TOW #9: Let Go of the College Essay, and Let Your Teenager Speak for Herself by Lacy Crawford

            With SAT’s nearly a month away and the college application process creeping closer and closer, my only thought is HELP!  With a few clicks, I soon found myself looking at articles on the New York Times website about applying to colleges.  The article Let Go of the College Essay, and Let Your Teenager Speak for Herself by Lacy Crawford jumped out at me. Intrigued, I began to read this article and soon learned that it was not written for the overwhelmed high schooler, but for his or her over-protective parental unit.  You see, Crawford wrote this article in order to tell parents that they cannot help their child write their college essay. In the end, only their student can truly tell their own story.

        Crawford starts with a personal anecdote about a father who asked her if she could write his sons college essay for him. She declined his offer, but she helped his son by taking him on a walk and having him talk about himself.  She continues by comparing how kids might answer certain questions and how their answers affect a colleges view on them as a person. For example, “it is the difference between the young man who writes, ‘I understand suffering because I’ve watched my dad live with a chronic illness and nothing in my life has ever been that difficult,’ and the one who writes, ‘Seeing my dad in pain was devastating for me. And also inspiring.  It’s why I’ve taken AP Bio and Chem, and why I’m hoping to be pre-med’”. Crawford uses this example to show how only the student can truly answer the college essay in order to make it personal like colleges hope they will be.

            But, it is the way Crawford ends her article that really drives home her purpose.  She answers the question that all parent readers’ want answered: so what can a parent do?  Her response is simple; tell your child what you admire about him or her, because in the end, their student is the only one who can tell the story of themself.

http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/15/let-go-of-the-college-essay-and-let-your-teenager-speak-for-herself/?ref=admissions&_r=0