At the end of the day, what you think DOES NOT MATTER and what they think is ALL THAT MATTERS (In this particular case).
This is the wrong place to rant why the adcoms may be so sensitive. I don’t know what culture you were brought up in, but in the US, it is mandatory to process and filter your thoughts before you put it into words of expression especially in professional settings such as this.
Yes, it may be harmless among your close friends or at a comedy night. But your sense of discernment was extremely off as to where it may be perceived as a “harmless joke” or as an “offensive statement”.
As I said in post #1, even if you did NOT have racist motives, a hint of racism may bring detrimental effects.
It shows a lack of awareness and wisdom. You don’t know enough about historic racism in the US. You could innocently make a joke about fruit and blacks and pick your favorite fruit watermelon. Without Googling, do you know why you should do that?
Looking over your overall stats and you are applying as an ORM (Indian) Canadian international and the fact that you were already rejected by Cornell in the early round without even being deferred (like most students) tells me you may be in trouble with the remaining list of schools…you may get into a few of the remaining schools…but, not the ones I trust you are “seriously” interested in attending in America…
…to be frank, your stats (not the most impressive to begin with for an ORM Indian international) along with your questionable “essay” may have been the kiss of death…
The bottom line here is that the essay has already been sent out, and there is not a danged thing at this point (sending an e-mail explaining or apologizing will make it worse, I think) that OP can do about it, but let it go.
So, let it go, sit back, breathe, and wait.
You got into Purdue, so all is not lost.
And honestly, it is my opinion that any reasonably intelligent adult - assuming admissions counselors fit this profile - would not find this racist. Silly, perhaps, even boring and not that funny… but not racist.
IMO there is a difference between a racist joke and a racially insensitive joke. Perhaps your joke is not the former, but it may very well be the latter. Wordplay involving race can be a really tricky thing.
BTW, Purdue is an outstanding school. A family member went there, and got a terrific job in engineering right after graduation.
@BeeDAre He has no idea who his audience is. To me it seems unaware and not smart. To you silly and boring. Neither sell the OP to the colleges. He has an acceptance and backups. This is a good life lesson if that is his favorite pastime.
Actually…and this is serious…if the OP got into University of Toronto I would seriously consider Toronto which is a top premier institution in Canada and save a great deal of money!
Oh, I actually agree it maybe was not that smart to include a joke, period, as with humor, you need to know your audience. Definitely wasn’t safe. But I maintain that it was not racist, and more importantly - there is not one thing he can do about it now. We can discuss and re-hash it all day but it won’t change the fact that the essay has been sent with his applications already!
And yes, if a college doesn’t accept him, he can forever consider if this was the reason - and that will serve as a valuable life lesson. Lesson being - know what’s a touchy subject - whether you think it’s valid or not - and know your audience before you bring it up.
To OP, it was wordplay.
It’s not racist per se, but it shows lack of awareness (ie., no ethnic group likes to be a punchline) as well as historical factors (ie. an American history and/or American studies class would be good for this OP if he is to work in North American professional contexts).
The way you could have done it is to define a wheezy joke as a complex pun that has to be invented on the spot. No potentially misunderstood example included.
U Toronto DOES seem like an excellent option (especially with the increasing strength of the US dollar).
The structural weakness of the essay overwhelms the putatively misguided content. With an essay that has incorrect grammar, punctuation, and capitalization one is less likely to gain admission to a school with single digit admissions percentages. Did you submit a TOEFL, or are you representing yourself as a native english speaker? Myself, I would have converted to American English on top of correcting the structural flaws (e.g., “spilled” rather than “spilt”).
Sometimes, the medium is the message. How did you choose to use the precious character count? Did you proofread for proper usage? What, and how well, are you communicating?
What I’m getting here is that everyone is telling you that what you did was immature and stupid - and you (OP) are denying it and defending yourself. I’m not sure what you’re trying to achieve here.
Honestly, that was stupid. You could’ve got your point across in that essay (whatever the point was) without making immature and racist comments - I don’t understand why you thought that was necessary.
There’s nothing you can do about it now. What you should do, however, is learn an important lesson from this. Always know your audience. If you’re writing an informal essay, you can use all the racially insensitive jokes you want. What really befuddles me about this situation is your decision to use and explain “Weezy jokes” to a series of admissions officers from the most well regarded institutions looking for the most appropriate SCHOLARS in the nation, not comedians who’ve learned rhyming from Dr. Seuss. It just wasn’t appropriate for the target audience. I could think farts and pick up lines are the funniest thing in the world but I wouldn’t embed my essay with far references and have it laden with inappropriate pick up lines because I don’t want them to gather that I am immature.
Take this experience with a grain of salt.
Racist or not, it is never good to put an immature jokes. And no, you can’t do a thing about it once you submitted. It is nothing more than making excuses.
One thing you have to avoid at all cost is not to write anything that could be easily misinterpreted, but obviously you haven’t realized how the audience could take it.
Some of you people are horrendous. In the PC world we live in today, everything is racist. @manas1997 I wouldn’t have written that because as you’ve seen, adults (admission counselors) tend to be put off by something like that. Don’t send an e-mail about it, as if you bring more attention to it, there’s a higher probability someone gets irked by it. I generally wouldn’t worry about it, but there is an outside chance it lowers your chances of admission.
I’m a big Weezy fan, and the joke evoked a chuckle out of me, but its WORDPLAY and definitely not racist. The only reason Chinese was inserted in there because of word play, and not for any ulterior reasons. It’s in the past, it doesn’t matter, don’t worry about it too much. People are offended by everything smh
Yeah, the risk is way higher than the reward in this case. I’d stay on the side of caution here, you don’t want your application to be thrown out on the basis of one questionable, unnecessary joke.
@kdiddy34 Thank-you, people are so butt-hurt and telling me to take this as a “life-lesson.” I already got into UofT and will be getting into my fav canadian school, Waterloo, soon. Me missing out on an ivy is THAT big of a deal, I honestly would just miss out on the name that comes with these schools. Some of these people made me laugh, especially the person that said Wayne being Black is relevant. Half of you are adults, and you are telling me to learn life lessons?!?! SMH
