Endeavor Advising Guidelines for Essays-Only Students

Student Responsibilities

1. Check email regularly (we suggest once a day). Thoroughly read all emails from us and colleges to which you are applying– this is critical so you don’t miss important information.

2. Meet deadlines that you set with your Advisor. We will create a plan for drafting essays; your ability to meet your application deadlines depends on completing these assignments on time. If a student misses multiple essay draft deadlines, their Advisor will notify the student and parents by email.

3. Put written work in our shared Google folder no later than 48 hours prior to meetings. This ensures we have time to read drafts and provide meaningful feedback. If a student’s work is done at the last minute repeatedly, their Advisor will notify the student and parents by email.

4. Give as much advance notice as possible if you need to reschedule a meeting. We strive to be flexible with students’ busy schedules. However, meetings repeatedly changed or canceled with less than 24 hours’ notice may incur a $50 change fee. If a student does not show up for a meeting, it will be canceled after 10 minutes and there will be a $75 missed meeting fee. If you’re running late, please try to text us.

Student Voice in College Essays 

Essays are a student’s chance to highlight aspects of themselves that may not be apparent in other areas of their application. Each student will complete brainstorming activities to help identify stories and themes that highlight their unique values, qualities, skills, and interests. We work diligently to provide feedback that helps students improve their essay drafts while respecting their unique ideas and ways of communicating.

It is imperative that students’ writing be their own work, in their own voice. Well-meaning suggestions from too many people often negatively affect a student’s work, and it is easy for experienced essay readers to identify when a teenager’s writing has been overly influenced by others. This can severely and negatively impact a student’s applications.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and College Essays

We strongly suggest that students refrain from using AI in their writing for several reasons:

  1. Robots sound like, well, robots. In our experience reading hundreds of essays, AI-generated writing is obvious. It’s bland. It lacks insight and reflection. The structure is predictable and formulaic, and the word choice is often exaggerated or corporate-sounding. It reads like a robot wrote it-- exactly the opposite of what makes a good college essay.

  2. A student could break the rules without knowing it. Colleges have wide-ranging, unclear, and changing tolerances for the use of AI. While some do allow for the use of AI to generate ideas or help edit drafts, many others consider any use of AI to be a plagiarism infraction that is grounds for throwing out an application. 

  3. AI? Deny. AI-detecting software is being used in some college admissions offices; colleges will not spend extra time or effort on a questionable essay. They will simply deny the student.

  4. The writing journey is useful. Learning to write well takes practice. By writing and revising their essays, students build skills and knowledge that they will take with them into a successful college career.

In order to provide useful feedback for students, we’ve developed an established process. Endeavor Advising’s policy is that all student writing will be done in a shared Google Doc that includes version history. If a draft does not include version history, we’ll ask the student to provide it before reviewing the draft. If the student can not provide version history, we will decline to review that draft and notify a parent by email.

Version history enables us to review the student's writing process so we can understand the content, structure, and words the student has chosen. This allows us to help students achieve their best work and the best outcomes. (It also helps us avoid a robot’s word-salad of flashy adjectives.) 

Questions?

Please do not hesitate to reach out if you have questions or concerns. We look forward to working with you on your college essays! —The Endeavor Advising team