Parents: How to Help With College Essays Without Taking Over

Admissions readers can usually tell within a paragraph when a parent's hand took over a college essay. The giveaway is a vocabulary that doesn't match the rest of a student's application, or a structure that reads more like a cover letter than a personal story. This session focuses on the harder, more useful role: asking questions that help your child find the story only they can tell, and knowing when to step back so the essay still sounds like them. Chris Newton reads personal statements for a living and sees the same tension play out again and again, between good intentions and a student's own voice. He'll share what tends to help at the brainstorming and editing stages, and what quietly backfires, so parents can support an essay without taking it over.