Admissions is a crapshoot for NOBODY

Applying to College
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<p>Developmental admit are people who have some relationship with the school and with $$$...ie alumni families who have made large or conisistent and large donations, they are flagged</p>

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<p>citygirlsmom: I agree but it may be a four/five sided coin.</p>

<p>jimmyeatworld: A development case is someone that the college is interested in possibly admitting because their family is going to buy a new building for the college. They are handled by the Developmental Office in much the same way that athletes are handled by the Athletic Department. Don't even think of trying this for less than $10 million.</p>

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<p>Isn't brevity wit?</p>

<p>According to your thesis, wouldn't you think that you posess that quality which you describe?</p>

<p>A pompous style doesn't necesarrily mean that you're pompous, but it is all that we see of you. It does often sound like you're trying to employ your large vocabulary, which is fine, but better for the sake of meaning and not for the sake of using the large vocabulary.</p>

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<p>DRab, you're right. And I didn't use this kind of vocabulary in my admissions essay. The problem is that for some reason, I will sometimes (not always, not now for example), lapse into prose of a most indecipherable and pompous-sounding way. I don't sit with a thesaurus and find every synonym, it just comes out that way. And because I have dashed off, in fits, what I've written here, it's come out that way. I'm sorry if it makes it less comprehensible or agreeable, it's just the way it comes out. And frankly, i'm not going to spend an hour rewriting for college confidential. THat would be too much...</p>

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<p>I think he/she might be finding wit/humor in the way that the language is used. Perhaps it is a enjoyment of language. However, it needs to be toned down.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
DRab, you're right. And I didn't use this kind of vocabulary in my admissions essay. The problem is that for some reason, I will sometimes (not always, not now for example), lapse into prose of a most indecipherable and pompous-sounding way. I don't sit with a thesaurus and find every synonym, it just comes out that way. And because I have dashed off, in fits, what I've written here, it's come out that way. I'm sorry if it makes it less comprehensible or agreeable, it's just the way it comes out. And frankly, i'm not going to spend an hour rewriting for college confidential. THat would be too much...

[/quote]
I'm much the same way, although my brain generally goes into hibernation during the summer.</p>

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<p>I think both your brain and cc are in relative hibernation during the summer, then.</p>

<p>Write how you will, if it is you. I don't think you are pompous, beacause i have no idea, iki.</p>

68

<p>Don't all these criticisms of lki's style disprove his whole point? He says he's a down-to-earth nice guy. Others say he comes across as arrogant.</p>

<p>So is it just possible that down-to-earth nice people occasionaly (I never could spell that darn word) sound arrogant in, for instance, an essay? Or that really arrogant jerks can pretty up the language and write an essay (or have one edited by 2 professional writers in some cases) that makes them sound like terrific people? </p>

<p>And couldn't that perhaps - just a theory here - result in a few undeserved declinations, and a few undeserved admits?</p>

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<p>My $0.02, may be some thoughts reiterated:</p>

<p>The truth of the matter is, we do not know. I could probably develop a hypothesis where the admissions committee sets up huge dartboards of applicant names -- and randomly shoots 1,500 darts in order to determine the incoming freshman class. </p>

<p>Okay, highly unlikely. More so, the admissions committee sits down, and evaluates applicants one by one. </p>

<p>When you have a pool of 20,000, with 10,000 of those applicants being of equal qualifications, and there being only 1,500 slots open -- there comes the aspect of chance. Every single factor, from the minute to the gigantic, plays a role in the decision making process. It can be something as significant as a C in that AP Calculus A class to the headache that the admissions officer had as a result of hearty partying. It could have been the moving essay, or the fact that the admissions officer was also a Varsity Water Polo team captain. I wouldn't know. </p>

<p>No, admissions is not a crapshoot at all. It has a certain degree of chance to it, yes, as coureur said. But no, it is not one and the same; playing craps gives me better odds.</p>

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<p>It's just a darn writing style, geez, back off the OP. Everyone writes in their own way, he/she shouldn't have to "dumb it down" so the rest of your guys can catch half of what he/she is saying. The language itself, at times, had a tinge of arrogance to it, but there was nothing wrong with the style... If I wore a suit into a McDonald's, does that make me a pompous ***** (<---- eh, you make up a funny, derogatory word)? Please...</p>

<p>TTG</p>

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<p>I think saying the the OP shouldn't have to "dumb it down" is pompous. I think we all know what the words mean. It is just being suggested that the style needs work, and I think the OP is agreeing. My S has a real interest in language and the sound of words. He will sometimes use convoluted phrases in speaking. He doesn't do it all the time and it's amusing to his friends when he does (or so it seems). The OP's writing style, in my opinion could use less Shakespeare and more Hemingway. After all, the primary use of writing (except for creative writing) is to persuade others.</p>

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<p>lki:
Nobody is ever going to suggest to you the fact that you got into your college was luck. I can understand that the phrases "crapshoot" and "lottery" are emotionally charged phrases to you. You worked for your entire life so far to get into the type of college that you are in, and now it seems that people in college guides and CC are suggesting that it wasn't because of you, but it was because of luck. </p>

<p>That isn't what people are saying. The phrases "crapshoot" and "lottery" did not originate on CC, but came from the college guides. When these guides explain the admissions process, they come down to the end of the process and note that there are many more super-qualified people than the few extremely qualified colleges have room for. At that point, after almost all of the other applicants have been eliminated, there is an element of luck in who they take. The guides are primarily pointing out the insanity of so many people trying to get into so few schools, and they are secondarily warning applicants about the situation. In my opinion, it is unfortunate that the phrases "crapshoot" and "lottery" ever got started.</p>

