In Their Own Words

Who holds the pen

Here is a tension that can show up in any home during application season: the adults want to help, and the student still has to sound like themselves. The instinct to help is loving. The instinct to fix can cost an essay its voice, because a sentence polished by two people may stop sounding like either of them.

Start with the rules, because each school writes its own. St. Paul's expects applicant writing to reflect the applicant's work without assistance, AI tools included, and that wording is broad enough that adult brainstorming, reading or editing may fall inside it. Peddie asks that applicants write in their own voice. Check the school's instructions before a parent reads a draft, trades ideas or touches a sentence. If they leave the boundary unclear, ask admissions first.

That still leaves parents a real job, just not the pen. Logistics are yours: the calendar, the portal logins, the reminders, a quiet table, a ride to the interview. So is encouragement, which costs nothing and can't be mistaken for authorship. Everything below that touches the student's drafting is written to the student, as questions anyone can ask alone.

It helps to remember what the essay is for. The transcript shows achievement and the recommendations show how others see the student; the essay is where the applicant's own mind is on the page. A polished sentence that belongs to nobody does less work than a slightly lumpy one that belongs to them.

Start with the real question

Before drafting, find out what is actually being asked and where it lives. Prompts sit in different places depending on the school and the platform, and the wording differs from school to school.

On Gateway to Prep Schools, Part 1 is the Candidate Profile, a common form that participating schools accept. Part 2 holds each school's own essay and short-answer questions, plus a parent statement where a school requires one. Part 2 stays locked until Part 1 is submitted and, for schools that take payment through Gateway, until payment is submitted too.

The SAO lets a student submit information, essays, transcripts and recommendations once to any school that accepts it, and each school can add a Supplement Form of its own. For a school's supplemental form, EMA doesn't enforce a word count, but the school can set one or put a hint in the prompt, so read what yours says.

Exeter's 2027–28 application, for instance, asks for two 200–500-word essays and a parent statement, submitted in its own applicant portal, where the prompts also live.

Whatever the platform, paste each real prompt, with its limit, at the top of a blank document before the first draft. Read every prompt on its own terms; don't assume an answer written for one school's question fits another's wording. Then underline the verbs. “Describe,” “explain why” and “tell us about a time” ask for different things, and lovely writing that answers a neighboring question is a real risk.

Something only they could say

An essay can be well written and still be general. “I love learning” and “I work well on a team” could be said by almost anyone, which gives a reader little to hold.

Start smaller than feels respectable. Before outlining, the student can list ten true, ordinary things: a habit, a place they go to think, something they repaired, a belief they changed their mind about. Then look for the item that surprises them a little. The surprise is often the essay.

A useful self-test: could another applicant have written this sentence? If so, add what only this student would know, such as the detail, the reason, or what went wrong. Reflection beats résumé; activities show up elsewhere in the file, so the essay can say what they meant.

Self-questions work well when no one else is in the room. What did I actually do? What did I expect, and what happened instead? What would I tell a friend about this that I'd never put in a first draft? The answer to the last one is often the good material.

Revising your own work

Revision is the stage where helpers are most tempted to jump in, which is exactly why it belongs to the student. Fixes are easy to hand over; judgment is hard to hand back.

A student can be their own first reader. Leave the draft alone for a day. Then read it aloud and mark every spot where attention drifts, every sentence that sounds like a brochure, and every “very” or “really.” Try deleting the first paragraph; sometimes it was a warm-up for the writer, not the reader. Then check the draft against the prompt one more time.

Peddie's admission staff compares the essay to a school assignment: think first, outline, draft, revise, and let the piece rest between stages. It wants the response to be honest and the applicant's own, and it suggests the applicant read it aloud before sending.

That last read is the applicant's job. It describes a good habit; it isn't a permission slip for anyone else to polish.

The parent statement, done well

The parent statement is a different job, written by the parent. The student essay shows how a student thinks; the statement can offer a second angle: what a parent has watched over time.

Lawrenceville says directly that its parent or guardian statement exists to learn about the child through the parent's perspective: their character, interests, experiences and the qualities they would bring to the community. It adds that there are no right or wrong answers.

Schools differ. Peddie lists a parent statement as optional, so whether to add one is a fair question for its admission office.

Write about the child you actually know, from what you've seen yourself. What do they do when no one is watching? When did they last surprise you? What did they find hard, and how did they handle it? Choose two or three moments rather than twelve. Small, specific and true beats adjectives.

Hypothetical contrast, for illustration only: “Our child is curious and kind” could describe anyone's. A line about how they spend a free Saturday, or how they treat a younger sibling when they think no one is looking, gives a reader someone to picture.

Leave out your own ambitions and any case for why the school would be lucky to have them. Build the statement from your own observations, not from the student's essay, so the two pieces stay independent.

Rules, tools and learning needs

Checklists differ too. St. Paul's list of materials for a complete application includes both a parent statement and a graded writing sample; the parent statement is the parent's own work, so the applicant-writing expectation doesn't make it a student assignment. Peddie requires a graded sample only from 11th-grade and postgraduate applicants. A graded sample is existing schoolwork, a different thing from a fresh essay, so follow each school's instructions on what qualifies.

For anything a school's page doesn't address, such as a grammar tool, a translation app or text-to-speech, ask the target school, ideally in writing, before the student uses it. “Everyone allows it” and “surely it's banned” are both guesses.

Learning differences call for plain dealing. If a question asks about them, answer it honestly. Separately from the essay, ask admissions, or the school's support office, whom sensitive information should go to and how. What a student writes about their own learning in an open personal essay is a different question from getting practical support information to the right people.

Thacher is one example: it encourages families to share relevant learning-profile information and current supports during admissions, and documentation for accommodation requests goes to its director of academic support. Other schools have their own routes.

A good final check: before submission, the student can reread the essay and recognize their own mind in it, and the parent can reread theirs and recognize their own voice.

Related guides

• Browse boarding schools — Narrow the list first, so the writing you do is aimed at schools you actually want.
• Plan the application calendar and portals — Once the prompts are in hand, see how the pieces fit into a working schedule.
• Understand SSAT and ISEE testing — The testing side of the application, for families sorting out what else is on the list.