Deep Springs Discussion Thread for Applicants in Summer 2022 to be Accepted in Summer 2023
Itās here
OMG well hello againnnnn, so good to see you here.
Hi! I just made a CC account for this Im a HS Senior looking to apply! I love love love deep springs, as I feel like Iāve lost one of the most important things inherent to humanity: my ability to think. I know this sounds odd but it makes sense in my head! Lol!! Why are you guys applying?
Hi @aoifinger , thanks for joining the conversation
I totally get what you mean by losing your ability to think - or at least I think I do. There are times that I feel higher education (or systemized education for that matter) often tries to mould you into a specific worldview, that there is a ārightā way to do things. It feels like thereās a pressure to conform and adopt ideas that you donāt necessarily agree with simply to survive in society as we know it.
Why am I applying? Well, thereās a lot of reasons but I think the main one is that I feel Deep Springs will help equip me with the tools necessary to transform society for the better. I just feel that thereās something off with the world right now, sort of like everyone is simply going through the motions. At least from my point of view, everyone seems to be existing rather than living life if that makes sense. And I donāt think that this is anyoneās fault per see - rather a consequence of a faulty system that people just donāt know how to get out of. I suppose that I want to revolutionize this system, change it for the better and at Deep Springs, simply by being there, I feel like Iāll be able to gain skills and perspectives which will help me reach this goal. I know I havenāt gone into too much detail as to exactly how Deep Springs will help me do this - Iām not even 100% sure that I can without being there - but if you want a more detailed (speculative) reply, feel free to pm me. What about you though? Why are you interested in applying?
Hi all! Just found this forum. How does everyone feel now that applications are in?
That sounds awesome!! Iāll DM you soon with my answer as well! The thread this year seems torpid. Do you have any guess for why that is? I was looking forward to speaking with other prospectives
Hi!! I feel a bit apprehensive abt my app. Last minute I had a ton of issues and realized I forgot to finish a supp. Im not too about not getting in, tho, I always have next year!! Hby?
Iām actually feeling really relieved now that Iāve submitted. Iāve been putting off so many other deadlines just to focus on the essay so now I have time to get back to those. But at the same time, Iām feeling rather anxious - I keep thinking that I could have written the essays better or if I had more time then maybe I could have taken a different approach. More than that though, I guess Iām feeling anxious because of what Apcom might say in December. What about you though? How are you feeling?
Cool! I look forward to it
As for why the thread this year seems torpid, I could guess a number of things. Maybe there are less people applying (which I highly doubt), maybe this thread (and others like it) are heard to find, maybe other prospective are using a different platform that we donāt know about, or maybe people are hesitant to participate online. I mean, the last one is probably the most likely reason. I mean, imagine if we all discussed the prompts such as the beauty one. Eventually, our differing perspectives would converge and all of our essays would practically be the same. Iām guessing then that by the end of the second round, more people will show up, but I donāt know.
Same! I had to cut so much out to fit the word requirements, it was really frustrating. I also definitely went way over the word count with the two prompts on the supplemental document, but I hope itās no big deal. Obviously, I really want to get in, but Iām also trying not to put too much stake in it. Did anyone else answer the injustice prompt?
Really sad this thread is so slow this year! Iām a high school senior who appliedāwrote most of my essays on the weekend before, which wasnāt fun, but I feel pretty good about what I ended up with (except for the kids question, didnāt know what to write past the first paragraph lol). I wrote my long essay about beauty. Anyone else lurking on this thread?
Hey guys I also wrote about beauty. Iām happy with what I submitted and eager for dec 15 to come around. What books or pieces of art did people write about?
I wrote about the book Why Fish Donāt Exist by Lulu Miller, and about the song āRippleā by Grateful Dead!
Hey @knoah and @fynbos welcome to the thread
Thereās probably a lot of other people who wrote their essays last minute or found out about Deep Springs later than others so no need to worry about that. Not being able to write that much shouldnāt give you reason to doubt either - most of my essays this year were pretty short, my beauty essay for example was about 300 words short of the word limit.
As for the supplemental essays, this year I wrote about ćBlinkć by Malcom Gladwell and the moviećInceptionć. I wrote about this first one because it really helped me with my indecisiveness, it helped me see that the problem wasnāt so much making the decision but rather realising the decision I already made subconsciously. I wrote about the second one because I was really inspired by the idea of lucid dreaming when I first watched it, unfortunately, Iāve yet to have a lucid dream, but in my pursuit of lucidness, I started eating healthier, exercising more, and overhauled bad sleep habits.
I wrote about Faust by Goethe and the film Hidden Fortress. It was a bit of a challenge to describe the impact of these works in 150! Did you all find the word count on these difficult too?
Yeah, the word limit was pretty hard to work around. Last year they only asked us to write about a single book and we had 300 words. I sort of averaged my word count for the two works this time around - the first one was about 160 words and the second one was about 140 words. Hopefully, Apcom wonāt mind
Does anyone have predictions for how the total # of applicants this year will change because of the 60 minutes segment? Do they normally tell how many applicants they get each year?
Hi @knoah , when the 60 minutes segment came out last year I was told about 500 applications were made. But since that was a year ago I donāt really know how that number has changed. Normally, they donāt publish a yearly statistic - I only know because I asked one of my friends who was attending DS at the time.
Is the decision date definitively Dec. 15?