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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

#151

Post by dd367 »

heterogenic wrote: post #116

It's interesting that one of the only Ivy programs which is essentially immune to this gaming of the system is Harvard Business School, which allows only one semi-optional free-form essay ("What else would you like us to know?":( http://www.hbs.edu/mba/admissions/application-process/Pages/... ) and requires a follow-up letter to every in-person interview. The irony of course is that the scions of empires and children…

> It's interesting that one of the only Ivy programs which is essentially immune to this gaming of the system is Harvard Business School

Having known many peers at HBS, I highly doubt the truth of your claim. It seems extremely biased based on your own background. Do you have any evidence?

Re: I Ghostwrite Chinese Students' Ivy League Admissions Essays

#152

Post by Padding »

WoodenChair wrote: post #39
jurassic wrote: post #34

Really interesting piece. In my post-college lull, I was once in a major financial bind and ended up doing a brief stint as an academic ghostwriter. I wrote term papers, not admission essays, for a ghostwriting service over a period of about 2 months. The work was easy and the money was good. I felt pretty guilty doing the work at first, but I quickly realized that most of the assignments were so banal that I don't t…

I really appreciate your honesty and the knowledge you shared here, but I fear your rationalizations about why what you did is not unethical are just that - rationalizations. It's wrong to do others work for them and let them represent it as their own, no matter how mundane the subject matter. It lets them receive qualifications that they didn't earn and others who want those qualifications in competition with them,…

> It's wrong to do others work for them and let them represent it as their own

This is an intricate topic. On what grounds do you claim this to be wrong? What is the alternative and why is it so much better?

> It lets them receive qualifications that they didn't earn and others who want those qualifications in competition with them, do not receive them.

You are mistaken here. From what I read in the article it seems these admissions essays have little to do with actually picking out the people most qualified for the positions, but rather the people that can hit the reviewers' emotions the hardest.

This is an inadequate system to begin with. Any fault should be placed on the people in charge of the system rather than the individuals trying to wiggle their way through it.

Frakly, I'm disgusted by how our society treats people sometimes.. "You have to be timid yet idealistic, ambitious yet giving, and reserved yet honest" What is this crap? Why can't we let people be what they are? How is this any better than discrimating based on physical properties?

Why should anyone care about anything more than aplicants being honest, faithful/conscientious and qualified?!

> It might just be a mundane 10 hour essay, but that person may not have had the time management skills, writing skills, or will to do it and therefore should not have received the marks that he did

All qualifications required for the titles earned will (or at least should) be taught to the students during the course of their studies. If they lack the time management skills necessary for the degree, the evaluation of their abilities during the course of the studies should make sure they eventually fail. If the students find ways to offset their limitations, then I fail to see any issue. Don't we all have limitations that we eventually need to find ways around?

If they don't find ways around their limitations, and the system still awards them a degree, the blame still lies on the system.

Humans are fallible individuals, and only so much can be done about that. It is processes that should be engineered to perfection, in order to guide the people within them towards making the right choices. Not the other way round.

Re: I Ghostwrite Chinese Students' Ivy League Admissions Essays

#153

Post by Padding »

ohashi wrote: post #146
thaumasiotes wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The most surprising discovery for me was that it seemed like after foreign language students the heaviest users of the service were education majors. No joke. I never figured out if the noticeably heavy use by education majors was a selection bias caused by the way the service was advertising itself, a sign of especially low ethics among education majors, or an indication that there might be a higher incidence of l…

That's really sad when you think about it. It implies, on average, our minimum viable college students go into education. Not our best and brightest. Who ends up being the majority of the people teaching our children? Probably those same people.

I agree this is sad. On the other hand however one needs to consider how much is really lost this way.

Given the inefficiency/pointlessness of much of the effort involved in compulsory education, I'm not sure better teachers would be able to significantly improve the system. We need a structural change here first, and only then start to look around for brigther people. Otherwise, any bright people that may enter the system, will eventually be frustrated, give up, and in the end achieve results (in the field) that are no better than those of the borderline-acceptable teachers.

Re: I Ghostwrite Chinese Students' Ivy League Admissions Essays

#154

Post by bjourne »

w1ntermute wrote: post #113
bjourne wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But then the students are still partitioned among those that needs to have elite grades to get in and those that can pay their way. Either it is a fair system or it is not -- there is no middle ground. 80% of American households earn less than $100k and if 80% of the students got their education for free that wouldn't work out well for the universities.

> 80% of American households earn less than $100k and if 80% of the students got their education for free that wouldn't work out well for the universities. Actually, it would work out just fine (for top-tier universities). They can easily survive on the investment returns from their endowments, along with donations from wealthy alumni.

