In an article last week, Bloomberg Businessweek questioned the ethics of two companies that write application essays for prospective MBA applicants with the knowledge that the candidates may be passing the work off as their own. Clear Admit co-founder Graham Richmond contributed to the article, communicating our firm’s stance on the issue, specifically that such a practice is incredible unethical.
Richmond, who also serves as president of the Association of International Graduate Admissions Consultants (AIGAC), a professional alliance established by a handful of committed consultants to help clients and business schools know they adhere to certain standards, stressed that AIGAC members are not to be confused with the essay-writing services to which the Bloomberg BW article refers. As part of AIGAC membership, participating consultants pledge to adhere to a clearly articulated set of principles, one of which states that members agree to “insist that clients write their own essays.”
Purchased essays aren’t going to get an applicant very far, Richmond argues. “I’d like to think the process is good enough that these folks who are behaving in an incredibly unethical way get weeded out,” he told Bloomberg BW. Furthermore, he adds, anyone who submits an essay written by someone else should be aware that they could ultimately be expelled from the school or lose their degree after the fact. “They will live in fear of being ‘outed’ for the rest of their life,” he says.
Richmond also raised the interesting point that the essay-writing firms themselves could pose a threat to candidates who use them. “I would have to wonder if the ‘consultants’ who write essays wouldn’t be tempted to just blackmail their former clients, since they clearly have limited ethical boundaries to begin with,” he says.
Harvard Business School Managing Director of MBA Admissions and Financial Aid Dee Leopold, for her part, cautioned prospective applicants against essay-writing services as well. “Anyone foolish enough to ‘buy’ essays is advised to think a few steps ahead,” she wrote to Bloomberg BW in an e-mail. “How do they plan to ‘fake’ an interview with one of our admissions officers? Are they purchasing essays in order to camouflage a lack of English fluency – something that is essential for success in our program?” As for essay-writing services that claim to have gotten clients into top business school programs, “let the buyer beware,” Leopold warns.
For the full Bloomberg BW article, click here.
Read the full article: Clear Admit Weighs in on Essay-Writing Ethics Question