According to an article in the Cornell Daily Sun, The Essay Exchange recently went into business online, buying admissions essays from recent graduates of Cornell University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Stanford University. These purchased essays would then be sold to college applicants who could use the model essays to learn how to structure their own essay in ways that are, supposedly, top-tier school approved.The Essay Exchange allows the graduates of such high-end colleges to upload their admissions essays to the website. These uploaders are then paid whenever someone buys one of their essays-creating an opportunity for continual revenue from the site. Prospective applicants can buy essays for as low as $7.50, when bought in bulk. The website, in theory, was created to be "an affordable way to provide admissions essay insight," Rory O'Connor, the CEO of the company, told the Daily Sun.

One may assume that students are using this website to plagiarize their college admissions essays. According to the Daily Sun, the site's founders, graduates of the Harvard Business School, are deeply concerned about the possibility of plagiarism. The founders say that the website "not only requires users to sign an anti-plagiarism pledge, but also has partnered with admission offices nationwide, making its database of essays available to them."

The company's mission is surprisingly altruistic; the idea is to give prospective applicants an even playing field for admission, especially because some of the applicants don't learn how to write properly in high school.

Yet this in no way excuses applicants who would use such a method to get accepted into a college. The purpose of the college admissions essay is not only to give a measure of the applicant's writing skill but also of who the applicant is-and how such a person would fit into the college's community. By formatting his or her essay around an already existing one, the applicant is not giving the college a true account of who he or she is.

How is the admissions office then supposed to make a decision about an applicant if the admissions officers never know who the applicant actually is? After all, the point of the college admissions process is supposed to be that both the applicant and the admissions office find good matches. Maybe the college admissions process has become too much of a game for students to care about the "right fit" anymore. In a culture that strives only to get into a certain sect of "name schools," have we forgotten what the point of finding a college really is?

And the funny thing is, at least according to admissions officer Scott Anderson's article for insidehighered.com, "Essays play an important role in a student's application, but they rarely seal the deal in the way that essay vendors imply." In the end, the applicants are judged more on how they portray themselves in a multitude of ways rather than through a single essay question. The entire admissions process does not come down to a single piece of writing-in fact, according to Rhodes College's website, the most important piece of an application is the rigor of the applicant's high school classes.

Applicants are already learning how to play the game when it comes to the SAT, which courses to take in high school and to what extracurricular activities to take part in. Should the essay, already the subject of much "gaming," be further degraded by becoming just another piece in the puzzle? Anderson also said that "applying to college comes with distinct responsibilities, and chief among them is portraying oneself accurately and honestly." If so, this "game" of essay selling is most certainly not fitting the bill.

Many applicants have already had everyone under the sun read their essays, making sure that it sounds "just right." But at least all the other application pieces ultimately rest in the applicant's hands. If the essay is a reformatted version of someone else's essay, then the applicant is no longer showcasing themselves.

And while it may seem like a good deal in the short run, admissions officers, it seems, would much rather hear from a real person, flaws included, than a perfect person whose success rides on that of another. Assistant Dean of Admissions for the College of Arts and Sciences at Cornell University Pat Wasyliw told the Daily Sun, "In a nutshell, if you think this is a good idea in any way, you do not belong at Cornell or any comparable institution of higher learning." Maybe he has a point.