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Original poster

Cheating - and personal statements

33 replies

dumbledore345 · 01/09/2017 16:19

Just spoken to a number of parents with DC entering Y13. All were discussing their DC draft personal statements - how they were pushing them to get started, helping them to decide what to include, and one parent was hoping to discuss hers (sic) with a relative who happens to be an admissions tutor.
I would love to believe that staff at Universities can see through this and distinguish b etween personal statements that have been written by the applicant and those written by their parents.But I am not convinced.
Am I right in thinking that this is just as much cheating as helping DC with course work, getting advance notice of questions?

OP posts:
Callamia · 01/09/2017 16:28

I'm a former admissions tutor. I've read many, many personal statements.

Some are polished and have likely been coached by parents or school or someone; others are a bit more scrappy, but provide good information and demonstrate plenty of potential; others are just terrible... (the ones that try to be clever are the worst). Someone should look at personal statements before they are submitted to make sure they're not the latter variety (and to spell and punctuation check), but they definitely don't need to be 'perfectly' written.

I'd rather see a student's real personality, interests and plans for university come through.

BeyondThePage · 01/09/2017 16:33

It is not cheating though, it is showing resourcefulness - like you have to do when you are actually working.

(To get my job I logged on to the employer's website, found out all about the work they do, rang someone doing the job I would be working alongside and asked them questions about the job. Was that cheating?)

BitOutOfPractice · 01/09/2017 16:33

My DD's school have been working on hers with her for months!

Karmapolicearrestthisman · 01/09/2017 16:40

Just spoken to a number of parents with DC entering Y13. All were discussing their DC draft personal statements - how they were pushing them to get started, helping them to decide what to include, and one parent was hoping to discuss hers (sic) with a relative who happens to be an admissions tutor.

None of that is equivalent to the parents writing the statement for the child. It is actually a fantastic idea to get feedback on the PS from other people, as your interview can hinge on its quality.

If the parent was actually writing the whole thing, I could see your point, but as it stands I don't see the problem.

BasiliskStare · 02/09/2017 05:21

This is one ( vicarious ) opinion.
DS rattled out his PS in one go - and then got a couple of people to read through it. But it definitely, definitely did not take ages to do. His ( generally well regarded school ) the main advice he remembered was - arrive late , leave early - so don't put a whole load of extraneous words or everything you've ever done in there . DS pretty much (of his subject - X ) , said " I like X because" and then just wrote about what he liked & why. Then probably 2 lines about EC things which would back that up. Got a couple of people to read it for spelling mistakes & generally Ok and then it was off .

BasiliskStare · 02/09/2017 05:36

But - just to say this was for a straightforward ( in his case essay based ) subject. I do appreciate that the likes of Medicine or other subjects will need more in the way of related experience. But , I do think that the DC needs to know what they want to do and write their own thing. A bit of help , in the sense of reading it to make sure it makes sense , spelling etc is one thing. Parents writing it , IMHO, is the primrose path.

errorofjudgement · 02/09/2017 07:06

I sat with DS and we brainstormed the work experience and courses he had done over the last 3-4 years, and the EC stuff e.g. Prefect in a related subject (his school has subject prefects), DofE, etc. My input was in helping see that,for example, continuing to help out at cubs for another year after the DofE was completed was a good thing!
Once he had all those identified, he then wrote his PS and chose which to include.
But the words were his, and the courses were ones he'done.

Spam88 · 02/09/2017 07:37

I can't see a problem with any of this, they're not writing the personal statements for them. I helped my sister with hers, stuff like suggesting rearranging paragraphs, pointing out where she'd reused the same word lots of times and encouraging her to make more links between her hobbies/experience and her chosen course. That's no more help than the college gave me when I did mine, in fact it's significantly less. Equally, I have a friend who applied as a mature student this year and she sent her personal statement to anyone who'd read it for a bit of feedback.

noitsnotteatimeyet · 02/09/2017 07:39

Ds1 did his in an afternoon..., he wrote one version, asked me to have a look at it, I red pencilled it and made some suggestions, he rewrote it a couple more times until it got to a stage where he was happy with it. He used about 75% of the allowed word count - there is absolutely no point in filling the page for the sake of it. He got offers from all the universities he applied for so presumably it did the job.

I can't understand the angst which goes into the endless drafting and rewriting of personal statements. All you need to do is have a look at a couple of good and bad examples (there are plenty online), make some notes about what you want to include and get writing.

cowgirlsareforever · 02/09/2017 07:44

I can't believe that there are companies who will write personal statements for prospective students. I hope that universities can spot them.

