<p>
[quote]
taking up the bagpipes en masse? THE BAGPIPES??? Can you imagine the din? Please, anything but the bagpipes. May I suggest an Asian Klezmer band? Or, the hypnotic Balinese gamelan. Even that kalimba thumb-piano thingie? Argh. Anything.
[/quote]
[quote]
May I suggest the oboe d'amore or the viola da gamba
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I'll bet a polka-playing accordionist would stand out from the crowd :p.</p>
<p>jmmom,</p>
<p>It has been a while since I have seen a setup line for which even I think the punch line is too obvious. In that spirit, I will point out that the definition of a gentleman is someone who can play the accordion, but doesn't.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I'll bet a polka-playing accordionist would stand out from the crowd
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Ah! Would there be a crowd, or would they flee in droves? ;)</p>
<p>I was going to comment that the polka-playing accordionist might not fare well if Weird Al is applying in the same year.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Q: What's the difference between a bagpipe and a trampoline?
A: You take your shoes off when you jump on the trampoline.
[/quote]
Too funny,dude!! Welcome back! Your humor has been SORELY missed!</p>
<p>A guy is driving late to a meeting in his opened-top sports car iwth a set of bagpipes in the back. He rushes up to the meeting only to remember that he left the top to his car down and the bagpipes exposed to all the world. He dashes back down to the car...too late! There are now <em>two</em> sets of bagpipes in the back seat.</p>
<p>Who'd a thunk what one throwaway line would provoke.</p>
<p>Gop bagpipe.</p>
<p>So at the first college I attended, a pretty good friend of mine was a guy who roomed with another guy whose main claim to fame was that he played bagpipes. The first guy transfered after one year, found a theater program, and eventually became a lead actor on Broadway.</p>
<p>I'd like to think the bagpipes had something to do with that...</p>
<p>guess what: my Mom plays the accordion! :eek:</p>
<p>TheMom and I were once in an elevator full of accordion players at an accordionist's convention.</p>
<p>As a youngster, John Smoltz had to make a decision about two activities that he was clearly very gifted in -- accordion or pitching. He chose well. But even today will tell you that it was NOT an easy decision either for him or his family -- who knew he was going to be that great of a pitcher, and (strange as it sounds to most) being a gifted polka accordionist in a large Polish-American area is very prestigious.</p>
<p>S played here one Christmas with a band whose horn player cancelled at the last minute. Was invited to play over the summer, too, but would have to buy his own lederhosen. So far, he's resisted. We keep threatening to get him an accordian for Christmas. I send him postcards with accordians on them every chance I get, to decorate his Juilliard dorm room. Maybe I'll get him a CD.</p>
<p>But seriously, what to call those guys reading apps....</p>
<p>College Admissions Director -- CAD?</p>
<p>Director of Admissions -- DOA?</p>
<p>How about College Admissions Representative -- CAR. NO, CADRE! According to Dictionary.com --- "Cadre"
1. A nucleus of trained personnel round which a larger organization can be built and trained.
2. a. A tightly knit group of zealots who are active in advancing the interests of a revolutionary party. [Drinking school?]
