<p>Terriboooooring. You can discard all but Reed’s and Wesleyan’s after reading just a few sentences. But again, It’s not like presidents are professional writers.</p>
<p>Well, that was really funny :). I wonder why they agreed to writing those :). And it was also ego-boosting, wouldn’t you agree, fellow cc’ers? :)</p>
<p>I agree with belen: wesleyan, reed and barnard would probably be accepted. Pomona wasn’t too bad. But so many great essays I’ve read here on cc leave them all far behind. I actually couldn’t make it all the way through the other essays. </p>
<p>I can just imagine the adcoms:</p>
<p>“Hmm, let’s see, Edmund Burke is by almost any accounting the leading organic conservative thinker in Anglo-American political theory. He was Irish by birth but became prominent as an English political figure in the eighteenth century. Come one, we could just read this in a history book. It’s four o’Clock, and we’re supposed to enjoy an essay about ‘organic conservativism’?”</p>
<p>“Yeah, Bob, I agree. No personality, nope, not at all.”</p>
<p>“Automatic reject pile? Please?”</p>
<p>“I don’t know…”</p>
<p>“Pleeeeaaaase?”</p>
<p>“Ok, Bob.”</p>
<p>“:)”</p>
<p>“Uh-oh. Wait a second.”</p>
<p>“Why? This essay looks a lot better, something about a woman who finds a dead chipmunk! Look --”</p>
<p>“No, Bob, wait. It’s our boss.”</p>
<p>“Oh. Oh.”</p>
<p>“I guess it’s into the acceptance pile.”</p>
<p>“Yep. Ah well. He is sort of a legacy, right?”</p>
<p>Also, I liked the fact that most of them exceeded the 500 word limit :).</p>
<p>Entertaining thread, btw :)</p>
<p>I wouldn’t jump in blaming Penn for contributing to Gutmann’s seemingly pretentious tone. After all, she was educated and spent most of her academic career at Harvard and Princeton. Go figure.</p>
<p>My issue with the Barnard essay was that it didn’t really say anything. It told us very little about her, and gives us little reason to think she should be admitted.</p>
<p>adults of so much more to write about! it’s not faaaiiir. i only read a couple, but did any contain info that could have possibly come from a high schooler’s experineces?</p>
<p>oh, by the way, i don’t really know if barnard’s president really answered the question…and, it really didn’t say much about her besides the fact that she is always rushed and busy.</p>
<p>you think so? the writing style couldn’t have been more full of voice IMO. the content wasn’t the point, it often times isn’t, it’s the way she presented it, organized it.</p>
<p>that’s why it’s good, because it’s subtle and sleek. the others didn’t have that ability (particularly Penn’s president, who accidentally revealed her voice in her writing but in a bad way - she sounds sooo pompous and vain) and that’s why Barnard’s was the only one worth reading.</p>
<p>When I read Barnard’s president’s, I thought, “So it isn’t any different for her.” ha</p>
<p>A lot of people were talking about these essays over at Barnard and the consensus seems to be that we’d admit our president. 
The essay was well-written, with a friendly tone, and a creative spin. She seems no different from her students. What else could you want in a college president? </p>
<p>My least favorite was Penn’s president. It sounded like a resume cover letter and wasn’t personal or revealing at all. It was also extremely unbelievable that this could be page 217 on any autobiography. I liked the essay of Carleton’s president and thought it was very interesting but I felt it wouldn’t actually get him admitted (not personal enough or revealing of any positive traits). </p>
<p>I really loved President Roth’s (Wesleyan) essay. It was personal, touching, and told about himself through the lens of the experience. Although death is a college essay taboo topic, I thought it was brilliant. Reed’s President probably did the only essay on the diversity topic that I have ever enjoyed. Most of them come out sounding so shallow, but his was amazing.</p>
<p>(Barnard = Wesleyan = Reed) > Others. </p>
<p>Edit: I read over the other posts after writing this one. I personally think President Spar’s Barnard essay says a lot about her. She is passionate about many things, has a warm and humorous personality, does not sacrifice her interests because of a lack of time, is very organized (it may not seem so, but if you think about how much she accomplished in that day!), and great at multi-tasking. Best of all, she said none of these things directly.</p>
<p>I read the Barnard one…and also the Penn one… </p>
<p>my takeaway has nothing to do with the actual assignment, but more the content and what it revealed about the life of a college president:</p>
<p>first, from Barnard, I was amazed that Debora Spar was surprisingly frank about multi-tasking from home… one to-do for work, one for kid, one for home, one for work, one for hubby, one for home, one for kid, one for work…almost none for her… this is the true reality for most professional women and she really opened the curtain… I personally have always joked about how perhaps we “seek” chaos… and having recently retired, I now find myself dealing with what the chaos left behind while pursuing the “bacon”… on a good day, I think I can restore us/my family back to “shipshape” but there are some times when I think that no one else in the family cares about neat, clean, plans, order etc… and I don’t want to be a martyr!!</p>