BasiliskStare · 02/09/2017 17:18

One more point ,

One , very personal experience , if it helps anyone , DS was turned down by LSE . ( So he got 4 good acceptances , but this - LSE - was a refusal) If anyone has a DC for which that is their aspiration , they ( LSE) have detailed guidance on their website about what they want to see from a PS. In hindsight , DS's did not fit. This is quite particular, but just saying it in case it helps someone. Those who have DCs at LSE will be able to advise better than me. In truth , I do not think DS was good enough for what they wanted. But my more general point is take 20 mins to check the website for X Y Z university and see if they have said what they want on a PS. If they don't , my point stands , but it's worth checking.

FuckingLoveCarbs · 02/09/2017 17:19

I work in admissions. You can always tell the statements which have been coached by schools/parents. I hate them - they all sound the same.

cowgirlsareforever · 02/09/2017 18:20

I imagine they must do the trick though FuckingLoveCarbs because these websites all boast about their acceptance rates.

FuckingLoveCarbs · 02/09/2017 18:22

They don't if I see them!

moutonfou · 02/09/2017 18:28

I knew of one instance where a friend was rejected from a university she expected to get an offer from; when she enquired they said her predicted grades were too low. There had been an error by the school and they were wrong, school subsequently corrected them. The university then offered her a place. All they cared about was the predicted grades.

It's good to see some admissions tutors on here who say the statements get read because since that incident I've always wondered if they even get read.

Does anybody get rejected solely on the basis of a weak statement - i.e. predicted grades, relevant subjects, good reference, all there, but the statement makes it a no?

FuckingLoveCarbs · 02/09/2017 18:31

Does anybody get rejected solely on the basis of a weak statement - i.e. predicted grades, relevant subjects, good reference, all there, but the statement makes it a no?

Yep. All the time. When you have hundreds of applications with the same grades a statement is all you have to go on.

hertsandessex · 02/09/2017 19:52

FuckingLoveCarbs Sat 02-Sep-17 17:19:40
I work in admissions. You can always tell the statements which have been coached by schools/parents. I hate them - they all sound the same.

_

But you might not be able to spot the ones that have been coached well. You might be just spotting the bad ones :)

FuckingLoveCarbs · 02/09/2017 19:56

Trust me - I can always tell!

relaxitllbeok · 02/09/2017 20:41

So do explain, FLC. To how many students have you applied the thumbscrews to check whether your guess about whether they had help was correct, and how do you know they weren't just telling you what you wanted to hear?

GloriaHotcakes · 02/09/2017 22:08

My sister works at a top uni in admissions. They don't read the PS.

FuckingLoveCarbs · 02/09/2017 22:08

They have a style of writing which is very obvious to those of us who have done this job for years.

titchy · 02/09/2017 23:42

To be fair the vast majority of PSs don't get read. Even at RG places.

relaxitllbeok · 03/09/2017 07:44

FLC you are missing the point, and it's an important one, so I'll try again.

Some of the PSs you read have a distinctive style. I have no doubt that's true: if I gave you a pile of printouts and asked you to pick out the ones that hadn't been written by the candidate, you would confidently pick out a certain collection. Fine.

However, you claim that you would have picked out all and only the ones that were actually not written by the candidate. This is where "trust me" is a silly response. Your classification is nothing more than prejudice on your part, unless you have been able to use a reliable independent source of information to confirm your guess, both ways. (And on a large enough sample, not just one or a few.)

Karmapolicearrestthisman · 03/09/2017 10:07

I'd like to know how FLC can tell without bias that a statement has been written by a parent or coaching company.

Rejecting statements outright because of a certain voice or style of writing seems to be an abuse of power. Surely some innocent students can get caught in that net if you're wrong?

FuckingLoveCarbs · 03/09/2017 13:19

Rejecting statements outright because of a certain voice or style of writing seems to be an abuse of power

Hardly - I judge students according to a combination of their grades (predicted or actual), references and personal statement. If these fall short then they don't make the cut. The ones written in a particular style do not make the cut because they do not distinguish themselves from the 400 other statements I have read that day.

EG if someone is applying for English, and their statement has been templated or "coached", it will go:

  • love English because love reading
  • Here are some books I love reading (all on the A level syllabus, with maybe one or two classics thrown in)
  • Here is what I want to do after I graduate - publishing/media/journalism
  • I am grade 8 on the piano and have my DofE gold award.

They all sound the same. I take on the ones who can demonstrate genuine love of and commitment to the subject they are applying to. You'd be surprised how many don't do that in their personal statements.

To be clear, I am not talking about parents simply checking their DC's statements and giving advice on structure or spelling/grammar. I am talking about them deciding exactly what should be in there and how it should be worded. I like students to come to me with their own voices. The sort of statement I've detailed above has no voice to it. You can tell them apart very easily.

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