b. A member of such a group.</p>
<p>But honestly, I don't call these guys anything. I think it's more important to let my kids do their own calling.</p>
<p>I really must get a life.</p>
<p>DudeDilligence:
did your dinner mate have any insight into their (or any peer school's) use of the waiting lists? that to me is the unkindest of all cuts.... schools where 1,000 kids are waitlisted, with 8 or 30 getting admitted.. it is such false hope...... I just cannot understand why their waitlists are so large these days, when none of the elite schools take more than 100 kids off of them in any given year....and that is rounding up...</p>
<p>Good question, maineparent. We considered D's chances of getting off the waitlist as about being equal to her chances of being hit by lightning. She chose not to stay on any waitlists, but chose from the acceptances she received. Still, people get hit by lightning every year. . .I guess that is what keeps people hoping.</p>
<p>My son was waitlisted at one college and decided not to stay on it. He had already pretty much decided that he didn't want to go there anyway. Maybe the long wait lists are self-perpetuating...the longer they are, the more students stay on multiple lists because of the low chance of getting off of any one of them (does that make sense?).</p>
<p>Inasmuch as students come off the wait lists, one ought to consider this segment of the admissions as mostly PR. Putting a student on the waiting list is a polite yet cynical way to reject him or her. IMHO, this seems to be mostly for the benefit of HS guidance counselors who can save face. Wait lists in the hundreds seem backfire as they seem overly cruel. In reality, schools would not have many problems to return to their rejects' pool and offer admission without having to have a wait list. Wait lists also seem to complicate the acceptances of schools that are lower in the so-called rankings. </p>
<p>From my limited experience with a few RL wait list admissions, I also remember that the notification was very early as opposed to be later in the summer. My feeling is that the students who are picked were part of the very selective latest cuts when two candidates were pitted against each other ... as soon as the chosen one turns down the school, the ADCOM who championed the loser jumps on the chance and gets his or her choice in. </p>
<p>FWIW, I also feel that the story that the wait list is not ranked and that all candidates have similar chances is mostly baloney. However, notifying the students of their possible chances would undermine the PR effect.</p>
<p>From what I've read and heard, WaitListing is part of that "strategic admissions" game (although maybe not officially called that). It helps colleges keep good relations with certain high schools; it is, as xiggi states, a "letting them down easy" way of rejecting come candidates; it is a way of doing a variation of the "admit/deny" to candidates who are clearly strong but who might need $$ the school doesn't have/doesn't want to give; it is a way of sorting out the awarding of the few WL spaces to those who evidence interest during the WL period.</p>
<p>I think it is quite cruel the way it is currently used. I know of one student who had a quite unsuccessful set of apps last year - many rejects, many waitlists, acceptances only to 2 safeties not well-loved. The WL extended the agony by way of false hopes, with attempts to figure out what could be done to succeed in getting one of the ridiculously low # of slots. Lots of effort on the part of student, family, GC which really had no hope of success. This particular story ends happily with the student feeling his matriculated safety school is "awesome." No thanks to the schools playing the WL game.</p>
<p>I agree with posts 96 and 97. Mostly, I think W/L's are a waste. They could be useful IF the colleges didn't over-enroll so liberally. Probably the over-enrolled ones are mostly multiple cross-admits of highly-qualified which the colleges don't want to lose by W'L-ing. </p>
<p>The problem with using W/Lists as an aspect of strategic admissions is that there is less predictability to acceptances & matriculation than there once was. If you're a college, you cannot assume that your W/L'ed student has been accepted to even one other "stronger" school -- regardless of the academic profile. I've seen too many cases personally where students end up with a long string of W/L's & rejections because their colleges are all assuming (erroneously) the same thing. I don't know, maybe a ranking designation (student preference) could be inserted into the process at some point. There has to be a better way.</p>
<p>I think the effect is cruel & cynical, if not the intent. I think the colleges do it out of cowardice. At the very least I think it would not hurt to disclose to the W/L student: "We have over-enrolled by <strong><em>, because we do not know our matriculation #'s yet. There are exactly _</em></strong> W/L'ed candidates right now. Last year we took ____ from our W/L." [Some of this info is available from searching data sets, etc., but often too late to help a currently w/l student.] </p>
<p>Here's another idea, colleges: If you over-enrolled less (were less greedy), your W/Lists would have a tiny bit of meaning.</p>
<p>Well, I'm not quite as cynical as Xiggi or others, but close. For most elite schools the waitlist does strike me as a sham. FWIW, though, some schools do admit a relatively small (but not miniscule) number of applicants off of the waitlist. In a recent year this included:</p>
<p>Brown: 193
Georgetown: 123
UVA: 65
Yale: 48</p>
<p>Those numbers seem to me to undercut Xiggi's argument that WL acceptances only happen to the "very selective latest cuts". But in many cases the lists were very large to begin with.</p>
<p>UVA waitlists a ton of qualified kids:</p>