What if someone steals my essay? (2024)

Accepted Answer

See Also

We've gotten this question a few times before so if my answer looks similar to you it's because you've probably seen it around! I'm hopeful this answer can help alleviate some of your concerns and help anyone who has a similar question in the future.

College essays are meant to be a personal narrative, so the risk of someone stealing work is definitely lower than your typical persuasive or argumentative essays from school assignments. Despite this, we know some students will plagiarize and pass off someone else's stories and ideas as their own.

Here's what we have in our system to prevent plagiarism:

(1) we assign a unique fingerprint to all submitted essays. We use this to verify the original author and track down potential bad actors.

(2) we remove all access to the essay once a review is complete. Only the submitter will continue to have access.

(3) we have an automated system in place to permanently ban any bad actors from using the essay review if we catch any suspicious or flagged activities.

Even with these measures in place, we know that cheaters will find ways to cheat. And we know this has big consequences in admissions for both the original author and the student who plagiarized another's work. If we suspect plagiarism, we have measures in place to work with the students and universities to ensure we can protect our students and their hard work.

I hope this can help settle some of your worries but I'm more than happy to answer any follow-up questions or clarify anything for you if you need!