I once had a student present me with an essay in response to a prompt about his favorite class. I told him it was too over-the-top exuberant, that I’d never actually heard him say, “I love this class! I love these students! I love history!” I also told him I didn’t like it the first time I read it in A is for Admission.
It should go without saying that plagiarizing another student’s college essay is not a good idea. But it’s an even worse idea when the essay, or even just a portion of it, has appeared in a book or on a website that gives admissions advice.
If it’s available for public consumption, plenty of other people have consumed it, and you almost certainly won’t be the first to try to pass it off as your own. Bad idea.
You also have no way of knowing whether or not the essay in question actually helped that student’s chances of admission. What if the kid who wrote the essay you’re copying got rejected from every school he applied to except Princeton, where his dad paid for the new science building?
Finally, I’ve read a number of what I thought were bad essays in otherwise good admissions books. A is for Admission also included an essay that detailed shooting and eating a squirrel. That essay ended with the phrase “I, too, am a gentle man.” Let’s just say I thought the book was a lot better than that essay.
I understand the pressure you’re feeling during application season. But the risks of borrowing someone else’s story far outweigh any meager rewards.