<p>yeah, so I just wanted to have a place where people can rant about their applications if they want to, 'cause I'm not so happy about it right now (at least I'm not procrastinating, though).</p>
<p>You know what's lame? The science and math grounded kids are automatically at a disadvantage compared to the humanities kids, 'cause of the whole essay thing. I can't write a perfect essay, and I don't need to be able to to be a chemistry major. Yet, the colleges want you to write some essay and then some don't even give you a topic, they just expect you to write something unique and amazing and I am failing at my attempt to do so in less than 500 words.</p>
<p>You obviously haven't investigated science/math researchers. The major part of their work is reading and writing. Science-oriented adults write even more then some of the artsy oriented (sculpture, for example, shouldn't require that much writing). Writing is not a privilege of educated person -- it's an obligation.
Please, don't belittle scientific people.
I apologize if I was too sharp.</p>
<p>No, I don't mean it like that. I know that scientific researchers have to do loads of writing, believe me. It's just not necessarily something that comes as easily to some of us (growing up the younger sister of a girl who's mad crazy good at writing, and having nearly all of the same english teachers as her has made me a bit resentful of those who are so good at it)</p>
<p>I'm not even that bad at writing. I just have to feel particularly inspired, and generally can't keep it below 500 words if I have somethign to say.</p>
<p>Essays.... I always start out with the PERFECT introduction and a pretty good firt paragraph. Then I start rambling on about stuff that dont even make sense:(</p>
<p>Here, I was a senior year last year, but let me just go with it, the SAT favors english/literature personalities over us math types, just go ahead and add another math section and see what happens ;):p</p>
<p>I did excellent on the math SAT (790 baby).</p>
<p>I got a 12 on my essay for that matter. But I think adding that section on, like, grammar and sentence structure automatically ruins you if you're from a small rural redneck town :) Not really, but I like to pretend.</p>
<p>I do the worst on the critical reading ones, because by the last few passages, I just don't care how I score, anymore, I'm ready to be done. Math and science are so much more concrete than literature.</p>
<p>Griping? Okay. My mother holds 2 degrees, my father holds like 5 degrees from 4 schools. They both have attended a school in China called "The University of Electronic Sciences and Technology in China".
Try writing that out every time you fill out apps. >.<</p>
<p>It makes me really mad when math/science people complain that the application is biased against them. Yes, essays are probably easier for humanities people. But think about extracurriculars and summer programs. There are SO many more programs, internships, and opportunities for the math/science folks. Humanities people have much less--there are the commonplace, un-special activities like MUN and debate, but not much more. For the math/science oriented, there are research opportunities (lab experience, etc), 2 VERY prestigious contests without humanities counterparts (Siemens and Intel), numerous prestigious/selective summer programs (RSI, WTP, NASA SHARP and many more while humanities people only have TASP), olympiads (there are olympiads for bio, chem, computers but NONE for history or english), and more.
So we humanities people must be content with our essay "advantage." Which, by the way, doesn't even exist, because anyone can master writing skills, not just those of us who excel at literature/history. Writing is not unique to the humanities--that's CREATIVE writing. Expository writing/personal essays aren't unique to humanities fields. As someone else said above, science/math folks write papers too.</p>
<p>Try the Wordmasters competition if you're up for a lit competition, and I personally don't think the application process is biased against math types though have english/lit/grammar related topics for 2/3 of the SAT's is rather annoying.</p>
<p>Extracurriculars aren't biased in either direction. For that matter, the essay isnt' really either. I just wanted to rant about it because I was feeling horrible about the essay I had just tried to write, and failed at even keeping the word limit.</p>
<p>There's WorldQuest, if you're interested in history competitions, by the way. And the Poetry Out Loud competition (a girl from my school went to nationals for that, that was pretty cool), if you want English stuff. Quiz Bowl kinda incorporates it all. And you can always start a club (or at least at my school you can), if you have some interest that isn't already represented by the extracurriculars at your school.</p>