IMPORTANT NOTICE
Currently, our Essay Submission Form is only open on weekends. Read below.
The Essay Submission Form will be closed on weekdays (Monday – Friday). It will only be open from Saturday at 12:00AM CST to Sunday at 11:59PM CST.
This is due to the large volume of submissions we’re receiving and to ensure that our editors have enough time to give you quality edits.
Since we are receiving many submissions each weekend, it may take more than a week for our editors to get to your essay. Please keep this in mind, and thank you for being patient.
Each student is allowed up to 4 submissions per weekend. Any submissions submitted after the first 4 essays are deleted. No exceptions. Additionally, all those essays must be different — you cannot submit the same essay(s) at the same time to get different editors to look at it, even if the essay is on different documents. If you’re submitting multiple short essays in a single document, do not let the total word count of the document exceed 800 words.
Essays are one of the most important parts of your college applications. They’re the best way for you to show your personality and voice to the admissions committee. This is the chance to showcase yourself beyond your scores and grades.
A phenomenal essay can be what gets you into your dream college over your competitors. That’s why we want to help you!
Types of editing
- Light editing:
- proofreading
- checking for flow
- critiquing structure
- critiquing syntax
- suggestions for vocabulary
- faster response back
- Heavy editing:
- proofreading
- checking for flow
- critiquing structure
- critiquing syntax
- suggestions for vocabulary
- helping to cut words out upon request
- end-of-essay in-depth analysis of how your essay portrays you, what your personal voice is like, what we think of your topic, and other thoughts
- slower response back
*NOTE: Although our mission is to help high school students with their college application essays, we do not want students to be totally reliant on our essay editors to improve their essays. The edits are just suggestions to give you another point of view on your essays, and it is up to YOU, the writer, to use the suggestions and to revise the essay yourself.
Time Frame
Editors are given one week deadlines. This means that if you submitted an essay on 11/1 but we aren’t able to assign it until 11/3, then you will get your essay back by 11/10. We do not want to rush our volunteers and risk giving you low quality edits. However, we will try our best to get back to you quickly.
You will only be able to submit essays on weekends (Saturday at 12AM CST – Sunday 11:59PM CST). The form will be closed on weekdays. Tip: put a reminder on your calendar to submit your essay on the weekend so you don’t miss your chance and have to wait till the next week!
What type of essays can I send?
You may send any type of essay related to your college application. This includes Common App, UC app, Coalition app, college-specific essays, short answers, and scholarship essays. Make sure to always state at the top of your document the type of essay you’re submitting.
There is no minimum or maximum word count. Please note that longer essays naturally need more time for editing (it will still be kept within the one-week time frame).
Only high school students (including recently graduated seniors) can submit essays.
Can I send multiple essays?
Yes, but you may only send one essay per form submission. If you’d like us to review multiple essays, please use multiple forms to submit them as we can more efficiently allocate the essays to different editors.
The only exception to the one essay per form requirement is that if you have multiple short answer essays (each one being less than 300 words and the total word count of the essays not exceeding 800 words) you may consolidate them into one document and then use one form to submit them. Make sure to copy and paste all prompts and word counts.
We will discard any submissions with multiple essays (unless they are short answer essays) in the document.
Who’s editing my essay?
We understand that it can be uneasy having someone critique your personal story. That’s why we have a page dedicated to our essay editors so that you can learn a little bit more about them! Find that page here.
Will you write my essay for me?
We will make suggestions to improve your essay, but we will NOT write or rewrite your essay or take away your personal voice. Our suggestions are made through comments on Google Docs.
Can I ask my editor to look at my essay again or answer my questions after they’ve edited it?
If you have questions after your essay has been sent back to you, you can re-submit another form to have your essay edited again and put the questions in the “Any Specific Requests?” section. You can also include your questions via comments on your Google Doc so that your assigned editor can reply to them. Refrain from asking your previous editor to look at your essay again because they’re given new assignments after completing their previous one. We want your questions to be answered, but it has to be done through the formal process.
Do you plagiarize check essays?
We will run all essays through a plagiarism checker before editing. We reserve the right to deny service if your essay was plagiarized.
Can I edit my essay after submitting my essay?
Since we do all our editing through Google Doc comments, it is likely you will have access to the document at the same time the editor is working on it. Please refrain from changing anything in the document you submitted until you receive a confirmation email from your editor that they finished. If you do edit your essay before your editor officially finishes it, they will email the confirmation notice regardless if they finished editing as it is now a new essay and must be submitted again for a second review.
What if my essay submission has a problem with it?
If your submission has something wrong with it (no access, missing info, wrong link, etc.), we email you and ask you to fix the problem. You have two days to fix it and email us back saying that you’ve fixed it. If it is fixed within two days, the essay will keep the deadline within one week of the submission date. If it’s not fixed after two days, we will delete your submission and it will be up to you to submit the essay again. Please keep in mind the Essay Submission Form is now only open on the weekends. This rule is to prevent putting pressure on our editors with one or two day deadlines because the essay couldn’t be assigned until days later.
Can I ask for my essay to be assigned/edited early?
We ask that you do not contact us to ask for your essay to be assigned to an editor early or to be edited early. If you do, we will simply just email back that we cannot. We assign essays based on when they were submitted, with earlier submissions given priority. Everyone has deadlines, and this is the only way for us to be fair. If you have a deadline in a week, we suggest you to submit the essay to us at an earlier date. Please also note that we get a large volume of submissions near common deadlines (11/1, 1/1, etc.)
Can my editor tell me if my essay is “<insert name of school> quality”?
We ask that you do not. Our editors are here to help you improve your essays, but they cannot tell you if your essay is Harvard quality or UC Berkeley quality. Our editors most likely did not apply to the same schools that you did, so please keep that in mind.
Ready to take advantage of our editing program?
Here are the next steps!
- Put your essay into a Google Document
- use size 12 font in Times New Roman, single spaced
- at the top of the document, include:
- your name
- the type of essay
- the total word count of the essay AND the maximum word count for that particular prompt
- the college that the essay is for (if applicable)
- the essay prompt
- and the type of editing that you want
- when sharing the link to your essay, make sure that anyone with the link can COMMENT (you will have to change the settings for this)
- you must also make sure that your essay can be copied — since we run all submitted essays through a plagiarism checker, we need to be able to copy and paste. If you’re uncomfortable with having copying enabled, we cannot edit your essay
- Fill out this form to submit your essay — or click the button at the bottom of this block to go to the form!
- You will be notified when your essay is given to an editor! Again, please plan for essays to be sent back in about a week.
DISCLAIMER: The edits are not personal and are not meant to comment on you as a person. Also, we DO NOT take responsibility for whether or not you get accepted/rejected from a college. Although our intent is to provide helpful feedback, we have nothing to do with what a college admissions committee decides on.
Through The Vine 