<p>Five pages of posts, the majority of which have focused on the OP's writing style as opposed to the merits of his argument.</p>
<p>I would suggest that this fact alone should be enough to convince the OP that his writing style needs work.</p>
<p>High school English teachers tend to be impressed with verbiage. Other people, not so much.</p>
<p>Citygirlsmom got me! She's right! I think i've already said that i should have written more simply, and that my language was the way it was because i jotted of quick responses without giving thought to what I wrote. If I had carefully and closely edited my text, finding cognates for sine qua non and unpacking phrases like Weltanschauung into more 'understandable' packets, I would have been following my advice. It's just that unlike citygirlsmom, I don't have the time or inclination to post 1960 times on CC, and I'm gonna write whats easiest for me!</p>
<p>citygirlsmom: I am not sure who your post was directed to. You said something about "How do you know what our experiences are?" and I can't find the word "experience" anywhere else on this page.</p>
<p>Some of Iki's comments have made him likeable. I would translate what he said about the essay as: "The essay should be about you. It should not be on some topic showing how smart you are, and it is not a writing contest. Style doesn't matter as much as content." I admit that the style itself would make most people laugh or scream, but a lot of what has been written by Iki and his friends sounds exactly like something from a philosophy textbook. Maybe that says something about philosophy.</p>
<p>I do disagree with the basic premise that luck is not very important in the final cut at the extremely selective schools.</p>
<p>For me, it was the merits of his arguments, but when that was coupled with the writing and those of his supporters, the problems I had with his original post were clarified in my mind.</p>
<p>There was a post that disapppeared...</p>
<p>I've already commented on the merits of his argument. Just wanna add that the writing style of OP and his friends reminded me of my IB Theory of Knowledge teacher. She's also into intellectualism and finding the meaning of life etc. and she always uses high-level SAT vocabulary. If you guys are interested I can give you her contact info.</p>
<p>I think there was a synergy with the writing style and the content of the OP. It seemed to be saying that there is absolutely no element of luck involved in being accepted to an extremely selective school and the people accepted are vastly superior intellectually. By implication, since there is no luck involved, anyone not accepted is inferior. When this was combined with a pompous writing style, it was waving a red flag to the bull.</p>
<p>I think everyone would agree that the people at HYPSM are smart. I don't think it is a stretch to say that most of us think that there are other smart people in other places, and that some luck in involved in getting into HYPSM provided you even apply.</p>
<p>LKI, Sousrature and Kitmarlowe composed this response together:</p>
<p>Many have asked what great things they can expect from us wunderkinder. Well why dont we look at what weve done? If the three of us formed one person, Sappho, she would have attended at a selective national summer program in the humanities, to which she was admitted in solely on the basis of our terrible, technical, pompous writing and grilling panel interviews.</p>
<p>She has published poetry, articles in top chemistry journals, and translations of articles in other languages. She has won several national awards for writing, and placed among the nations best in three science competitions based on written manuscripts. In addition to fluency or ability in French, German, Esperanto, Latin, Classical Greek, Eastern European languages and Old English, she knows math as well as any first year math PhD candidate.
She has lectured at an international science conference, and given advice to policy makers. She has already seen her praises sung by top academics, politicians (including US presidents), policy makes, authors, scientists and many others. Even while she developed a computer program used by university math professors, she ran a state-level academic organization. When she attended lectures on critical theory and literature, her insightful questions led professors to believe she was a grad student. Instead of sitting in high school classes, she teaches them. Her art is in galleries, her speeches at NFL nationals.</p>
<p>But she also has a human side, from farming in Eastern Europe to playing important roles in municipal committees.
She has bribed Russian border guards and, this morning, she guessed perfectly on the microwave time for last night's leftovers.</p>
<p>She (all three of us) stole a shopping cart and rode her up and down hills. The shopping carts name is Gina.</p>
<p>And of course Sappho had all the requisite high sat scores, AP awards, PSAT awards to get into Yale, Princeton, Stanford, Cornell etc... and receive large merit scholarships from [school names removed].</p>
<p>And she did it all at public schools. </p>
<p>The rest of the world seems to think Sappho can write.</p>
<p>SO BACK OFF B*TCHES. Is that colloquial enough for you?</p>
<p>holla back</p>
<p>The three of you together composed a post that is readable. :)</p>
<p>it's all about the subject matter ;)</p>
<p><em>yawn</em> And we care, why? We have no way of independently verifying whether or not the contents of this so-called "biography" are true. </p>
<p>I have no clue what a "policy makes" is, or a "Ivy Leage (re: an earlier post that had this typographical error)" for that matter. For quite the extemporaneous poster, despite the fact that it takes quite the length of time (perhaps Mr. Webster takes pride in knowing that his thesaurus is being so widely used by the Intellectual Trinity...) for a post to occur. </p>
<p>If that is your resume from the three of you combined, then that's pretty laughable. Several people on CollegeConfidential have achieved far greater things, although those are remarkable themselves, they are nothing to flaunt in the midst of the intellectual elite (that is, the majority of those on CollegeConfidential.) To put it quite frankly, that's not colloquial, that's probably just the go-nowhere fantasy of an archaic Renaissance man (or woman) trying to defend an untenable position.</p>
