Transfer Students

Transfer Students
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<p>Last week I was utterly devastated after recieving wave upon wave of rejection letters, and have accepted that my safety college may actually be my chosen college. I think a major reason why I was rejected was because my freshman year in high-school was characterized by sub-standard grades- that is until I learned about class rank and GPA near the beginning of my sophmore year- and I blatantly admitted to being an anarchist during my interviews (should I stop doing this? I truly believe in the theory of anarchy). </p>

<p>Despite the setbacks I have become hellbound on transferring to my dream school during my sophmore year in college (I don't think I'll be able to transfer during my freshman year since I will only have six months to establish a good reputation on the campus once). I understand that the transfer applications are nearly twice as competitive as the freshman applicants. Is there any advice from people who have successfully transferred from lower-tiered colleges to more presigious ones?</p>

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<p>I definently think the anarchist thing may have hurt. Every personal statement help article Ive read advised to stay away from talking about controversial topics, and I imagine anarchy falls in that category.</p>

<p>As far as transfering stories, Im sure this whole page is filled with success stories. I guess you could say Im transferring from the lowest tiered college (community college, though at least with the one I go to it doesn’t feel like a low tiered school) and will be attending Va Tech, I was also accepted to JMU and was encourged by a transfer rep from William & Mary to apply there, but choose not to as Tech seemed like the better fit for me anyways.</p>

<p>The best and easiest thing to do is simply follow the transfer guidelines for whatever school you wish to go to.</p>

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<p>i was actually just talking to my counselor who is an ex adcom for ucla about essays, and he said he hated heavily opinionated ppl, religious or otherwise because it showed that they werent open minded world citizens. having a position is fine, but being so blantant might have hurt you. </p>

<p>you never know who is going to read your essay in the adcom, maybe it is an anti anarchy person… or maybe my counselor =P</p>

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<p>Anarchism isn’t popular among most modern philosophers. </p>

<p>However, it’s OK to have an affinity for anarchism as long as you don’t come across as a fundamentalist. If you present yourself as someone who is intrigued by anarchism but would like to learn more about opposing viewpoints as well, I don’t see why that would turn anyone off. </p>

<p>Then again, if you are completely adamant that Anarchism is RIGHT and you’re completely firm in that belief, nobody is going to take you seriously. After all, you’re probably young and simply haven’t learned enough about Philosophy to even make a reasonable judgment as to which school of thought is superior to another (that’s what college is for).</p>

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<p>just curious, have you read anything by Roderick Long? If not, you’d find him fascinating. He takes the Libertarian perspective one step further by arguing that the checks/balances of the Constitution aren’t enough to maintain (the 3 powers have too much common purpose, and thus are susceptible to corruption based on this). He argues that anarchism with capitalism can absolutely work. </p>

<p>As an anthropology major, I have also become an anarchist. Thanks for your posting because I’ve now noted to keep my mouth shut about it if I interview with Yale. :)</p>

<p>Check out Long: [roderick</a> long - Google Search](<a href=“roderick long - Google Search”>roderick long - Google Search)</p>

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<p>Anarchism and capitalism is simply not compatible. As soon as the law and order breaks down, people will literally wipe each others out. That is why countries formed in the first place. Rebellious high school students claim that they are anarchist, but once the order breaks down, they will be fearing for their lives. They will be running around senseless as their house burns down in flame. Trust me, look what happened after Hurricane Katrina- those mobs will take the TVs out of walmart even when they have no uses for them whatsoever. Constitution is flawed obviously, but it is sadly the best system we have available. So Boxman why don’t you start creating disorder by robbing other people rather than fretting about some stupid college (why not burn down the college while you are at it?). You can’t… You know why? Because you do not believe in anarchy, and you know in the bottom of your heart that the whole idea behind it is just laughable. I know that teenagers go through this rebellious period of time, but you really gotta think it through before you claim that you are anarchist.</p>

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<p>peterpan, you seem to think that anarchy represents “no laws or rules”. this is false. study some anthropology. you will find that order can be had by social contract, not government. in this sense, capitalism is absolutely compatible with anarchy. anarchy is not equal to chaos. there are many philosophies of what anarchy is, but none is absolute.</p>

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<p>Grrr, you beat me to it ilivefree!</p>

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<p>I love your logic peterpan. You claim that Boxman is not a true anarchist, as if there was such a thing, because he will not burn down colleges and rob people. Just lovely. The US as a modern civilization is similar in a lot of ways to anarchy. Or at least it was in it’s earlier days. </p>

<p>The US is rooted in the great idea of freedom, personal choice, and personal responsibility. The only limitation of rights were other’s personal rights. It’s a shame we have digressed from what made us so great.</p>

