By JERRY GOWEN
With college admission's requirements becoming more difficult and pressure to get accepted higher than ever before, one small business has created an Internet service they say helps to 'level the playing field.'
Although the service of providing previously-used essays may score with some students, college admissions officers have responded to the site with alarm.
Daniel Kaufman, a 28-year old Bostonian who graduated from Williams College, is president of IvyEssays, a company he started that currently sells copies of more than 1,000 essays used successfully by students to get into prestigious colleges, law schools and graduate programs.
'A couple of Harvard Business students thought it would be great to get their essays on the Internet to be used as another resource. Apparently, after they got it running, there was some pressure to take the site down,' said Helen Lee, managing editor of IvyEssays.
Lee said it is from these Harvard students that Kaufman thought of the idea to form IvyEssays.
'It was a great business opportunity,' Lee said. 'He (Kaufman) knew and had an instinct that there are some inherent qualities in the admission system. He thought it would be great to provide a service that would have these essays to get some examples of what has been used in the past.'
Kaufman said his goal is to make some money while 'leveling the playing field' for students who don't have access to other help with their essays. The website warns the essays are 'for coaching, ideas and emulation; not plagiarism.'
But the potential for abuse alarms some college admissions officials who say the potential for plagiarism is greater since the essays are available online.
In a Dec. 9 article published in the Boston Globe, some college officials said they're preparing to fight back against the potential abuse of the system that could be caused by students who use services such as IvyEssays.
'It's rather sleazy,' said Michael Behnke, undergraduate admissions director at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 'It undermines a process that is based on trust.'
Jill Fadule, director of admissions for the MBA program at Harvard, said 'You can be sure we'll be buying the essays ourselves and becoming very familiar with them.'
According to the Globe article, Fadule and other Harvard administrators pressured the Harvard Business School students to shut down a website selling copies of their colleagues' essays. Kaufman's 'IvyEssays' site was modeled on the Harvard students' closed site.
'He's not trying to promote any abuse of the system,' Lee said. 'He is not promoting plagiarism.'
Rush Sumpter, director of the BYU Honor Code Office, said students should be careful of sources from which they obtain information to write essays.
'In terms of general honesty and the eternal principle I think it's important that students do nothing that would give a deceptive perception of their achievement,' Sumpter said. 'When we deceive someone, we really deceive ourselves.'
Sumpter said that sources like IvyEssays can be helpful if evaluated first.
'What's the difference between reading a research paper and reading a chapter in a book or an article. All of those can be sources of information. Given today's electronic media, students ought to take advantage of it,' Sumpter said. 'The question I have is has the student evaluated the source. How good is it?'
Sumpter said a source like IvyEssays may be difficult to evaluate in terms of accuracy of information provided.
'How good of a research agency is this agency,?' Sumpter said. 'If I'm not making that evaluation, I'm not being a very good scholar.'
Sumpter said that BYU has a strict policy against taking someone else's work and trying to pass it off as your own.
'That has something to say about my own value of my self-worth. Do I care enough about putting my name on a paper that might have poor information, yet is information that I obtained from a questionable source.'
Sumpter said plagiarism and violations of academic dishonesty at BYU are handled on the first level by the professor of the course.
'We want to see if there's a pattern,' Sumpter said. 'We would be the people that draw it together.'
According to Sumpter, decisions that affect the outcome in a course are made by faculty members. Decisions that affect the student's future in the university are made by the Honor Code Office.
Lee said Kaufman contacted people across the country and advertised to solicit essays. On the website, students can buy essays previously used by other students and sell their own essays as well.
'He requires that someone give us proof that they have been accepted to the program. There are no bogus essays,' Lee said. 'We have proof and our company owns the rights to over 1,000 essays.'
Students who sell essays they have written also have to sign a release form giving IvyEssays exclusive rights to the essay.
'After we receive an essay, we take some time to look it over. There are times when we receive a less-than-complete essay,' Lee said. 'We want to make sure that what the customers will be getting is a good value. If they pass our standards then we send out the checks. At that point we actually own the essays and can do with them what we will.'
The IvyEssays Homepage states: 'Our service is designed to help applicants with the most important part of their college and graduate school applications: the essays... We have created packages of these essays for sale at a very economical price -- as low as $1 per essay. Over 90 percent of our essays were written by students currently enrolled in their respective schools.'
Lee said Kaufman started the business in mid-December and has been very pleased with how things have been going.
'We are meeting a pressing need at an economical price, as low as $1 per essay in some cases. It's only natural that people are excited about our company,' Kaufman said
IvyEssays said a typical business school package containing 35-40 essays would cost around $50. Law school packages are $20, and customers receive their essays within hours after ordering.
IvyEssays also purchases essays, giving $50 for undergraduate essays and $75 for law school personal statements. In addition, business school essays can be sold for $100.
IvyEssays vice-president Chris Dowhan said that 'helping students' forms the foundation on which IvyEssays was created, particularly helping those who may lack the resources of a private school or a personal tutor.
'We provide more equal access to information that can help people prepare their applications,' Dowhan said. 'If admissions officers have trouble with our service, I think it's because they are unwilling to acknowledge the inherent inequalities of the system.'
Lee said some guidance counselors say IvyEssays is a good resource, if it's not abused.
'We have maybe an underlying agenda. We would like to see some kind of a forum for people to start talking about these issues a little more openly and honestly,' Lee said. 'To some extent you can't take away all the mystery of an admissions process.'
Besides the issue of plagiarism, admissions officials disagree on how much help students should legitimately receive in writing their essays.
Assistance on writing essays is available to students. Several books of essays and writing pointers are popular sellers. Some companies keep sample essays on file for employees applying to business school.
At most schools, editing and proofreading help is considered acceptable as long as the essay remains the student's own work. Some officials say there is often a fine line between editing and rewriting.
'We certainly can't control the behavior of every individual who comes to use it, nor can any publisher of essay books,' Lee said. 'We have terms and conditions. They have to read through and say that they're not going to plagiarize or pass them off as their own before we send them the essays.'
'We're trying to make it known that we're not at all promoting plagiarism,' Lee said. 'We will aid any admissions officer who will research if someone has attempted to abuse our system.'
Lee said IvyEssays has heard from people that have been definitely aided by help from their service, not for any abusive reasons.
'Our feeling is that if you are someone who has worked hard through high school or college, it would be completely stupid to plagiarize,' Lee said. 'If they want to take that risk that is their choice and we certainly don't condone it.'
'We cannot 100 percent guarantee that no one will abuse the system; we do what we can to help any prosecution against someone who does. IvyEssays should be used for ideas, inspiration, modeling and a way to try to level the playing field.'
The fact remains that many officials say it's not the decor and polish that make the essay, but the soul.
'Most essays don't make that much of a difference because they're so similar and boring,' Behnke said. 'The best essays are the really personal ones. I don't think you can buy that.'