<p>"All you pay for are transport to and from the program"</p>
<p>And not even that, if you demonstrate need. To quote the website: "It is the policy of Telluride that no student be barred from attending a TASP for financial reasons."</p>
<p>Exactly. Finances are no concern.</p>
<p>Jsn: You would be right, -um in this case is neuter (and feminine) but I was refering to our male factotum, so -us is appropriate. </p>
<p>Yeah, apply to tasp.</p>
<p>WOOT! I will apply, but like RSI, it seems like it is VERY difficult to get in.</p>
<p>Do they pay any attention to geographical distribution?</p>
<p>You were referring to our factotus? Really? :D </p>
<p>Haha, they were both great so I'll stop this line of talk.</p>
<p>Okay, but it's not like we ever saw our factotum, and the factotuts was a little overbearing.</p>
<p>Yeah, so, any more questions?</p>
<p>do you ever have a social life at TASP or is it all work?</p>
<p>TASP is what you make of it. You have three hours of class and approximately an hour of meals, so the other 20 hours are yours. Some people at my tasp read, all the time, I'm not exaggerating.<br>
Other people, like me, hung around a lot on the grass outside or in our excellent house. We spent a lot of time talking and just generally doing nothing. We also went to a lot of free concerts (which are numerous in Ann Arbor) and as a group we went Bowling, to the Movies, and other such activities. </p>
<p>If you want to be a boring bookworn (no offense guys) then you can, and if you want to have some fun, you can as well.</p>
<p>Since there are no grades and it's really easy to BS humanities subjects, you can actually do no work, lol.</p>
<p>I've been reading over the old TASP thread (all 2x pages...wow, guys! ;) ) and it sounds awesome. I can't really think of anything I'd rather do with a summer than read/discuss/sit on the grass and chill with awesome type people. I'm definitely going to apply, even thought I doubt I'll get in. Couple of questions:</p>
<p>-What exactly is meant by "self governance"?<br>
-Can you give an overview of a typical day at TASP? Or share any funny quintessentially TASP stories? (Feel free to PM if the stories aren't exactly suitable to be posted here :-D) </p>
<p>And...yup, I think that's about it for right now. Thanks in advance!</p>
<p>what do the admissions people look at when considering applications?</p>
<p>and did you feel super intimidated by all of the super smart kids? Is it made up of only super smart kids?</p>
<p>hey_la: Self governance is a buzz word with these Telluride people. Essentially, you have "house meetings" at least once a week (you may schedule more when they are necessary) to decide how to do house-things, such as laundry and cleaning (don't worry, there's a cleaning service,lol) and also how to spend your sizeable budget, ours was about $900 if I remember correctly. That's how we paid for the trips to bowling, the movies, the pool, go out to dinner, and bought TASP t-shirts. (the concerts happened to be free.)
You also decide on curfews, well, anything at all. It is like "custom-tasp," and this can be both a blessing and burden I suppose.</p>
<p>Tasp stories... hmmm, there are many. I'll PM you some of the better ones, but here's a nice clean one (I'll give you the short version.)
There was one girl who was an international relations buff, smart as hell. Anyway, she had always joked with her friends back home about how it would be so cool to shave her head... seriously. This had gone on for about a year, and now that she came to tasp, she felt a certain proactiveness and freedom because of our "hip-ness" and...well... we shaved her head outside on the front lawn. I won't give you any pictures, but she was really shaved, looked pretty good too, go figure, lol.
blythe89: Admissions people want you to be passionate about something, check some earlier posts on this thread for examples. You don't have to be nationally ranked in your field (like some peopel at my tasp were, I wasn't) but you should show strong out-of-school interest, and a deep understanding of topics and issues. THis is very important. </p>
<p>I honest'y did not feel intimidated, but I don't get too intimidated. People at tasp were very intelligent, extremely in fact, but if you go, remember, you're in the same boat that they are, and they might be intimidated by you. Essentially, everyone is a mini-expert is their respective fields, and everyone is really friendly supportive, so competition runs low. Debates will be like nothing you've ever done. I always kicked some verbal ass in my school, but I had met my match (over and over) and tasp.
The intelligence around you is exciting and an opportunity to truly be yourself.</p>
<p>Sorry sr6622, I missed your quetsion.
People came from all over the country and all over the world (the english speaking world anyway.)
Don't let this discourage you, I live in NJ, and apart from CT, this is a hard ass state to stand out in. You don't have to be from Idaho to be recognized, they go by how strong you are, not necessarily where you live.
