The more I read about this, the more I’m convinced that Viswanathan had no idea that these passages were in the book. I read a Slate article that described her original novel as a dark story set in Ireland. The agent, or Alloy, suggested she write a story truer to life and suggested plot turns, etc. in the book. It sounds like minions fleshed out the book more or less and perhaps she just suggested the general thesis of the book. It would probably be more embarrassing to say, “Hey, I didn’t even write that part!”
Having co-authored a few books and chapters myself, I certainly can remember the general gist of a phrase or a sentence years after writing it. I could probably tell you what inspired it and so on. She seems too bright a girl to have lifted from a source and never mentioned it. Some editors have a heavy hand and will insert rephrased sentences and so on into your writing, and you have to have a fair bit of confidence to say, “No, I think it should read that way.” And I can also imagine the constant back-and-forth of QAs (queries to the author), and how Viswanathan, in the midst of applying to college and so forth, perhaps didn’t even pay attention to them.
That’s not an excuse, however. If these were your words, I think you’d exercise a great deal of scrutiny if an editor attempted to change them. It does speak to the inappropriateness of the arrangement as I understand it. Since when are books written in a marketing department - books worth admiring and commenting on, that is? I don’t think any of us would have an issue if it turned out the Sweet Valley High books were pumped out by cubicle-housed English lit drones, but those books aren’t exactly high literature, and I imagine if one was involved in writing one, it might merit a mention in an essay. But it doesn’t seem the cornerstone of a college application.
I think I can imagine what the IvyWise counselors advised this young lady to do. In selective admissions, students blur together, especially those at competitive schools. I can tell you from experience that anything that makes a student stand out is incredibly valuable. There’s an excellent book called The Gatekeepers by Jacques Steinberg that details the admissions process at Wesleyan U., and one of the more revealing stories is that of a high-achieving Asian American girl who blended in with so many other students of similar socioeconomic and geographic origin. She is rejected in short order, but the book reveals that she regularly wrote letters to inmates on death row. She never mentioned it in her application because she felt it was a personal activity, and one she never intended to do for the sake of getting into a college, but it was precisely the sort of thing that would have made her stand out… and interesting.
The application essays I’ve read tend to follow the same template: student is exposed to some social inequity and gets involved (soup kitchens, working in Latin American countries with terminally ill kids, organizing a literacy project). Student comes to terms with their privilege, and pledges to spend their life working to end this inequity. College will help give them the skills to do this even better. Whether they get into college or not, they will continue this work because the sparkle in the eye of little Wilmer tells them they must do so. Which is sad, really, because I imagine there is some truth in these stories. But they all sound exactly the same. You wouldn’t believe the number of nonprofit organizations or volunteer groups that are established by 16- and 17-year olds applying to selective colleges.