Please get in. TASP need more boko-maru participants in its weekly cult meetings.</p>
<p>
You won’t be accepted or rejected because of your religion.</p>
<p>
This was UT 09’s geographic breakdown:
California - 4
Delaware - 1
Florida - 1
Georgia - 1
Massachusetts - 2
Michigan - 2
New Jersey - 1
New York - 1
Okalahoma - 1
Oregon -1
Pennsylvania - 2
Texas - 1</p>
<p>See my above comment about diversity for the answer to your first question:
TA seeks to compose TASPs with a variety of backgrounds, mindsets, and intellectual strengths. Socioeconomic wealth affects all of these, IMO, so I think the diversity of wealth is a result of a diversity of personality and opinion, rather than something the selection process is centered around.</p>
<p>Thanks for the geographic breakdown embeezy. I’m from Ohio, so that may help me out a touch. Only 2 people were from the Midwest (and both of them were from Michigan, a less Midwest-y state than Ohio), plus there were only three from red states and one from a purple state.</p>
<p>Hi all! I’ve never actually posted on College Confidential before, but I figured here would be a good place to share my TASPlication experience. Best of luck to everybody!</p>
<ol>
<li><p>(Literary Analysis) I did Infinite Jest, by David Foster Wallace, and analyzed its commentary on individual and collective addiction. I actually really liked this essay, since I loved the book and had a good time writing it.</p></li>
<li><p>(Interesting Topic) I talked about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the crises of conscience it causes for liberal American Jews, in the context of a trip I took to Israel a couple of summers ago. </p></li>
<li><p>(Conflict) I talked about being competitive with a very close friend of mine and how it exposed the limits of competition. I figure it’s kind of boring and everyday, but it’s something I really struggled with.</p></li>
<li><p>(Future) I talked about why I think journalism and writing is such a valuable profession, plus how I think web journalism is its future. I also slipped in a paragraph or two about why I want to go to college in New York.</p></li>
<li><p>UT Austin, Cornell I, and I said I didn’t want to go to Cornell II. I thought honesty would be the best policy; I just don’t think it’d be as informative or relevant as the other two.</p></li>
<li><p>Books/Magazines: Slate, NYT, Atlantic, New Yorker, Infinite Jest, some other books (Salman Rushdie, Yasmina Khadra’s The Attack, etc.)</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Any thoughts? All of the essays I’ve read about sound great so far. Thanks in advance for any feedback!</p>
<p>PS With the exception of the last two, all of my essays fall in the 1300-1400 word range. A little too short? I felt I said what I needed to say, but even so…</p>
Yes, and they have, but usually only from the top prep schools. Just last year, we had a UT TASPer who went to school with a Cornell TASPer. For obvious reasons, I don’t think they’d put two people from the same high school in the same seminar.</p>
<p>It would be great if the Telluride Association had the resources, time, or desire to interview every applicant but it’s not that reasonable. The essays act not only to give a picture of the applicant that grades and test scores couldn’t show, but also are a screening process so that what resources TA does have to devote to this can be used most efficiently.</p>
<p>Then again, it would help to have an interview in the case of when someone (like myself) stupidly writes crappy essays and submits them .</p>
<p>I’m a little late in posting this (thank you, midterms), but my seminar choice is Cornell I, UT, Cornell II. Like everyone else, I’m nervous about my essays/hearing whether they’re worthy of an interview. </p>
<p>I was told that the TASP thread from last year is no longer available. I guess that means it was deleted?</p>
<p>Yes, it was deleted last year. There was a pretty gigantic flame war that started after interview notifications, and because of that (and because people posted essays–don’t do that) the thread was deleted and then “resurrected.” There was nothing wrong with the new one, but after final decisions were made it was also deleted because the archive of the forum was messed up and there wasn’t a reason to keep the new thread anymore.</p>
<p>Why doesn’t TA interview everyone? Because, quite frankly, not everyone deserves interviews. The amount of cases where a deserving applicant is flat out rejected isn’t enough to overcome the amount of money, time, and energy necessary to interview 1,000+ applicants. I really don’t blame TA at all for their current policy; I’d find it weird if they * did * interview everyone. The 250 applicants that write their conflict essays about how their teacher messed up their GPAs and their literary analyses on how hawt Edward Cullen is simply aren’t worth the interview, IMO. If you have good ideas and deserve to explain them more in person, you’ll be interviewed. Otherwise, it’s just not feasible.</p>
<p>I’m being very obvious, but it should be said (especially considering how neurotic you guys/applicants in general can be…no offense) that if you don’t get an interview it doesn’t mean you didn’t have good ideas. It could mean a lot of different thing but the only thing it means for certain is that you just didn’t get picked. I agree with the general sentiment of the post though, that it just wouldn’t be worth it to interview everyone. I personally think that the amount they interview, about twice as many as they admit, is a good number. </p>
<p>The interview varies a lot, but in general it will be a conversation about your essays and the ideas used in and relating to your essays, or your list of books. It is a conversation, so it can go off in many possible directions.</p>
<p>Okay, I’ve decided that I’m not going to read this thread anymore. It’s going to suck in two months’ time when I come back and have to read gajillions of pages, but I think for my sanity I should stay away.</p>
.</p>