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<p>Well, then, don’t apply to those schools if you find their policies so disgusting.</p>
<p>But you want their prestige … in fact, you crave that prestige. Desperately. Why are these schools so “prestigious” in your mind if they admit based on those nonsensical factors? Why do you want to be around such students if they’re all loosey-goosey and not the highest-stats-people ever?</p>
<p>…"their “genuine, real, soulful” self…</p>
<p>With all due respect…why should someone’s genuine, real, soulful self have any bearing whatsoever on admissions decisions?</p>
<p>I’m sorry to be such a Gloomy Gertie, but sheesh, how narcissistic can our culture get?</p>
<p>Very interesting, alh. I would very much like to read that book!</p>
<p>My son is a current junior at Amherst, so it was so interesting to listen to this NPR piece. I remember seeing one back when he was in the midst of the application process, it was from another school – can’t remember which, but it was another very selective small college – that was virtually identical to this piece. I imagine the process is pretty much the same in colleges of this sort.</p>
<p>It was pretty scary to listen to back then. Now, at least, I can listen to it with interest and not anxiety. ;)</p>
<p>But you want their prestige … in fact, you crave that prestige. Desperately.</p>
<p>How could you possibly know that? (scratching head here)</p>
<p>WADR, this discussion is getting a tad surreal. :o</p>
<p>you don’t think Socrates was a risk taker?</p>
<p>Because he’s trying for the third time to get into the same set of elite schools.</p>
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Huh? Didn’t Socrates get into some sort of trouble over his take on the learning process? I would certainly consider him a risk taker. I recall something about a trial and some hemlock. I don’t know that he spent much time prepping students for the Athenian standardized test.</p>
<p>I don’t think Galileo was big on Kaplan either.</p>
<p>Wow LadyDianeski, I’ve been reading through this whole thread and I feel like that’s the most valid point that’s been made.</p>
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<p>LadyDi, transfers2010 has stated on another thread that he applied to 10 elite schools in HS, 12 elite schools as a sophmore transfer, and was rejected at all. He is now going through the transfer process again, at more elite schools. It just seems hypocritical to be so offended by the policies of these schools to actually call them disgusting, and to yet obviously want to attend them.</p>
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<p>Is there a particular reason why that post was addressed to me? If there is a remote chance that the reason is that I used the word “unique” in a prior reply, may I politely suggest to check what I actually wrote about that term and the “risk-taking.” </p>
<p>I am not sure I can find any relation between what I wrote about college application essays and … risk-taking or the purpose of higher education. </p>
<p>And, fwiw, is your reference about the Chinese and Japanese butt-whipping framed in the context of higher education or the … K-12? </p>
<p>/shaking head</p>
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<p>I interpreted this to mean authentic, not self-absorbed. I thought the essays were a way for the applicants to let the admissions staff get to know them beyond the objective. I’ve never viewed the staff to be a conspiring bunch. A friend of our family is currently working in admissions at a top 10 LAC and he is caring, thoughtful, hard-working, young man.</p>
<p>Also, life is not fair. Why would I possibly expect the college admissions process to be “fair”? I certainly would not want it to be like India where one test can determine your entire future (if that is how it works).</p>
<p>this makes me feel a little better about rejection. I knew decisions were subjective-but this is REALLY subjective. Just a bunch of people determining our fate-as dramatic as it sounds-it’s true. </p>
<p>On a side note-can you apply to be an adcom? Do you have to be an alumni of that particular university-or is that not necessary?</p>
<p>Great, thanks thanks for the story, NPR (drippping with sarcasm)… just what I needed, more fuel to fire my worries about my D’s acceptances/rejections. Now, I have to worry about every sentence?</p>
<p>I would make this little NPR vignette mandatory, at the beginning of junior year :0
Then maybe, just possibly, we would not see so many XYZ-College-rejected-ME posts.</p>
<p>One small data point as evidence of the value of authenticity in the personal essay. D was admitted today to a very fine school, great fit for her. She came home tonight to find a voicemail message from a senior at this unil saying he was on the admission committee and wanted to tell her how much he loved her essay, especially the part about how, should the occasion require it, she can produce a truly colorful insult in any of five different languages. Had she asked my advice I surely would have suggested she tone that one down. </p>
<p>So far, however, that essay (or something!) has served her mighty well in the admissions lottery. She is gratefully aware that it could easliy have been otherwise.</p>
<p>I think the essay is what provides color in a sea of straight-A, Intel-winning, chess-club-playing, hospital-volunteering, student-council presidents. The adcoms need something otherwise their eyes are going to blur from reading all the resumes of similarly-accomplished kids, so why not the essay? And if it hits this one reader well and would have hit another reader not so well, oh well! That’s life. That’s how hiring decisions and life decisions are made – not necessarily on concrete, objective qualifications but on fit and feel.</p>
<p>Life is not fair, on things that nature controls (who gets sick, who is born beautiful, who is just in the wrong place at the wrong time to get struck by lightning). </p>
<p>But when people control ‘life’, people should be fair. Fair is judging all equally, based on the same standards. </p>
<p>I think the entire process should be completely transparent. After all, students pay upwards to $100 for each application. They should get an explanation of why they were rejected or waitlisted for their money.</p>
<p>Wonder why they don’t do a closed ballot. It felt like the first opinion moved those on the fence. If the adcom hadn’t highlighted the junk food or the statement about lack of passion, would the rest of them homed in on the same point or found their own reasons to accept/reject? The things that turned them on - membership in a bunch of very different clubs sounded very made-for-adcomish.</p>
<p>OP, thanks much for posting the link.</p>
<p>“Mr. PARKER: You can end up with one group pitted against another group and, you know, with people voting spitefully. Oh, so you don’t support mine? Well, tomorrow I’ll have my chance. It’s a human tendency.”</p>
<p>Are you kidding me? That’s what it comes down to?</p>