<p>Try to understand what people mean when they say "luck". Get on with your life. In the normal usage, you weren't lucky. You deserved it. However, in the context of CC, luck was involved at the end of the selection process.</p>

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<p>Dumb it down? Actually the op was totally inarticulate.</p>

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<p>lki -</p>

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<p>No, you didn't say it, but you sure implied it. You said, in effect: Special kids with a great intellectual spark get into top schools like Harvard and Stanford - these are geniuses who are on their way to the intellectual "pantheon" (your word, not mine). Luck doesn't play a part here because those schools are so good at identifying who has that special spark. And oh by the way, I got into Stanford, and my 20 special friends who all have that wonderful spark got into great schools too.</p>

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<p>Ever watch Gilligan's Island? Your writing style has a Thurston Howell III accent all over it. It's hard not to hear that voice in my head when reading your stuff.</p>

<p>And you are wrong about the Latin words. Excessive use of latinate English words makes the text ponderous. It sucks the wit and verve right out of anyone's writing. If you really wish to make your writing come alive, read Elements of Style by Strunk and White. It's only about 85 pages, but it's a gold mine. It and other writing guides make the point that it's the brief style, using lots of Anglo-Saxon words, that makes for lively, readble English. If you want wit and verve, you are going in the wrong direction by heavy use of the Latin.</p>

<p>Here's an example from your own post:</p>

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<p>"Castigation" is an example of a completely unnnecessary latinate word that puts you back on Gilligan's Island. How about:</p>

<p>An F. Scott Fitzgerald quote comes to mind, but noting it now would only make things worse.</p>

<p>It's simpler, shorter, easier on the eyes, makes the same point, and doesn't sound like Thurston.</p>

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<p>Coureur, your post made me think of a Dryden quote.</p>

<p>"Learn to write well, or not to write at all."</p>

<p>And another one by Goethe,</p>

<p>"If any man wishes to write in a clear style, let him be first clear in his thoughts..." (it goes on).</p>

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<p>In terms of content instead of style, ....</p>

<p>My problem is not with saying that the applicants accepted to the extremely selective colleges are people with intellectual spark. My problem is that the OP feels that since the selection process works perfectly, as evidenced by him and his friends having being accepted, the people not accepted to the extremely selective colleges are inferior.</p>

<p>Of course, some (but not all) of the people who are not accepted are less qualified based on the standard admissions criteria, but the attitude that the system works since I got accepted is a bad sign for the OP. Hopefully this will change for him/her as experience is gained. It would be especially bad if the OP just blew off the people with other opinions and evidence as just sore losers. Certainly, a lot of the people pointing out the problem are people from extremely selective schools. I think the comparison in attitude can be seen between Hernandez ("A is for Admissions" - Dartmouth) and Mathews ("Harvard Schmarvard" - Harvard).</p>

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<p>I can vouch for lki's super-awesomeness. I studied with him for a summer and am one of those elusive IM friends to which his critics refer. While his deficit of tact has already been noted and thoroughly explored, I have rarely encountered an intellect and an enthusiasm for learning to match his. At the risk of adding to his embarrassments, I below share a fragment of a textual exchange of ours (of his authorship) which should shed some light on the course of this forum.</p>

<p>Within the context of perusing a book from front to back, the import of linearity becomes acute. Our minds do not simply allow us to peruse an operator/signifier (or a reading), saving it into ‘memory’, only to apply it to an operated/signified/text. A preface cannot exist as a reading of a text that we have not read. As operator/signifier, it exists only as a reading of that text which we already have perused.</p>

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<p>I have read that when Jack Nicholson took his first screen test that everyone was blown away, and he was told that they didn't need him right then, but that when they did need him, they would need him real bad. It sounds like Iki is going to come in handy somewhere someday. :)</p>

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<p>As another one of lki's friends, I too can vouch for his true commitment to ideas. His accidental pretension, like mine and sousrature's, at times results from reading a lot of scholarly articles that employ that style. Like sousrature and I, most of lki's friends want to be academics. He wants to be an academic. If you spend your adolescence idolizing specialist language, in say, a discipline like literary theory, that's how you're going to end up shaping your own writing. Last summer when I studied with lki, we were reading and writing about theorists like Judith Butler, Culler, and Spivak. The writing sample in sousrature's post is from an essay on Derrida. You can see where he gets his Latinate flourishes!</p>

<p>My broad point is that lki may come off as elitist or arrogant, but no more so than any abstract at this year's MLA convention. True, this forum isn't the MLA convention, and isn't a venue to practice a formal style. But sometimes, it's hard to switch from academic mode to a more casual tone. Cut him some slack on "pretentious" diction, because he's been honing his style mostly for use in a another arena. Sometimes I and lki share the sin of not being able to snap out of essay mode, but that doesn't necessarily mean his writing is bad. It's just inappropriate for the context of this forum.</p>

<p>Finally, let me just say that I don't happen to agree with Lki's arguments re: admissions not being random. To some extent, yes, getting into Yale, where I will be attending school in the fall, is about a well-written essay, and yes, intellectual curiosity. But there's always the human factor, the mood of the admissions reader on a certain day, and the needs of the college for a certain type of student to balance the class. I wish I could say that everyone who loves intellectualism gets the Yale education they deserve, but the process is just too fickle and unpredictable for that. No matter how good a candidate you are, the nasty vagaries of fate still play a role. Even Aeneas has to be cast about the Mare Nostrum before he can found Rome.</p>

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<p>There is a wonderful book, Elements of Style, by Strunk. I recommend this book for everyone in highschool and for everyone going to college to reread it and use its suggestions.</p>

<p>It is almost as if some of the posters are the same author. I am sure that is not true, but the writing style is very similar.</p>