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<p>nerdy topic on transfer board. my 2 cents.</p>

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<p>There is no freedom, personal choice, or personal responsibility once the government disappears. People will fend for themselves no matter what. Social contract by definition is giving up your power to some types of authority in order to maintain order. Once the government is gone, you are literally your own authority. Colonists back then (who I see as mainly murderers and thiefs- lord knows how many Indians they killed) eventually formed the government they escaped from, which shows that anarchy is simply unstable and cannot be sustained in the long run. Everything must have an order or things fall apart. Unless you actually believe that people are angels, there is no reason to believe that anarchy is sustainable. I repeat- Anarchy is an idealism that is unpractical in the real world.</p>

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<p>Your argument blows. Get back on topic.</p>

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<p>Regardless of the pros and cons of anarchism, its probably not the subject to talk about on application essays. Im sure there are more than enough classes you take to debate the pros and cons.</p>

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<p>peterpan, you are incorrect; again, i refer you to the countless anthropological books on hunter/gatherer societies. they absolutely had social contracts and they absolutely DID NOT have authoritative powers (i.e. there was no chief, big man, president, etc…)</p>

<p>social contract is an agreement between a group of human beings to not do or do do certain things. </p>

<p>and one does not require the power of government to have free choice. true, there is a more honest level of “dog eat dog” in a world without government but it is also true that many will “live and let live”. additionally, i personally prefer my chances at survival in a world where my value is my brain, my skills, and my gun; not who i voted for last election. at present, i am subject to the rule of a majority that i wholly disagree with. in this light, i would prefer to deal with my fellow man one at a time, on equal ground. i have absolute faith in my survival skills in “the wild wild west”.</p>

<p>and that brings me to another point, watch some cowboy movies, you’ll find that even the bad guys have social contracts. they have “rules” that they follow in order to coexist. it’s human nature; actually, primate nature. we don’t need a constitution to be polite.</p>

<p>i do concur that anarchy is idealistic, but a girl can hope, can’t she?</p>

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<p>and regarding all other commentary, i concur; probably not good to discuss all this on college essays; but it’s entertaining here. :)</p>

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<p>ilivefree,</p>

<p>As a veteran of the Iraq war, I find the way you categorize anarchism extremely naive especially this statement “personally prefer my chances at survival in a world where my value is my brain, my skills, and my gun; not who i voted for last election.” Personally, and I’m speaking from first hand experience with anarchy, I don’t like your chances, especially in a world where females are still largely marginalized and, oh yeah, physically weaker. Nope, don’t like your chances at all.</p>

<p>Chances are your brain and the skills you’ve acquired are more valuable to you in a society with laws and authority figures than a society without them. Also, I find your reference to “cowboy movies” as supporting evidence somewhat laughable.</p>

<p>"social contract is an agreement between a group of human beings to not do or do do certain things. "</p>

<p>Whose definition of “social contract” are we using? As far as I know, Hobbes and Locke both defined social contract as individuals in a society willingly giving up a certain amount of freedom in order for society to function better. Of course, they disagreed to what extent people should sacrifice their freedom.</p>

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<p>i’m referring to anthropological uses of the ideas of “social contract”, not hobbes and locke. </p>

<p>and regarding my marginalization as a female, i am absolutely sure that i could use my femaleness to find some big strong men to protect me in exchange for my value as a breeding vessel. i’m absolutely fine with this and in fact, i think women forget that breeding and raising children is a noble act. not to mention, i have five brothers and their biology drives them to protect females of close relation.</p>

<p>i also realize that as a woman, a gun is my only chance at equalization; should it be taken, i accept the possibility of being dead soon. </p>

<p>i admire your service and respect your stance. i can’t imagine your experiences and how they shape your perspective; i also have unique experiences that have molded mine. the wonderful thing is that our perspectives, being different, offer variation, which can be in conflict, but with honor, can also make life a bit more interesting. i firmly feel (and have observed) that honor is innate in humans to some degree, and we do not need laws to know it. in fact, to me, survivalism is a form of honor.</p>

<p>my reference to cowboy movies is specific to my point that rules are had without government. even bad guys follow rules; even criminals. they have their own social contracts within their groups and not following those rules can cause severe repercussions by the majority.</p>

<p>all in all, i respectfully disagree.</p>

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<p>“i firmly feel (and have observed) that honor is innate in humans to some degree, and we do not need laws to know it. in fact, to me, survivalism is a form of honor.”</p>