Then why don't they offer all their programs for free? It would be very good pr and they would get many more donations.

Re: I Ghostwrite Chinese Students' Ivy League Admissions Essays

#155

Post by ghshephard »

sk5t wrote: post #134
cgio wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It's wrong to do others work for them and let them represent it as their own" which is what I do in my everyday job. And I am not shadow-writing, I am a consultant...Writing ideas that superiors represent as their own, or clients do. I guess this is capitalism, life or something. And someone not worth it has to be promoted before I do, as in the author's case someone has to be admitted for her to live.

Your ideas and work product are the ideas and work product of the organization, which your superiors represent... different kettle of fish.

I had a friend who got her degree from UC Berkeley, and maybe wrote 5-10% of her work, she had other people (Friends, Lovers, colleagues) write all the others - she was a master of manipulation.

Who is to say that the valuable skill she developed wasn't her delegation and management skills, and that those were far more important in the long term than her ability to wax poetically about Plato's Republic?

The fact that she had to write that 5-10%, and do the occasional in class essay, that she did okay in, suggests that not writing the other 90-95% didn't seem to negatively impact her, "Learning Experience."

What I find particularly humorous, of course, is that all these random people, none of whom had taken any of the course work, or background that she presumably had, and many of them without college degrees, were capable of whipping out a paper with a day or two of research (under her guidance, and with a bit of her editing and supplying of facts) that passed muster at Berkeley.

Re: I Ghostwrite Chinese Students' Ivy League Admissions Essays

#156

Post by 1337biz »

ghshephard wrote: post #155
sk5t wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your ideas and work product are the ideas and work product of the organization, which your superiors represent... different kettle of fish.

I had a friend who got her degree from UC Berkeley, and maybe wrote 5-10% of her work, she had other people (Friends, Lovers, colleagues) write all the others - she was a master of manipulation. Who is to say that the valuable skill she developed wasn't her delegation and management skills, and that those were far more important in the long term than her ability to wax poetically about Plato's Republic? The fact that…

How did it turn our for her? Is that strategy working for her after college as well?

Re: I Ghostwrite Chinese Students' Ivy League Admissions Essays

#157

Post by [deleted] »

gaoshan wrote: post #138

She wrote an essay for a Chinese student about her mother washing clothes in a laundromat, leaving them to run errands and returning to find the clothes stolen. While leaving one's belongings unattended in a public place in China would indeed likely result in them being taken (and no one in China would do such a thing expecting anything different), China doesn't have laundromats. Never has. Not that anyone involved s…

[deleted]

Re: I Ghostwrite Chinese Students' Ivy League Admissions Essays

#158

Post by delg »

canjobear wrote: post #51
rayiner wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With the boom of the "college consultants" industry, professionals are essentially "forging" entire high school careers on behalf of their clients - telling them what classes to take, which clubs to join, where and how many hours they should volunteer, etc. I don't really get this perspective. If colleges are going to base admissions on amorphous things like what clubs someone joined, or what organizations they vol…

It's hard to see how this levels the playing field in practice. The "bright lower-income students" you mention don't have access to these expensive services.

Not necessarily true. I personally know 2 Ivy League grads from low income families who, through a combination of luck and high standardized test scores, lucked into a position of getting this kind of counseling. Lots of consultants do some amount of pro bono. Most poor kids wouldn't know to ask, though.

Re: I Ghostwrite Chinese Students' Ivy League Admissions Essays

#159

Post by delg »

canadev wrote: post #140

It's definitely an interesting read, but I don't know how true it rings to me. > In one admissions cycle, I wrote over a hundred essays and earned enough money to pay my bills for the rest of the year, pay off my car loan, and—as a treat for my hardworking hands—receive $150 Japanese manicures on a biweekly basis. [...] > At the end of every writing season, I always swear I will quit, but I’m still broke with no idea…

As a lawyer surrounded by highly-compensated lawyers living month to month (with great handbags) this doesn't strike me as suspect. What's that plea of the overtaxed upper-middle class? "You don't understand how little money I have, after I spend it all."

Re: I Ghostwrite Chinese Students' Ivy League Admissions Essays

#160

Post by baddox »

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…

I assume it's not enough to understand the basics of economics or politics either. Everyone I know who is an expert or professional says that mainstream journalism generally makes a mess of their field. As a computer programmer, I know this is true of for things like computer security. I have heard it's true from chemists, astronomers, educators, mathematicians, biologists, and even automobile hobbyists. I generally operate under the assumption that it's true for every field.
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