Cathy and Meredith vent about a noticeable decline in students’ college-essay and supplement writing quality: rushed drafts that read like texts, missing capitalization/punctuation/paragraphs, weak organization, and essays that are nearly unreadable, forcing them to reteach basics like paragraphs, sentence structure, and prompt-reading instead of polishing strong drafts. They argue the issue isn’t student intelligence but gaps in fundamentals, persistence, critical thinking, reflection, and tolerance for feedback, potentially tied to pandemic-era schooling, less reading, device distraction, and growing AI dependence. They note colleges are seeing similar skill gaps. Their advice: get kids reading (model it, talk about books/articles, build small daily habits), ask open-ended questions and push past “I don’t know,” normalize “shitty first drafts” and iteration, and build resilience through productive struggle—because admissions readers won’t spend long deciphering unclear writing.
01:15 The Writing Quality Crisis
07:55 AI, Reading & the Pandemic Gap
17:09 Tips for Parents
27:53 The Kids Can't Write