<p>How romantic, but do you have evidence? Are you a rationalist? Do you believe that human beings are born with “innate ideas”? Empirical evidence, and modern sociology would tell us differently. If you are born into a lawless society, chances are, you’ll behave lawlessly. If you are born into a society that teaches “honor”, you might grow up to be “honorable”. The term “honor” itself is subjective. You should be quite aware of this since you bring up anthropology so often. What is honorable to you, might not be honorable to someone else. Consider theft. In many societies it’s wrong to steal and the crime is penalized harshly. And yet, there are some groups such as organized crime, where stealing is rationalized and sometimes “honored”. Taken to the extreme, consider Nazism and the holocaust. Millions of Germans tacitly consented to the murder of millions of Jews. Tell me, where was the innate honor? Consider also the very process of socialization, in which a culture and society is responsible for your cognitive development. It is impossible to divorce yourself from the way you have internalized your own culture. The fact that you even came to the conclusion about anarchy that you did, is probably in large part because you grew up in a society that encourages you (or at least does not restrict) exercise of freedom of thought. See the irony? Coming again from an anthropological position, I wonder how many women from African tribes contemplate the merits of anarchy vs. a society with laws. I’m guessing not many. Personally, I like the fact that my society provides me with enough security (and time spent way from hunting and gathering) to examine my life. According to Socrates, I have a chance to make a life worth living. </p>

<p>I found a quote from askphilosophers.org (awesome site). The philosopher, Alexander George (Phd Harvard, teaches at Amherst College) is one of my favorite philosophers and he takes on the question of anarchy and answers far better than I can. I hope you take the time to read this.</p>

<p>"It’s worth distinguishing between what one is free to do and what value to one that freedom has. Perhaps you’re right that in a world in which there was no political society (a State of Nature, as some political philosophers call it) we would be free to do many more things than we are now (since no laws would exist that restrict our freedom). But the worth of those freedoms would be very small. Yes, we’d be free to travel wherever we wanted (without the need for passports, etc.), but most likely, absent the security that a political society provides, the level of industrial development would be so low that there would be no cars, no planes, no roads, etc. Even if there were roads, it would be so very dangerous to set out on them that I wouldn’t dare risk it. Whereas now, my freedom to travel is worth something to me: I can drive (I have a car, I can buy fuel for it, there are roads!) confidently to the airport (there are airports!) and take a plane (there’s an aerospace industry!) to Reykjavik. The freedom to fly to Reykjavik isn’t worth much if there are no planes, no cars, no roads, no safe traveling.</p>

<p>So, even if you thought that freedom (the absence of conduct-regulating laws enforced by the power of the state) is a good thing and that freedom would be increased living in a State of Nature, reasonable people might still choose to live in a political society with a government that restricts their freedoms, because the freedoms they would have would be of value to them."</p>

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<p>Jaykoblives, i admire your arguments and this discussion.</p>

<p>i am a bit of a rationalist, and honestly, my views on anarchy are still young so i do confess i am not well learned on the subject enough to argue up to par. however, i agree that the term “honor” is subjective. i suppose i view innate honor as that which drives a mammal to follow the “rules” of the group so that they can stay in the group. whatever that may be (even theft). i see myself as an organism in a world of other organism and i trust individuals more than governments. it is true that perhaps my views would change in a world of possible danger and possible chaos, but i’m not sure they would.</p>

<p>the world is dangerous and chaotic as it is; we operate under the guise of law, but law itself is flawed and the government, especially, is EXTREMELY flawed. to me, the fact that the guise even exists is sometimes irritating; humans still follow their true selves, but they use government to help themselves do this more on occasionally. the guise of law/government protects them. i love the constitution, no doubt, I LOVE IT, but it had a few holes such that the nature of some men to be flawed is still permitted under the system. thus, i’d rather have my own self-determinism with how i live my life than live under a flawed system. to me, such an existence would be far more honest.</p>

<p>my favorite quote, in response, is below. it is not for or against anarchy officially, but well describes my sentiments on laws handed down by our government:</p>

<p>“I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.” - Robert Heinlein</p>

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<p>This is not the first time I’ve been confronted with that quote. Coincidentally it came up in a Philosophy class of mine a year or so ago. It is an intriguing idea, but for many “anarchists” who are taken in by it, one can make a point by adding onto it:</p>

<p>I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them; if I am in trouble I won’t hesitate to hide behind them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do. And I wouldn’t hesitate to call the police on you if you exercised your freedom in a way that threatened me.</p>

<p>How can you be a true anarchist, if at any time, you hide under the blanket of security that a society with law provides. You are a hypocrite if you ever hire a lawyer to mediate a dispute, or if you ever call the police to protect your interests.</p>