<p>My take away from the Penn essay is that this is the view of a person who has really accomplished a lot of stuff… and wants to accomplish more… and is a person who is committed to making change and leading change… and I didn’t find it as tedious to read as everyone else did, rather I thought that she has swallowed the kool-aid and this is how you posture when you are “managing up” which is a valid state of mind… again, it is fairly transparent that she aspires to more… I do think some of what she was talking about is actually very important… kinder, gentler debate… the anti-thesis of all these crazy cable and radio talk shows where everyone is trying to score points with each sound bite. </p>
<p>I also can’t help but wonder if it is more important for the pretty blonde to be on topic, than the brunette? Which could be a clue as to why they don’t want photos on apps?</p>
<p>Is this a new thing or do they do this all the time at these schools? lol If not they need to so they keep it in perspective on how hard it is to write those essays.</p>
<p>So basically, Sparr answered the “routine” prompt with her “lack of routine” which is actually an amazingly crazy routine full of multi-tasking and being supermom? That’s brilliant.</p>
<p>Instead of judging the merit of those essays, I’m enjoying reading the commentary here on them. As we can easily deride or praise when comparing these ten essays–imagine what the average overworked adcom feels when she/he sees a stack of 500 or more. And so many hopes and dreams and years of work are riding on them. It gives me pause to think how, whether rightly or wrongly, they quickly dismiss those that seem fake or boastful or numbingly dull. Will they see past the teenagers’ lack of angst, lack of disability or death of a close family member, lack of a comedy writer’s zing when it is very very human to make a quick judgment and move on?</p>
<p>Barnard, Wesleyan, and Reed win.</p>
<p>Agree with most of you. Barnard’s and Wesleyan’s rock. Penn’s was awful. Carleton’s was a bit hard to follow, but at least it has potential to grow. The Penn one deserves to be tossed aside.</p>
<p>Reed’s was ok, and Pomona’s was decent.</p>
<p>Would these presidents be able to get into their own schools today? Hmm.</p>
<p>Agreed with madbean. To be honest, while it seems funny to hear about the life of an overworked supermom, complete with dead squirrel, it can seem really boring and rather “typical” to hear a typical “screwed up” routine of a 15-AP superstar athlete unless they can find some “genuine insight”, according to the prompt’s requirement. We’ve seen it all on CC, and why would that be no different for an adcom? This is not to dismiss anyone’s success, but really, this might be a case of 500-amazing application fatigue. This is why context in terms of what actual teenage content(success) is, is so important.</p>
<p>This is why I think a lot of essays focus on people introverting themselves and focusing on one small event or a small thing that defines them, due to a lack of drama in life. The actual action itself could be a fabulous or worthy topic to write about, but I wonder if there is a new phenomenon about how to sound “genuine enough.” It sounds really contrived, but I don’t really know how else to put it.</p>
<p>I actually thought Penn’s was ok, very dry though. the best was Barnard! i kept cringing at the thought of the poor chipmunk :(</p>
<p>This article was a very nice initiative from WSJ.
This is a life experience to be remembered for later.
This is what happens when ultra creative people ready to take risks become boring but ultra “safe” administrators.
It’s human but is it acceptable?
When you don’t use a precious skill you … lose it.</p>
<p>No one really took a risk in their essays, meaning to exit their comfort zone in examining a subject effectively from an important view that has not been thought under this angle before or is agreeable by the majority.
Give a bright example of enthusiasm to your students in searching where no else has gone before! </p>
<p>It’s this mentality of not raising your head out, (Oh No! the wind will blow your hair), your hand, (No way! You might not be able to fore-see the response), not even your middle finger (everyone will notice!) to the conventional.
The writers of these essays are neither young nor explorers anymore and with age comes the safeguarding of the status quo of an over promising personality that is under delivering.
Bill and Warren are the exceptions that many try without much success to understand their lives and success.</p>
<p>What might be a “risky” parameter or view in a subject that all avoid for being not PC?
Could be the mention of … God?
God has inspired marvelous Literature, Poetry, Painting and Sculpture, Music and Architecture, Philosophy, History, Wars, Science and Health but not today.
The first Colleges and Universities, the first typed book were all God inspired.</p>
<p>Today only Hollywood and history-as-a-fiction writers dare to tackle the subject basically because is PC to attack it.
They can also easily find the sponsors to attack organized religion and particularly the Catholic Church.</p>
<p>I am not Catholic or attending or working in a Catholic institution by any means, it’s just that I enjoy to see how orthologically balanced is Nature and how unbalanced can be Humanity repeating the same mistakes in a different context and time.</p>
<p>Could be possible that the existence of the human kind man was a result of an afterthought?
The Ontology of the Universe!
What the Logic and the Science inside the “black holes” of the Universe?!</p>
<p>Why we Earthlings look like wounded chipmunks, being pretty busy with collecting as many nuts as we can fit inside our cheeks being oblivious or ignoring the real dangers on our neck.</p>