Online High

Spring is in the air. Well, almost, and a young boy turns his fancy to college admissions essays. Which is as it should be. However, if it is too good, if it is too mature, if it is really written by a parent or a professional admissions essayist, this is not a good thing.

Some admissions offices even call this “DDI” meaning “Daddy Did It.” If it is too good, admissions offices have been known to cross-reference your essay with the essay portion of the SAT. Oops. Easy to forget that admissions officers now have a second readily available writing sample.

Dude, do your own work.

From the Boston Globe:

Sometimes it is the choice 10-cent word or two, a spot-on sublime or consummate, that is the giveaway. Maybe it is a series of suspiciously skilled turns of phrase, syntax the envy of Strunk and White, or some pitch-perfect metaphors that raise the red flags.

While I know this blog is primarily about online high schools, I read this short article in Parade Magazine last weekend and the title was, wait for it, Why It’s Tougher to Get into College.

Because of those darn baby boomers, there are 800,000 more high school graduates this year than there was just ten years ago. Oh yeah, and that 4.0 may not cut it. There was a time that should have enabled you admittance to almost anywhere.

Princeton University this spring rejected 4,200 students. Actually, truth be known, they rejected significantly more than that. The 4,200 are just those who had a 4.0 GPA. This is not uncommon for big name schools. Regardless of GPA, UCLA turned down 38,000 applicants.

So, this tells me that you need more than a good GPA. What does it tell you?