Is it wise to judge students on college admission essays?

The fact that there are websites helping students write their college admission essays is a bit confusing. Confusing because on one hand it shows that these essays are serious business and on the other one cannot help but think that the very idea of professional help in writing essays defeats the purpose.

A piece of writing does offer an insight into the mind of the author though it is debatable whether the creation reveals the creator or not. An essay at least helps the reader understand the viewpoint of the author on a particular topic. And to that extent, it’s fair to judge an author depending on this one viewpoint. After all, to judge an author is always a risky job and all the judgments are essentially made attaching particular importance to any one opinion of his.

So there is nothing surprising that colleges would decide to judge aspiring entrants on the basis of their college admission essays. But now that writing these essays has become a business, conducted as professionally as any other business, the whole thing seems trivial.

There are websites that offer professional help to students to write these essays. Come to think of it, what it effectively means that you buy an essay in order to impress the assessor in order to get into a college. And both students and college authorities, in short the entire fraternity takes the exercise with utmost seriousness!

Now I do not know whether these websites could be asked to shut shop by the competent authorities, though it seems unlikely. In that case, colleges would have to come up with an idea to tackle this problem. One way could be to come up with an even full-proof system of testing the ingenuity of the essays though one would imagine such a system is already in place. Usually, someone whose ability to judge a literary piece of work is unquestionable is entrusted with the responsibility of assessing the college admission essays and there is every reason to believe that the person takes his job seriously.

Another solution could be to have the essays read by a panel. It would throw up multiple opinions and a reasonable conclusion could be arrived at in a democratic manner. But then, the disadvantage of too many cooks is also something that we are well aware of.

I do not doubt the college authorities to come up with an effective mechanism, no matter how unique it has to be. Educationists are after all some of the smartest men in the society and probably the only lot that carries a certificate of societal approval of their smartness. But one still wonders whether the most basic strategy is the most effective one at times or not. In this case, the basic strategy would be to judge students on the basis of their academic achievements followed by interviews and not try and understand them through the college admission essays.

The websites though would complain.