One of the questions we receive from clients here at PenningPapers is whether it’s safe to share their college essays online for help.

Here’s the short answer: roughly speaking, it is. However, there are a few precautions you need to consider if you want to share your college essays online.

Whether you’re looking to share your successful college essays online on social media such as Facebook or Instagram, or if you’re looking to share them with private admissions consultants online for advising and editing, it’s important to understand that there are points you should consider before you do so.

These points will help you approach your college admissions process responsibly and without getting into trouble. It will also help you if you are looking for proper, useful college essay help online. After all, there are many misconceptions about what works best in college application essays. People who share their college essays online definitely share some poor advice. So, it’s good to be careful.

We’ve listed a few of these points below.

Table of Contents

1. Can I Get in Trouble for Sharing my College Essay Online With Others?
2. Can I Share My College Essay With College Consultants and Advisors Online?
3. Are There Consequences to Sharing my College Essays Online?
4. How to Find Proper, Reliable College Essay Help Online.

Can I Get in Trouble for Sharing my College Essay Online With Others?

No. Not if it’s after the admissions season.

If you shared your college admissions essay with others online after the admissions season is over, then there is nothing you can get in trouble for. Even if someone were to try to plagiarize your work, the admissions office will have received your application already. So, you will not get into any trouble in particular.

If someone plagiarizes your work because you submitted it online, the plagiarizer will be in trouble, not you. However, things get tricky for people who share college essays before the admissions season has ended.

If you shared your college admissions essay online before the admissions season has ended, it is possible for someone to plagiarize your work and therefore submit it in the same time frame as you. Thus, it can be hard to tell who is the plagiarizer and who is the original writer. It is entirely possible that the admissions office may flag both of you for having the same application at the same time. So, we would highly recommend not sharing essays online until after the application season has ended.

We recommend not sharing essays on online forums like CollegeConfidential or social media pages like Facebook. There’s nothing wrong with them; it’s just that you don’t want to risk others taking your work.

If you want to advise and edit your college essays safely and securely, we would recommend sharing them with a consultant who specializes in college applications and essays. This is the most secure way to share college essays without getting into any trouble.

Can I Share My College Essay With College Consultants and Advisors Online?

You can share your college essays with college consultants and advisors online.

In fact, we actually recommend applicants to get help from college advisors and consultants rather than random students and strangers on the internet. There are many instances where students may say, “this worked for me, so it must work for you!”

However, the reality of the college admissions process is that there are an infinite array of variables that come into play when accepting applicants. It is certainly the case that many great and fantastic applicants with stellar essays get rejected for completely different reasons. It’s even more common that students will use this evidence to say, “Aha! I was rejected; I knew that adding ‘x’ into my essay would be a bad idea!”

As a student outside of the college admissions office, there really is no way of knowing WHY you were really rejected. That’s why it’s much safer to share your college essays with those who professionally work as advisors and counselors.

But, student beware!

It’s important to also know whether the person you’re sharing the essay with is secure with your essay. Some college counselors and advisors use student essays as examples for future clients and potential clients. If you want to secure the privacy of your essay, be sure to ask the counselor or advisor you’re working with that you don’t want your essay shared.

Here at PenningPapers, we do exactly that. We do not share example essays from our clients that worked unless we have direct permission from them to share it.

Are There Consequences to Sharing my College Essays Online?

Yes. There are consequences to sharing your college essays online. Though, as mentioned earlier, you won’t face any consequences unless you share your essays online before the admissions season had ended. This could potentially tie you up with possible plagiarism issues.

However, there are other issues with sharing your college essays online.

Most people share their college essays because they want to get help from advisors, students, and consultants on the internet. If you fall under this category, you may be susceptible to quite a lot of misinformation.

In fact, we’ve seen many instances of people receiving help from forums like College Confidential and Reddit and coming out in worse shape than before. Here’s an example of what would typically happen:

1. Applicant shares a rough draft of essay online.
2. People tell the applicant to be less severe in their language.
3. The applicant revises it to take all the emotion out of their essays.

