Ghost Writers - college bound students get online essay help - Brief Article

Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine, Jan, 2000 by Stephanie Gallagher

EDUCATION : A high-tech way to ace the COLLEGE ESSAY raises eyebrows.

FORGET GOOD GRADES, high SAT scores and esoteric extracurricular activities. Right now, your high school senior's future hangs on getting the college application finished on rime (for many schools, deadlines are in January). And that means facing down the dreaded essay.

"This is far and away the part of the application that kids have the biggest problem with," says Vedant Mimani, president of MyEssay. com (www .myessay.com), one of a growing number of online essay-assistance services.

MyEssay and ifs competitors are more than happy to help--for a price. You can pay from $60 to $499 for assistance ranging from proofreading and critiquing the finished essay to brainstorming, outlining and rewriting each draft.

The far end of that spectrum raises eyebrows among admissions counselors. But Geoff Cook, a senior at Harvard and founder of CollegeGate (www .collegegate.com), an online service that edits students' essays, says he is simply leveling the playing field by providing a service that prep schools routinely offer. "I don't think it's unethical at all. Generally, we're just restructuring. Sometimes people lead with really weak stuff," Cook says.

Some companies, like IvyEssays (www. ivyessays.com), also sell packets of essays designed to give students inspiration. A mere $ 5 to $12 gets you a packet of rive to 15 essays, delivered by e-mail. A notice on the site warns that the essays are not intended "as a means for plagiarism."

Cut and paste? Students who succumb to the temptation to cut and paste are likely to get caught. Linda Miller, associate dean of admissions at the University of Virginia, says admissions officers may question an extraordinary essay from an ordinary student who is not involved in literary activities. IvyEssays says it will help admissions officers match applicants' essays with those in its database if plagiarism is suspected.

"My real concern is just how far the service is going," says Delna Antaki, a guidance counselor at Salem High School, in Virginia Beach, Va. "The whole point of the essay is to learn a little more about the individual and determine how well that person expresses himself or herself."

It's unclear how important the essay is to the overall process, anyway. "Counselors will tell you it's as important as anything else because they don't want kids to slouch," says Ken Hartman, a college professor and author of the Internet Guide for College-Bound Students (College Board, 1998). But regardless of test scores, grades and even the essay, "if they're looking for a left-handed tuba player from Nebraska and you're it, you could get in."