshops encourage such outpourings???"Write about what stirs you. Admissions committees want to know how you feel."???and pushes students to include as many mentions as possible of themselves as underprivileged and of a different race or culture. But if the goal is to integrate??these young adults into a university setting, does this approach make sense? Might it not simply reinforce the separations College Summit endeavors to degrade?
Update: I should note that universities of course??ask for this type of essay and certainly look favorably upon those??submissions that??fit the mold, so College Summit??doesn't deserve all the blame. Nonetheless, it's truly awful writing that,??no matter how you slice it, doesn't impart much about why the author should be admitted to any given??college.