The short answer is, yes, it is permissible to have others read and edit your college admission essay for you.  With that being said, the ideas must be your own, and the voice must remain unmistakably yours.  While admissions officers differ on whether or not they are able to determine if a student has actually written the essay, there is no question that a 30 or 40 year old writes with a much different voice than a 17 or 18 year old writes with.

That being said, a college admissions essay should represent a students best work.  The best writers are those who rewrite and carefully hone their message.  The essay cannot possibly be the best work of a student unless it has moved through a few drafts with steady improvement.  Often times, when we write something we become too connected to the writing to be able to objectively edit.  Unfortunately, I see this in my own writing, where I will edit a letter and send it out only to realize later that it still had a mistake.  However, when I pick up writing for one of my coworkers, I can easily identify the mistakes.  Having someone who has no emotional connection to the writing helps to eliminate some common mistakes such as having a word spelled correctly, but it not being the right word and sending the wrong essay to a college (think of an essay finishing with, “…and that is why I want to go to your biggest competitor.).

It is important that you have two different types of people edit your essay: those who know you well and those who don’t know you well.  Why is that important?  You want someone who knows you to read your essay and finish it and think that the essay accurately portrays you.  Further, you want someone who doesn’t know you to finish reading the essay and get the feeling that they do know you.  This means you need to start your essay early enough to allow time to have people review your essay for you.

In addition to the short answer, many colleges have supplements with additional essays. A number of colleges have some variation of the question “Why us?” on their supplement. Make sure you take the time to research the school and show appropriate interest. Do not just submit a generic response that you use for all the colleges to which you are applying. Many schools use demonstrated interest in their admission decision, so you may want to mention how the school felt right on a campus visit, if you were actually on campus. You may also want to mention specific programs or clubs you research on the school’s website.

On their supplement, schools might also ask a number of different questions. In fact, it has become more popular for schools to ask a series of short response questions, which almost seem like tweets, as many are limited to less than 200 characters. Wake Forest is one college who asks these questions as a way to better learn about a student’s personality to determine if the student is a fit for their culture. Here are some of their sample questions:

· What outrages you? What are you doing about it?
· This year our Wake Forest Student Union invited expert students to become teachers of non-credit classes in the Wake Forest Experimental college. Provide us with the title of a course that you could teach your peers.
· Make a rational argument for a position you do not personally support. For clarity, please state your true opinion first and then argue the opposite position.
· You may invite any three individuals from history to join you for a cup of coffee at our university coffee house, Campus Grounds. Whom would you invite? What is your icebreaker question to start conversation? and where might the conversation go from there?
· Give us your top ten list.

Just like with the main essay, it is critical to give yourself enough time to respond to the additional writing samples. Brevity is critical, as the character limit is strictly enforced by the online applications. This is a test of getting your point across in a concise manner, which can prove to be difficult. However, if you do take your time to plan out your responses, you should be able to use these short writing samples to your advantage.

I realize that it is a very intimidating task to sit down and try to wrap up your life in a nice little bow and between 250 and 500 words. Don’t worry, they aren’t expecting you too. However, you do need to give them a reason to accept you, and just as importantly, do not give them any reasons to reject you. Recently, there was a great guest post on The Choice, a college admissions Blog. I highly recommend reading it. Martha Merrill, Dean of Admission and Financial Aid at Connecticut College wrote about what she was looking for in an essay and gave some general tips. One of the most important tips she gave was that there is no formula for a good essay. In fact, since it needs to be your voice coming through, it should be an essay that only you could have written. Another piece of good advice she gave was to pick a mundane topic and bring it to life. Read the full text of her post here.

If you are having trouble getting started, view some of our previous articles on brainstorming the essay and our big list of questions. You will also want to view advice from a former director of admissions and possibly read some sample essays and his comments. Remember, when you are reading the sample essays you are just trying to learn how an admission officer views those essays and not use them as a template for your own essay, since the best essays are intensely personal and you could not just copy the form of another essay. Most importantly, just get started. You need to write something, and then you can revise it and make it in to a good essay. Your first attempt should not be your final attempt. You may want to write a few different essays, and then pick the one that you like the best. Most likely you will need to write a few different essays anyway, as many colleges have supplements where they ask you specific questions or for an additional writing sample.

When you are done with the essay, put it down for a couple of days and then reread it with fresh eyes. Also, be sure to have someone else read it. Do they get a good sense of what you are like as a person? If one of your friends read it, would they say, “Yeah, that’s you.” While it is important to have others help you edit the essay and give you suggestions, ultimately, it is your essay and needs to be in your voice. Accept constructive criticism, but don’t let others rewrite your essay. This fall is going to be a very stressful time. Get started on your essay now. When September and October roll around, you will be glad you did.