Notice how sharing essays online doesn’t always mean you’ll receive bad information? There’s a lot of misinformation on how to write college essays (such as only taking safe routes and completely avoiding personal passions). But, even those who give good advice often lack the nuance of the situation to provide genuine help.

In the example above, someone telling you to be less severe in language and emotion might be correct, but it’s not useful. We don’t know HOW much less emotion needs to be taken away. This is one of the most common issues with sharing college essays online for help. There can only be a surface-level way of fixing problems. This inevitably leads to someone “fixing” their essays which only leads to more problems coming out.

If you’ve ever found yourself in one of those “neverending editing cycles”, this is probably why. You receive information on how to fix a problem whether it’s conciseness or depth of language, and once you fix the problem, much more pop out.

You share your college essay online. People tell you to make it more concise and brief. You do that. Now it doesn’t have enough emotion. You make it more emotional and strong. Now it’s not practical enough. Then you do that. Now it’s stretched so far in many directions that it sounds too “generic” without your own personality.

This is why it’s helpful to, rather than find help from strangers on online forums, get actual help from people through phone call sessions. If you’re looking to get help on your college essays, it’s better to have a real person speaking with you either in person or over the phone to discuss and collaborate on your college essays.

If you do this, you’ll cover the more subtle nuances to make your essay stronger, and avoid the infinite editing “Hydra Problem”.

How to Find Proper, Reliable College Essay Help Online.

If you’re looking for good college admissions essay help online, here is a good checklist for you to use. We based this list on our own experiences working with clients on their application essays as well as some of the best college admissions counselors we’ve talked with and their best practices.

1. Are they trustworthy?
2. Are they personable? (This matters more than you think; trust us!)
3. Are they trying to monetize me at every opportunity?

Let’s cover each of these in detail.

It’s important to know whether the college admissions help services you receive online are trustworthy. It’s not particularly easy to know whether they are until you get on a call with the advisor and counselor you’ll be working with. In many Asian American communities, especially on messaging platforms like WeChat and WhatsApp, many admissions advisors have rather questionable college admissions essay help practices. Some of these advisors may use backgrounds like “graduated from Harvard” or “graduated from Northwestern” to charge you unreasonable rates. It’s also common for people to fake these backgrounds.

Perhaps one of the most important elements to finding the right college admissions advisor is knowing whether the counselor or editor you’re working with is personable. This is not often talked about; but, we’ve had many instances of clients coming to us because they could not work with their advisors. They were distant, critical, and unable to work with the client. At that point, no degree from Harvard, Yale, or Princeton could make the advisor a suitable person to work with. Remember: when you’re looking for good college admissions essay help online, you’re hiring someone to work with you. More likely than not, you’ll be working with this person for more than a few paid hourly sessions. So, they must be someone who can connect, empathize, and understand you. After all, that’s how admissions counselors even give good advice anyway!

Lastly, if you’re sharing your college essays online for help, make sure the people you’re getting help from aren’t monetizing you at every opportunity. This is where it’s important to put your Business 101 caps on. Ask yourself this: “Why are strangers on the internet willing to answer my questions about college admissions for free?” 9 times out of 10, people are looking to provide help to push you into a marketing funnel. They may say your application essays are horrible (even if it’s not) and push you to spend money on getting help. Paid editors and advisors are not always bad, though. You just need to find the right ones. Here’s an example. At PenningPapers, we provide free 30-minute phone consultations to provide advice. Our business model is a marketing funnel. Many applicants realize that they need more help than they originally thought; so, they may purchase a few hours of essay editing and advising services. However, we are transparent. We tell clients EXACTLY how much help they need whether it’s many hours or just a few. When looking for college essay help online, look for people who are transparent. They need to tell you what you need and why. Be sure that they are not just throwing out random reasons to make you pay more.

If you’re not sure about whether you should share your college essays with others, don’t worry! You can contact us for a 30-minute college admissions essay advising session. We will get back to you within 24 hours and you can share your college essays with us for proper consulting and advising.