Telluride Association Summer Program ( TASP ) 2008

Pre-College Issues Summer Programs
141

<p>The former head of the admissions committee explained it this way at my TASP: They base everything on your essays and only even glance at your grades, test scores and teacher recommendation if your essays make you sound like someone who is either an absolute genius OR a complete moron (e.g. a treatise on the arts/craft divide). Since most TASPlicants are neither they rarely consider anything except writing samples.</p>

<p>So don't worry about anything besides essays unless you plan to write completely crazy ones - in which case have pretty good grades and you'll almost certainly get in. You'll almost certainly get in even without good grades if your essay is crazy enough, come to think of it.</p>

<p>Other application advice
- Be true to yourself, but if you think that isn't good enough (you're probably wrong) or are lazy then come across as a quirky/crazy person. Just remember you will have to back up your acquired personality in an interview.
- If you can't do 'crazy' do 'conservative' - very few conservatives apply to TASP, which is kind of ironic considering Wolfowitz was once the driving ideologue behind Telluride. If you actually are conservative or even moderate you'll be at an advantage getting in, but be prepared to constantly defend your views come July. TASPs are very, very politically liberal (I think last year's Michigan TASP tried to spend half their budget on campaigning for Hillary Clinton or something similarly absurd); constantly being on the defensive can be tiring.
- Don't BS the book-list... much. Ironically you will probably interest them more if you've genuinely read less, anyway. (consider how many applicants put down 'the economist' under their periodicals compared to how many put down 'seventeen magazine')<br>
- If you really want to get in, put down what you think will be the least popular seminar as your first choice (I'm not sure if this will actually help you... if they choose TASPers first, regardless of their preferences, and then assign them into TASPs or if they don't... but i suspect they secretly do and it probably won't hurt, anyway).</p>

<p>Alright, one last thing, if you read this and think to yourself 'man, this guy tells it like it is. i like that.' - TASP is probably not right for you; if you think 'he is exploiting the system!?!? By Obama's beard this is shameful!!' but THEN go ahead and follow my advice you are the ideal TASPlicant. Congratulations.</p>

<p>For the record, I didn't know any of this stuff when I applied to TASP a year ago and I just played it straight. That ain't a bad path to take, neither - and perhaps its the easier to trek. Either way, good luck.</p>

142

<p>
[quote]
you'll almost certainly get in

[/quote]
Touche.</p>

<p>To add to the list of crazy things you can add to your essays: parenthesis inside parenthesis are a big plus.... But if you use them, make sure you use air parenthesis instead of air quotes to back it up during your interview.</p>

<p>What TASP you do bob?</p>

143

<p>I would be indescribably ecstatic if I found out that somebody was taking every word in this thread as gospel, and then submitted an application full of parenthesis-within-parenthesis, expletives, and Wolfowitz. More so if said person then used air parenthesis* in his/her interview. It would just about make my life complete.</p>

<ul>
<li>so much cooler than air quotes</li>
</ul>

144

<p>Hey, parenthesis got me into TASP. Don't think I ever went for the parenthesis within parenthesis, though. I fail at life. Bummer. </p>

<p>I do think that I also used air quotes like three times in my interview. Air parenthesis are a tad harder, and not as appreciated, because it makes you look as if you're giving the loser sign. Usually when people are flashed the loser sign, they tend not to like you very much. So I opted not to. I think it was the right choice.</p>

145

<p>When is the application due?</p>

146

<p>The application has not even come out yet, and it will be due in mid January (Was it the 21st last year?) Also you have more time for online apps than paper apps.</p>

<p>Tako, you obviously haven't mastered the art of the Air Parenthesis. It is a gesture that requires full arm movement, and does not resemble a L in any way.</p>

147

<p>It's just less than a year since I first logged on to CC, that I might post my fears/excitements/generalrahrahs about TASP. Since then, I have tried (and failed) to learn the ways of bagpipes, purchased and smoked pipe tobacco from a tobacconist (cool word, n'est-ce pas?), and also attended this summer's Cornell TASP. You all know TASP is an amazing program (rather, you have been trained to think that). It is. It is. It is. </p>

<p>Don't stress about the application. Eh, who am I kidding? I stressed WAY more about the TASPlication than about any of my college apps (with the exception of Deep Springs). Try to make these essays the best you have ever written. The application is designed to be an enlightening and fulfilling experience - allow it that. </p>

<p>I saw the brochure - it exists! It's awesome. I'm in it twice. </p>

<p>In other news, this post makes me look like a pretentious, condescending, syntax-confused bastard.
But that's okay... because I went to TASP.</p>

148

<p>Lanky!</p>

<p>Hey, whats up? Are you still making music?</p>

149

<p>Do you have to be nominated in order to apply to the program?</p>

150

<p>No there's an online application.</p>

151

<p>This thread is like one giant inside joke between last years TASPers. Don't you see the title is "2008"? :)</p>

<p>In between air quotes and parentheses, could you each give us a bit about a day in the life of a TASPer?</p>

152

<p>^
yes, i second that motion- if they only take maybe 30 kids per session, won't it be just a carbon copy of the high school experience, but with an expanded vocabulary and alot of philosophical discourse?</p>

<p>and hey, who actually wants to go to this thing because it sounds interesting, and not just for college apps?
and to past taspers-did they do a good job of screening those guys out?</p>