At the same, time, it was pretty diverse by region, but that might be the way they divide it up among the 5 tasps.</p>
<p>Basically, I wouldn't let it worry you.</p>
<p>Goshdarnit pianoking, I was about to answer... :D haha, I type too slowly.</p>
<p>Self governance? OK, here's my take on it. You get to form various committees, and as a group decide which committees (and committee names :D) you want to have. We had... let's see... </p>
<p>the Musical Chairs (responsible for coming up with a song of the week for discussion in seminar every Friday, burning four awesome CD's for each person to take home, filled with songs that remind me of TASP and the TASPers), TASPAPTVM (Telluride Association Summer Program Amnesia Prevention Team at the University of Michigan) which created a website, blog, four photobuckets, organised souvenir t-shirts and a yearbook for each person so that remembering TASP and keeping in touch would be that much easier, TASPECT (TASP Entertainment Committee of Telluride) which organised all the trips and kept us up to date on the concerts in town, Fan Club (responsible for keeping our house tolerably well ventilated), Club Sandwich (set up a food review section on our website on places to go to around town, relayed snack wishes to the chef, and were responsible for providing food on Sundays when the chef was not around), Com-squared (community service committee, which was responsible for finding a viable community service project for all TASPers to undertake) and one or two others which I can't remember offhand.</p>
<p>You get a Miscellaneous Operations (Misc. Ops.) budget which you as a group decide how to spend. This is by house meeting which takes place once a week, is chaired by a different TASPer each time, and which can be infuriatingly bureaucratic. But all's peachy really. We used our budget up on t-shirts, yearbook, fans (initially the house we were staying in was so humid you could almost drown in the air), awesome pastries in Detroit, bowling, trip to the Cineplex, swimming pool, and other stuff I can't remember.</p>
<p>You also get a Sunday Food budget which is managed by the food committee. We basically organised leftovers from the week (they were good, trust me) for lunch and distributed money to go out to restaurants for dinner.</p>
<p>Stuff we did? Hmm... we did play the ultimate Mafia game till four, early one Saturday morning. And pianoking, I have a great video of the Close Shave which I need to figure out how to share with the rest of the TASPers... yay! </p>
<p>There <em>was</em> that canoe incident where our factota paid for an afternoon's paddling in two-person canoes on the Hudson (I think it is) River, which degenerated into massive pirate wars, complete with hostile boardings, capsized boats, and pondweed missiles.</p>
<p>I thought I'd be super intimidated really, but like pianoking said, the other TASPers do bring out the best in you. Basically you just had to realise there was a darn good reason why the Telluride Association picked you, and that you had better get along and enjoy the time there. It's wonderful being unrestrainedly argumentative and eloquent about well... any topic! ... with the confidence that those around you will know exactly what you're saying and that they will have a meaningful reply beyond the "oh... that's cool" you might normally get from someone back home.</p>
<p>Thanks for the thorough reply! I am insanely jealous; crazy tonsorial activities and massive pirate wars sound right up my alley. Definitely, please do feel free to PM me some of those good stories if you have the time/inclination :D.<br>
One last question--JSN, I think you mentioned earlier that you're an international; where (approximately) do you live and how did they interview you? I'm an American living in Asia, so that'd be a concern IF (big if there) I made it to that stage in the application process. </p>
<p>Thanks again!</p>
<p>P.S. Musical chairs made me laugh :)</p>
<p>Heya hey_la!</p>
<p>I'm South-East Asian but live in Central Europe. According to a fellow TASPer who lives on this same continent who was interviewed in person, apparently there was, like, one alumnus interviewing in Europe this year.</p>
<p>So I had a phone interview. It was set up by e-mail, the interviewer was a really nice TASP alumna - an English professor at Penn State - and I had it in the comfort of my own basement. Mostly non-taxing. In that, I was fortunate. You've probably heard some TASP interview horror stories.</p>
<p>Basically, it depends on how many interviewers they have in your region. If they don't have any, then it's going to be by phone.</p>
<p>Ha, funny that all of the Michigander TASPers (including me) congregate here. But anyway, in terms of a sweet summer program, TASP wins. Free money, free food, nice housing, cool people. What's not to love?</p>
<p>Funny TASP story:
On the very last night, the entire TASP crew stayed up until 5:00AM to go get ice cream at opening time of a local ice creamery/coffee shop. It was delicious. Accordingly, I slept through my entire plane ride.</p>
<p>I notice that the geographic distribution of TASPers is fairly even, but even we have no idea of the inner workings of the Telluride selection process. Just know that there is a method, and if you're a chill enough frood to be in TASP, you'll probably get in.</p>
<p>So in conclusion, if you want to be a scientist, and by scientist I mean nerd, go for RSI. If you don't, apply for TASP. Even if you do, apply to TASP. It's good for the mind and soul. Like chicken soup. But no animals are harmed. Except skunks. The end.</p>
<p>Lol, skunks are another story non u-mich taspers, kind of hard to explain I'm afraid.</p>
<p>Hoo globber... let's not be treading on RSI :D. But like he said, if you think that the sciences and mathematics are your forte but you could-possibly-maybe-perhaps see yourself doing something this different but just as exciting for the summer, send in an application to TASP as well. </p>
<p>By the way, does anybody know when the 2006 brochure comes out? I'm impatiently curious. I want to find out what next year's seminar topics are, and (more importantly) whether our faces made it into the brochure.</p>
<p>Okay... correct me if I'm wrong but hdm245 posted... and that post is not showing up... or my gmail notifier has gone beserk.</p>
<p>Anyway, the point is, hdm245, do I know you? As in, are you the UMich TASPer whose name begins with D?</p>
<p>Hmmm....TASP backwards is PSAT....what a coincidence....</p>
<p>Lol, yeah, we noticed that. It's funny, but you get over it.
After all, both TASP and the PSAT are in the PAST.</p>