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I Ghostwrite Chinese Students' Ivy League Admissions Essays

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Re: I Ghostwrite Chinese Students' Ivy League Admissions Essays

#101

Post by waterlesscloud »

metacorrector wrote: post #82

YCombinator is all tied up with VCs and incubators and such, right? In other contexts such as applying for various types of placements, are people's comment histories reviewed (including whatever amount of doxing is possible via server logs etc) to weed out "bad eggs"? Cuz, I sure wouldn't hire anybody on here who is condoning or defending in any way cheating in school, even in the most oblique way.

I wonder if there are "HN Posting Consultants" that help you get into YC?

I also wonder how much I'm kidding when I say that.

Re: I Ghostwrite Chinese Students' Ivy League Admissions Essays

#102

Post by Yardlink »

kansface wrote: post #78
Yardlink wrote: post #77

I used to work for a company writing application essays for Chinese students. I didn't write them myself but I have no moral objection. The requirements are bizarre - effectively "tell us what you know will make us like you but hide the fact that you know we want to hear it". Should you tell the truth "I love CS and play it in all my spare time, I'm obsessed with it and usually don't get enough sleep for school becau…

Fairness is not concomitant to a spare 2K$.

It opens doors for some people who wouldn't have been able to otherwise. But more importantly, I hope this type of cheating leads universities to change their selection processes so applicants don't have to play this second-guessing game.

I feel like the university staff are fools being deceived by this nonsense. That they actually give weigh to the application essay shows they're not making a fair decisions.

Re: I Ghostwrite Chinese Students' Ivy League Admissions Essays

#103

Post by lutusp »

morgante wrote: post #95
bane wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hence, it's absolutely expected that any educated adult should have no problem writing in an unrelated humanities field, because they've already gone through the system. It's also part of the reason most reporting on technical fields is so horrible.

> It's also part of the reason most reporting on technical fields is so horrible. Indeed. Your humanities degree is enough to understand the basics of economics, politics, etc. — but not compilers. Unfortunately, when technical people do the writing it rarely ends up much better (since most were never taught how to effectively synthesize ideas for a general audience). Hence why I wish more technical programs had larg…

> Unfortunately, when technical people do the writing it rarely ends up much better (since most were never taught how to effectively synthesize ideas for a general audience). Hence why I wish more technical programs had larger disciplinary and liberal arts components.

Complete agreement, but there's a paradox here. On the one hand, it would be nice to have journalists able to write for a general audience but also technically knowledgeable enough to avoid most of the common errors journalists make.

On the other is the fact that a student able to absorb technical material sufficient to make him or her a serious journalist, would be strongly motivated to change majors, because of the much higher status and rank of any technical major compared to journalism.

It's why there are so few technically adept college professors -- most who actually understand their subjects have long since jumped ship and are working for Google/Facebook/etc.

Re: I Ghostwrite Chinese Students' Ivy League Admissions Essays

#104

Post by wpietri »

rayiner wrote: post #71
jiggy2011 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the student who hires a consultant to tell them what classes to take, or what clubs to join, or what organizations to volunteer for, and then follows through with those, less deserving of a spot than someone that happens to randomly fall upon the right combination of activities? Yes, I think that's the general idea. Ideally the criteria are kept secret of course. It's the same as picking employees who do open sour…

I think that's stupid, and gives an unfair advantage to people from more educated and/or connected backgrounds. Instead of blaming admissions consultants, I'd blame the colleges using these bullshit proxy metrics.

Blame is not exclusive. In a chain of idiocy, you can point fingers at every idiot.

Hate the player and the game. Without players, there is no game.

Re: I Ghostwrite Chinese Students' Ivy League Admissions Essays

#105

Post by foobarqux »

Bahamut wrote: post #86

This is a bit disheartening to me, but not surprising. I know of several people who have used this type of service, and some who have provided it. For me, my essay was the difference in attending the likes of Harvard - my essay was egregiously bad, and it was explained to me by the director of admissions of one Ivy League school via a family friend who was a professor at that same university as the primary reason for…

Can you elaborate on specifically what made your essay bad?

Re: I Ghostwrite Chinese Students' Ivy League Admissions Essays

#106

Post by llllllllllll »

morgante wrote: post #80
llllllllllll wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure you're aware of this, but the high demand from foreign language students is likely because US colleges often have a foreign language requirement. At my college it was four semesters, which is pretty common. The effect is that you get a slew of totally unmotivated, clueless students who slow things down for everyone else. Spanish especially, since it's the "easy" foreign language for English speakers, was ove…

> I'm sure you're aware of this, but the high demand from foreign language students is likely because US colleges often have a foreign language requirement. I read that to mean foreign nationals (non-native English speakers), not students studying foreign languages (which rarely have long essays for introductory courses). That people with poor English skills would use ghostwriting services (like the article author's…

Oh, I suppose that could be read either way but given the context you're probably right. Thanks!

Re: I Ghostwrite Chinese Students' Ivy League Admissions Essays

#107

Post by lutusp »

Yardlink wrote: post #102
kansface wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fairness is not concomitant to a spare 2K$.

It opens doors for some people who wouldn't have been able to otherwise. But more importantly, I hope this type of cheating leads universities to change their selection processes so applicants don't have to play this second-guessing game. I feel like the university staff are fools being deceived by this nonsense. That they actually give weigh to the application essay shows they're not making a fair decisions.

> But more importantly, I hope this type of cheating leads universities to change their selection processes so applicants don't have to play this second-guessing game.

Well-heeled parents who dote on their children, and who regard a college education as an absolute must, represent a formidable natural force to be reckoned with. They will always think of a way to see their children treated with favor. "I'm donating ¥100,000,000 for your library. Oh, by the way, have you met my son?"

> That they actually give weigh to the application essay shows they're not making a fair decisions.

"give weigh"?

Re: I Ghostwrite Chinese Students' Ivy League Admissions Essays

#108

Post by wpietri »

Mz wrote: post #10

So she now makes decent money but feels like she is selling her soul. That seems so common. And I find myself increasingly wondering if the world is really so screwed up that it is not possible to make it, financially, without feeling like a sell-out or if there is some other explanation for that phenomenon. Surely, there are people in the world who are not destitute and who don't feel like they are selling their sou…

I know plenty of people who feel like they have a good balance between money and satisfaction with what they're doing.

Indeed, I think it's a lot easier to be financially successful doing something that you find energizing rather than soul-sucking.

I do believe, though, that you are unlikely to get maximum dollars and maximum joy from the same job. Many terrible jobs pay more because they have to. E.g., I used to work in finance, which was lucrative but awful. Whereas many nonprofits get great people at relatively modest salaries because they are, in effect, paying people in meaning. So a lot of the people I know who are happy with both their jobs and their paychecks do it by living more modestly than they could if they were only about the benjamins.

Re: I Ghostwrite Chinese Students' Ivy League Admissions Essays

#109

Post by damoncali »

Anyone who has been to a high end business school will not be surprised by this in the slightest. Chinese (and others - lets not pick on the Chinese alone here) students who can't speak English, and yet were scoring 700+ on the GMAT are a dime a dozen. Everyone knows it, including the admissions departments - but they're under orders to increase the "international" percentage of the student body lest they get painted as "too waspy". It's a racket.
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