<p>luck, everyone. but i do think last years topics were better...</p>

153

<p>8:30am - Wake up, get out of bed, drag a comb across your head
8:40 - Coffee, good mornings (not saying good morning frowned upon)
8:45 - Trek to seminar in blistering heat
9:00 - Start of seminar
11:00 - Desired end of seminar, many days
12:00pm - Actual End of seminar
12:15 - Lunch, attendance mandatory (except on saturday)
12: 30 - Dessert, attendance optional (but absence frowned upon)
12:30 - Start of 'free time': ton of work for seminar, reading, naps, chilling (although it is frowned upon to hang out with the same people too much during this, or any, time). Roughly 1/3 of days will have mandatory communal activities planned during this putative leisure period - trips around city, academic talks from guest lecturers, trips to the library (not working frowned upon), committee trips etc.
6:00 - Dinner (attendance mandatory)
7:00 - Return to house, something normally planned after dinner (more academic talks, pubspeaks, organized sports, trips etc). 'Free time' otherwise, in which most of house prepares for the morrow's seminar.
10:00 - House starts retiring in a nuclear-decay-like manner, with a half life of one and a half hours.
3:30am - Yes, you have done your math right. There are normally two or three people still up at this time. I was one of them every single night and suggest doing the same, although staying up past 1:00 is frowned upon on seminar nights.
8:30 - the cycle restarts (although for a few adventurous TASPers, myself among them, this did not necessarily mean 'waking up' again, but rather drinking a ton of coffee and trying not to appear too dead in seminar)</p>

<p>Aberrations.
- Weekly house meeting. 1-2 hours of parliamentary-style minutiae. Truly excruciating.
- Weekends. No seminar, no mandatory lunch saturday, more 'free time', more mandatory planned activities.
- Papers (or other projects) every 2 weeks. People tend to do a ton of work the week before due date, even less free time in 'free time'. </p>

<p>Disclaimer: The typical day I have described was based upon my Telluride experience; TASPs will vary.</p>

154

<p>How am I the first one to report that TASP APP IS UP!!!</p>

155

<p>I'm holding out for a paper copy. :)</p>

156

<p>in attempt to procrastinate studying for calc...</p>

<p>8:20ish - wake up, much thanks to my two roomies who were better at waking up than i was
8:30 - go downstairs for breakfast, sometimes cramming in last minute reading with the other late breakfast-eaters
8:45 - leave the house, coffee run with the late risers
9:10 to 12 - seminar
12:30 to 1sh - lunch, announcements
1ish to 5:30 - free time (most people did/started their reading before dinner); naps, distracting other people from doing reading, library, bubble island runs, washtenaw dairy/stucchi's runs, exploring ann arbor, various pickup games of ultimate, swimming
5:30ish dinner
6ish to 9ish - more free time, most of the committees would meet after dinner (travel, in house, out house, fan club...), more fooding depending on our moods/what was for dinner, reading for seminar, sometimes screenings if assigned, more ultimate games
8 - pubspeaks twice a week
9 to 11 - trips to espresso royale, congregations in the basement for the procrastinators finishing up/starting their essays, movies, law quad <3, penny's arcade, ping pong/spades tournaments, various games of hide and seek/mafia/sardines inside our creepyish mansion, roofing, more seminar reading
1am - essaying/reading in the basement for all the late nighters, thanks to a lot of coffee (there were probably five of us who never went to bed before 3 am. fun times.) </p>

<p>weekends had no set schedule; you basically decide as a group what you want to do. ann arbor had a splattering of really good/cheap restaurants and weird little shops (GEECHI BLEU! uber, <3), along with used bookstores, record stores, vintage shops. there was also top of the park, this free month long music festival on campus. we also had water balloon fights, a scavenger hunt across town, cooked dinners on sundays... ann arbor had a couple of independent movie theaters as well. you never really run out of stuff to do. (go to michigan :))</p>

<p>whoa, application is up already? good luck everyone! this probably has been answered a couple of pages back, but don't stress about your grades/test scores/extracurricular activities. your essays constitute for the bulk of your application; if i had to guess, probably 90-95%. oh, and don't be like me and finish your application/essays two minutes before running out the door. my printer conveniently ran out of ink and i had two copies of essays with rainbow-colored fonts. i was fortunate that telluride was forgiving.</p>

157

<p>I'm also applying to TASP this year and I had some simple questions. Are you really supposed to write all those 6 essays? (Even Common App doesn't require that much.) Worse, you're not allowed to pick your program? This is going to be a real commitment if I decide on applying...</p>

158

<p>yeah, baadassmonkey, all 6 essays are required. But you have over a month until the due date, so you can spread them out ... and knock a couple out over christmas break... =[... and one of the essays is about seminar preference. they try and honor your preferences, but i dont know how true they stick to that.</p>

159

<p>woah, 2008 is already up. will it ever reach the 500 page mark? :p</p>

160

<p>The thing is, baadassmonkey, Telluride knows best.</p>

<p>Originally I had UMich put fourth. During my interview I moved it to second. But I made it very clear that WashU was my first choice (I spent like half my interview grilling my interviewer on what St. Louis was like, since he was from there, haha!). Then I found out that I was placed in UMich.</p>

<p>I was somewhat devastated, having really wanted WashU. I tried to reason to myself why UMich, but wasn't quite successful. But I didn't really care that much either, because I was GOING TO TASP! So I eagerly went.</p>

<p>Then I returned from TASP and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have been half as happy anywhere else (no offence to other TASPers, I'm sure you'd say the same of yours :)) and I'm quite grateful to Telluride for placing me there (Ellen Baer <3!). I learned so much about the world, and myself, and it was amazing. Somehow Telluride manages to create the best groups of 18 little hormone-crazed teenagers and two silly little college students ever. Seriously. I feel very strongly that I was placed in the right group, and I'm pretty sure almost every other TASPer would say the same.</p>

<p>Honestly, whatever TASP you attend, be it your first choice or last choice, you will have an amazing time. If you're willing (if you're not willing, I don't even know why you're applying).</p>

<p>And TASP is way cooler than college. So that's why they want 6 essays :)</p>