May a foreign applicant who does not write well in English use a professional editing service to edit for language and style?
We expect that essays are the work of the applicant. It’s one thing to show them to a friend or two for input, but we definitely frown upon a professional service. This is true whether the applicant is a native speaker or not; all too often, U.S. natives will hire “admissions consultants” to actually pen their personal statements, and we view that too as a violation of our expectation that all the work is that of the applicant. You’d be surprised how easily we are able to detect these professionally polished essays. We will often compare the writing style of the LSAT essay with that of the personal statement, for example, and when there’s a stark contrast, we’ll know why.