Seventeen-year-old Jamie Dorfman has spurned the pool and the mall, opting instead to spend the waning weeks of her summer vacation honing her admissions essay for Syracuse University.

Between sessions with her private college-admissions coach, the Cherry Hill High School East senior and about 100 others are spending afternoons at her school this week with their English teachers, learning the art of the all-important college essay.

Dorfman and stressed seniors like her are increasingly turning to school programs, private coaches, and online essay services as they search for the perfect essay - 500 words that ooze so much brains and personality that their applications soar to the top of a sea of perfect grades and high SAT scores.

"The essays are everything, and mine still needs some work," Dorfman said as she waited for teacher Julie Bathke to review her draft at the essay workshop. "The SATs say nothing about my personality."

Each year, admissions officials say, they seek new ways to measure students' ability to communicate, requiring as many as 10 short essays, the SAT II writing exam, and, starting in 2005, a new essay segment on the SAT.

"I think it comes back to the fact that the ability to express yourself verbally is integral to the college experience," said Lee Stetson, dean of admissions for the University of Pennsylvania.

But Stetson said he regretted the growth of the cottage industry of online services and high school workshops that focus on those very essays.

"This essay business has gotten a little out of hand," he said. "We don't want students to be trained. We want them to write naturally and hear their own voice. If something sounds like it was written by a 45-year-old attorney, it probably was."

Teachers at the Cherry Hill East workshop said their intent was to help students release their voices - and eliminate cliches.

"You want this to be an essay that only you can write," Marguerite Smaldore, coordinator of the workshop, instructed students Tuesday as they analyzed a sample essay in which the writer confessed she still sucked her thumb. "Use humor and anecdotes to convey your epiphany, the lesson you've learned."

Once school starts, Smaldore said, she will ask students in her English classes to write another essay draft. "We want our students to write wow essays," she said.

At Central Bucks High School West in Doylestown, essay help is the domain of guidance counselors such as Ginny Barrett, who sets up appointments with seniors and parents to evaluate an application before it is sent. Barrett said she had 100 such meetings in the spring and expected more this fall.

But not all schools can offer these services, and that has fueled a boom in online editing services. With names such as EssayAdvice.com, WritingWeb.com, Accepted.com and EssayEdge.com, these services charge between $50 and $500 to edit essays and review applications. On its Web site, IvyEssays.com offers to buy and sell successful essays.

Geoff Cook, 25, founder of EssayEdge.com, said he started his business in 1997, when he was a Harvard University freshman, after recognizing that many students had no one to review their essays. He earned $10,000 his first year and now employs 300 people to edit 7,000 essays a year. His business was purchased last year by Peterson's, the college information empire.

"Schools are placing increasing importance on the art of writing," Cook said. "At the end of the day, students are competing with people with all the same grades and SAT scores as they have, and Harvard turns down 1,600 valedictorians a year."

Cook said he was "99 percent sure" that admissions officials could not detect his professional fingerprints on the applicants' essays.

"We're not writing the essay for students. We're helping them write a better essay than they did before," he said.

At Cherry Hill East, Bathke estimated that at least 20 percent of her English students sought online help or hired college coaches and tutors.

Because more parents want students to stay closer to home, "getting into East Coast colleges seems to be so much harder since the Sept. 11 attacks," she said. "If all other things are equal, it depends on the essay to tip the balance" for admission.

Senior Adam Cohen, 17, said he hoped his essay on the importance of music in his life would give him the edge to get into Cornell University or Vanderbilt University.

"When I wrote my first draft, it was full of things I know now I shouldn't do, like use cliches," said Cohen, who sings and plays the guitar in his band, Duco Project. "My mother is always saying that music doesn't pay the bills, but maybe it will get me into college."