<p>Thanks Sabaray for the link.</p>
<p>College Confidential mentioned in the “New York Times” …can we call that CC’s 15 minutes of fame in the NYT?</p>
<p>^ I’m quoted on the article. For an internet forum post. This is so surreal.</p>
<p>Careful orchestration or slow news day?</p>
<p>Not the first time CC has been in the times, but yes, you guys have your fifteen minutes!</p>
<p>^^^ correct, dbwes. CC has been quoted in the media several times. In fact many of us “oldtimers” were interviewed and quoted in a book that was published a few years back!</p>
<p>Hi, Jym626… Happy Ney Year 2010! Sounds interesting. What is the books’s name?
Do you remember the subject or the particulars of the interview? Tell us more.</p>
<p>Hi Greenery. Happy new year to you and all cc’ers. Here’s a link to that thread about the book many of us were quoted in <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/413281-how-many-you-quoted-how-survive-college-book-series.html?highlight=quoted+interviewed[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/413281-how-many-you-quoted-how-survive-college-book-series.html?highlight=quoted+interviewed</a>.
There was a follow up book in this series that I believe used many of these quotes as well. Was fun.</p>
<p>If anyone is interested in continued discussion of “the essay,” I would urge them to read the comments following the Times article. The reactions to it vary widely (as opposed to this thread), even from alumni, including: #38-“This sort of pretension is why, though I have a degree from the place, I do not give them money.” and #84-“I spent four years steeped in this sort of pretentious nonsense…it seemed like a good idea at the time, though.” Many, many people posting comments seem to think that the decision to sent this essay to potential students was extremely unprofessional (again, a reaction missing for the most part in this thread).</p>
<p>Yes, the comments vary widely, as they do both here and in the other thread you started on this topic in the “college essay” forum. Didn’t read all 110 comments on the NYT site. In fact just scanned the first 20 or so, most of which were pretty uniformly positive. Comment #1 expresses surprise that anyone would take offense, saying “some people will just complain about anything”, followed by #2 which made me LOL-
HAHAHA. Classic!</p>
<p>Here’s a perfect summary of good ol’ cc’s comments- in NYT’s post # 42:
</p>
<p>Personally, I think # 35 is spot on:
</p>
<p>I read them all, jym, I would say on balance they tended toward the negative. It’s interesting to me, because here any negative comments about anything “Chicago-esque” are pretty quickly taken issue with, whereas on that site comments are left unchallenged. Quite a difference.</p>
<p>There were perhaps, what, four or five or maybe six which dealt with the sexual aspect. It is interesting you would choose to highlight those.</p>
<p>^^^ Perhaps you could do a tally mummom , and post here how many comments were (a) generally positive about the essay and /or of the goal of U of Ch. in posting it (b)negative about the essay or the school for posting it vs (c) general comments about the NYT article, the utility of essays vs other extracurriculars and stats inthe admissions process, or the people posting comments. Seems to me from what I read (now about half of the posts there), they seemed more positive than negative. Actual data would be helpful.</p>
<p>jym, You are just proving my point.</p>
<p>I thought the below reaction was interesting that was from a NYT reader of the article about Chicago’s essay. Reminded me that for 12 seasons, Al Franken was a featured player on Saturday Night Live. Having a combination of smarts and satire is appreciated by top schools. </p>
<p>“Seeing as how National Lampoon nonsense originated at the Harvard Lampoon, material such as this has an established place in academia.”</p>
<p>Have no clue what you mean, mummom. You posted what you thought were a few examples of people being critical of the essay. I read the NYT comments as running the gamut, some commenting about the essay, some commenting about U of C and some commenting about the comments. Sounds just like CC! Also twisting and misconstruing posts here is classic cc’esque, mummom. Not interested in playing that game with you.</p>
<p>I have a degree from Chicago and I will still give them money. I liked the essay. It’s not perfectly written, but I assure you many admissions essays are not. My own kid wrote a very quirky essay for Chicago (it didn’t get sent around, but it was good).</p>
<p>mummom- I’m really not sure what your issue is here. I can understand not everyone loving the essay or thinking it was a great idea for Chicago to send it around, but it sure isn’t worth getting your panties in a wad over.</p>
<p>I think we had this same argument a few years ago about the Princeton joke issue. The humor was (ahem) not appreciated by some of our more self-righteous posters here.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Could the issue be that some think that for many on College Confidential, Chicago --from its politicians to its famed school-- tends to be viewed as “untouchable.” While appropriate for the Eliot Ness’ romantics, this tends to become irritating to others who might prefer a bit more balance in the “appraisal” of the University of Chicago and the local goons who find employment in our government. </p>
<p>For full disclosure, I happen to be solidly anchored in the camp that always found the application requirements of Chicago to not only be quirky but also highly counter-productive, and their self-anointed label of pursuing and rewarding “high intellectualism” above all to be annoyingly pretentious and void of much substance. </p>
<p>This essay and the irresponsible decision by the admission people to not only release it to the public but place in on pedestal clearly indicate that things are not changing rapidly in Chicago, and that the departure of Ted O’Neill has not brought many changes from the good ol’ days of the Uncommon Application.</p>
<p>This quote from the NYT comments makes sense to me. Even if pretentious… obnoxious, elitist, what have you, free advertising is free advertising. And negative attention is better than no attention at all.
</p>
<p>Actually, the “Why Chicago?” prompt is similar to the prompt on many, many other college applications. It is not in the least “Uncommon.”</p>
<p>I did not think the essay “perfect,” but then, I thought the idea was not to a showcase a perfect essay. But it does appear that the idea was not well thought out. Instead of reassuring students, it did the opposite. Instead of giving them permission to think outside the box, it seems to have been used as a template and a gauge. </p>
<p>I think back to the essay S1 wrote for Chicago many years ago. I thought it was flawed. He spoke frankly about not being a math/science person. He did not present himself as a deep thinker. Instead, he wrote about being interested in what makes people tick. It was heartfelt and authentic. It seems to have sufficiently impressed the adcom to put him high on the WL (while he was in the top 10% of his class, he did not have astronomical scores or GPA, by any means). Rohan’s essay was very much the opposite of my S’s insofar as it was a parody; yet, I think that both, in their very different ways, exhibited a distinct voice. Perhaps that is what the Chicago adcom continue to look for?</p>