<p>Sappho needs a lesson in humility, as Sappho is one to believe that when she changes a light bulb, all she needs to do is hold the light bulb the world revolves around her. This is not the case. When science discovers the location of the center of the universe, you will be disappointed that you are not it, Sappho. </p>
<p>Lord, where we are wrong, make us willing to change. When we are right, make us easy to live with.</p>
<p>Why have people gotten so nasty on here?</p>
<p>Lki: From what I've read you seem like a very smart guy. I know that I would be unable to casually throw around some of the historical references that you and some of the other posters have been using.</p>
<p>However, I think that you made a mistake if you believed that your original post would not be met with immediate hostility. As a previous poster mentioned, CC is a website made up of members who--perhaps unreasonably for some--set their sights on top colleges. Given the low acceptance rates of most top colleges, relatively few end up getting into HYPS or even ASW.</p>
<p>You made a post that, in effect, said: </p>
<p>1)college admissions are not random or even remotely so</p>
<p>2)besides specific targeted admissions (URMS, athletes etc.), "special" people (i.e. people with an "intellectual spark") are pretty much guarenteed admission to top schools like HYPS.</p>
<p>3)I am one of those "special" people.</p>
<p>If you had only discussed numbers 1 and 2, people might have disagreed with you but they wouldn't have vehemently attacked your post. But, by adding 3, you turned your hypothesis into something of an intellectual love letter to yourself and your friends. At the same time, you alienated those of us who consider ourselves to possess the same "intellectual spark" you ascribe to yourself. Sure, you mentioned that "people who do possess this quality don't necessarily get accepted to Harvard or Stanford" (which does seem to go against your main argument but whatever) but you still imply that most of those rejected lack the spark.</p>
<p>To be honest with you, I love the college that I chose to attend when I was rejected from Stanford and Harvard. I can't imagine myself anywhere else and if I had the chance to attend Stanford or Harvard for the rest of my college years, I would turn it down. But even feeling that way, I felt kind of a twinge in my gut when I read your post. Imagine how a student who spent the last two years striving to get into HYPS or Ivy and just found out two or three months ago that they were denied admission felt when they read your post. Many have probably spent the last few months licking their wounds and reading your post probably didn't help any. I'm sure that they felt that they had that "intellectual spark" as well.</p>
<p>Perhaps that's why so many people attacked you as being pompous. You hurt them, they were trying to hurt you back. As I stated at the beginning of this overly long post, I think that you are probably a very intelligent individual. But by bringing in your personal story and the anecdotal evidence of your friends, you made the whole thing personal. </p>
<p>Live and learn. Just next time you go diving in the shark tank that is CC, try not to coat yourself in fish guts.</p>
<p>I'm not normally nasty in writing my responses. I've learned to develop a great deal of patience throughout the years, and especially during my time as a peer advisor. But when someone considers themselves superior to anyone in so explicit a manner, it irks me greatly. We're all mortals, and no matter what you do in the course of your life, we all end up six feet under. I try to retain realism and amiability in my posts, but I cannot be friendly towards someone who suffers from a superiority complex and sees others as academic inferiors because they do not write with the eloquence of the Classics.</p>
<p>Which the holy trinity, in fact, do not.</p>
<p>"But it may be suspected that he often thinks the length of his words and his capacity for dealing in the abstract to be signs of a superior mind. As long as that opinion prevails, improvement is out of the question. But if it could once be established that simplicity was the true ideal, many more writers would be found capable of coming near it than ever make any effort that way now." -- H.W. Fowler (18581933). The Kings English, 2nd ed. 1908.</p>
<p>More good advice, written in a style that "Sappho" should appreciate:</p>
<pre><code>Prefer the familiar word to the far-fetched.
Prefer the concrete word to the abstract.
Prefer the single word to the circumlocution.
Prefer the short word to the long.
Prefer the Saxon word to the Romance.
</code></pre>
<p>"Explication" of the above general principles can be found at: <a href="http://www.bartleby.com/116/101.html#1%5B/url%5D">http://www.bartleby.com/116/101.html#1</a></p>
<p>WOW, the last four posts from bigtom, tlaktan, saintjude and 1down2togo have really been great.</p>
<p>I totally agree with bigtom about the cause of the initial hostility. I think the evidence in "Harvard Schmarvard" by Mathews, "Admissions Confidential" by Toors, and "The Gatekeepers" by Steinberg make assertions #1 and #2 ridiculous. Also, why would a person be accepted to one HYPSA and rejected to another without luck being involved. If nothing else, what kind of cosmic coincidence would make the number of qualified applicants exactly equal to the number of open slots. Assertion #3 was really the problem, though.</p>
<p>Note: Contrary to what BigTom said (no hard feelings, just not true in my case) I wasn't at all hurt by what the OP had to say. I was torn between disgust and amusement by his attempts to sound scholarly, his clear arrogance, and his obvious belief that Latin phrases add to the quality of an online message board post. </p>
<p>There is a time and place for dense, Latinate prose. This isn't it.</p>
<p>Okay. let me do some math, US Presidents, with the poster being 18 or there abouts, in order for a plurality of Presidents to acclaim her work,"she" would have been 13 years old at the time</p>
<p>And if the post way above indicates the way in which their applications were filled out, with much hyperbole, I can see why they got in. If you have to brag so much about yourselves in order to explain away really bad writing, feel free.</p>
<p>One warning, if you go into college with those attitudes, you will have a rude awakening. While, it can be charming to a degree, the first time it is dealt with, snobbery can get quite irksome. And snobbery is not based on finances, as we can see here.</p>