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We? I don't know.
Me? Wrong.

"...If that child can’t write an essay — well, that’s not my business. Let’s at least get that kid into the school."

This is wrong. The schools have kids write essays for admission to see if they can write an essay. It's not just getting to know the student, though that's another reason. Mostly, though, it's to see the raw material the college potentially has to work with. If a student cannot get into a college entirely on his or her own, he or she probably isn't up to snuff, or won't fit in at that college.

This is also lying. This is saying that the student wrote an essay he or she didn't. This is also wrong.

The same students will buy essays in college. Wrong--yes. But hard to catch and in the end cheating themselves. However I think when we say it's wrong, we should recognize that it's symptomatic. If you commercialize everything, and applaud the "winners" then you get people who make a living in this way. What honour do we give to writers for their insight and their poetic gifts? In this society not a whole lot--unless they make money, piles of it. This is a society that doesn't want to "subsidize" art. I use quotations marks because business is subsidized in many ways. But the main pint is that over the last 30 years or so the right has insinuated into the society a doctrine of profit take all and private enterprise above all to the extent that many previously accepted aspects of social living have been swept away. And I see this sort of enterprise as just a symptom of this broader problem.

And what about the NYT giving space to allow this admission? Another symptom of a larger problem!

Well, I don't think it's right. I think it's sad--sad that people in our country have had to resort to this, and sad that such a successful woman in many areas of her life supports this type of cheating.

Thanks for posting this article--it's very intriguing!

I say she's doing the kids a disfavor. If they can't even write an admissions essay, they aren't going to crack it in classes. All she's doing is helping them take the spot from someone who deserves it. (Most of those essays are 500 words or less. They don't need genius, just aflash of personality and demonstration of mechanics. Find a friend or adult who's capable of editing.)

Amazing...now competing freshmen are advertized like real estate property! I'm surprised but not too overcome...I think they have to submit grades and test scores as well. It's not fair but maybe the reason she doesn't hear from the potential students is because they weren't successful? Imagine being so brazen about cheating...as if it's completely normal.

I think most college personal essays are edited by a parent/friend but a total rewrite pushes the boundary too far. And then if you cheated and succeed, many people won't feel satisfied and confident. No, "I did it!!!" feeling. Rather,it leaves the student disempowered...I guess it's true that if you cheat, you cheat yourself. <3

Well, it's not any different from writing for Hallmark cards for instance. Even Maya Angelou did it. Is it art? Is it real literature? Or is it just a means to make a living? It's all of the above in my opinion. My concern is that serious poets and writers like you and some of your regular readers, whose blogs and websites I also visit, might end in the same group. Without coming across too snobbish, and I hope I'm not, we ought to separate pure commerce from good art. Just a thought. Many thanks for this post. Not living in NY and therefore usually bypassing the property page online, I would have never come across this section. When I read the NYT, I do it onlien.

Greetings from London.

Wow. Thanks, Beth, for uncovering that story. I rushed past it, too. It's very frightening!

Not only is this practice morally wrong, it's a huge disservice to the student and to the students at the college who genuinely deserve to be there.

But, as Lilian said so well, it's symptomatic of the extreme competitive nature in which we're rearing out children, in which the end justifies the means as long as you get what you want.

So sad.

I'd be curious to know if the kids actually got in. There's a lot of writing on college aps, not just essays. Seems like it would be easy to spot a fake essay if the other writing wasn't up to par.

Call me old fashioned, but where I come from, that's cheatin' - plain and simple.

Does she take the SATs for applicants, too?

And, BTW, how hard up is the NYT for material to fill its pages? The front end of that piece showcased fluff that any receptionist at a PR firm could churn out and and the back end revealed the subject to be an unscrupulous hack-for-hire.

This is news that's fit to print?

...A.

Sad to say that you are all misguided and too highly opinionated. Like you never had help from parents or adults. Each of us has a story to be told, and needs help opening our petals to blossom. Shame on your for opinions that are unwarranted, and especially for those who condemn someone whom you know nothing about.