<p>On facebook.</p>
<p>The</a> Daily Pennsylvanian :: Former admissions officer mocked applicant essays</p>
<p>I was just watching an Aziz Ansari special, where he ostensibly read a college essay his cousin had written and his corrections.
It was funny, but who knows maybe it was real?</p>
<p>A former neighbor used to work on the admissions committee at Penn. She shared quite a few interesting stories with me. Of course, she didn’t post them on a social media web site. All kinds of confidentiality issues come up when an adcom posts these on FB.</p>
<p>Here is a quote from the article: “Foleys posts that quoted from applicants essays were also shared anonymously in a forum on College Confidential, a popular admissions website.”</p>
<p>From the article: “At Penn, for instance, 10 of the 29 admissions officers listed online have received their undergraduate degrees within the past five years.”</p>
<p>This speaks volumes. If this fact were widely publicized, perhaps the admissions frenzy would lessen. This also shows why college admissions is so unpredictable. </p>
<p>My first job out of college was in admissions. I was not at a top tier school, but I signed the folders.</p>
<p>This just made me even less confident in the admissions offices at the purportedly “top” schools. There are pros and cons to having recent college graduates work in AOs, especially at their alma mater or its peer schools. Of course, as a college student myself, I like to think that I would make a decent AO and hope that Ms. Foley is an exception when it comes to the quality of young people working in admissions. Unfortunately, it’s all too easy for me to imagine her as one of many who share that haughty mentality.</p>
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<p>I am not sure that having the background and short professional history widely publicized would lessen the frenzy, and it surely has little to nothing to do with the “purported” unpredictability of the admissions. </p>
<p>It is a well-known fact that the younger admissions’ officers have to be young, mobile, and not well-paid. It is also a fact that those people are the ones expected to give tours and join the recruiting travel efforts. It is also known that they might not be directly responsible for final choices; just as the hired outside readers are. And, it is also well-known that more than a few of those reading the folders in the first stages were students who would not have a whisper of a chance to be admitted at the school they are now … gatekeeping.</p>
<p>I don’t think we know that she has a “haughty mentality.” This is a tough job. No one can read 500 kids’ essays in a row without needing to commiserate with colleagues. The error was putting the quotes online, not chuckling over them in private. High school teachers have the same conversations in the faculty lounge; salesman talk about their crazy customers; everybody needs to blow off some steam sometimes.</p>
<p>Now if we could only find out why Lee Stetson had to leave…</p>
<p>@Hanna: Okay, I’ll admit that I’m being pretty judgmental. But still, I’m sure that we could all think of many jobs that are much “tougher” than having to read essays. Of course teachers, counselors, and AOs are going to share some laughs with each other. I don’t see anything wrong with that. Heck, I don’t even see anything wrong with the “honey jar” post. But some of her comments just seem downright mean-spirited.</p>
<p>Tbh, I’m not sure how this is a fireable confidentiality evaluation. From the excerpts in the article, it doesn’t seem like there was any identifying information about the students ever posted.</p>
<p>I think it was more unprofessional than illegal.</p>
<p>Anyone that has to deal with the public day to day will get pretty mean/cynical about them. You should hear what I hear about patients/families.
Will this be in the movie??</p>
<p>Admissions Problems is nasty, snarky and hilarious. And yes, he/she AKA *The Mystery Poster * includes snippets of essays. Some of them do make you want to weep for the future.</p>
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<p>Well, there is no face-to-face interaction between applicants and most adcoms reading these applications, so this excuse rings hollow.</p>
<p>Er, that should have been “violation.”</p>
<p>Still, I’ve seen physicians, nurses, therapists, college professors, HS teachers, etc., post similar brief, undetailed and non-identifiable quotes/experiences on FB and semi-anonymous forums like CC. None of it could conceivably be linked to a specific person, so it’s not treated as a confidentiality issue.</p>
<p>Reading somebody’s file and essays is pretty close to a face to face–not to mention much day to day dealing in medical is not in person either. People might act worse over the phone than FTF</p>
<p>The need to vent after being chewed out by an irate customer is different than reading some 18-year-olds awkward attempt to provide a meaningful answer to an essay prompt.</p>
<p>“The need to vent after being chewed out by an irate customer is different than reading some 18-year-olds awkward attempt to provide a meaningful answer to an essay prompt.”</p>
<p>Bingo. This wasn’t someone complaining about being abused. This was a snarky kid who is ****ed off at the world for not being able to get a job in her desired field after graduating from good ole Princeton (must have be killing her to be employed by Penn). Airing her gripes on FB which just an outlet to vent her anger at the real world. Love to see her next job interview trying to explain why she left her previous employment.</p>
<p>If you think medical folks are not snarky about patients–well they are. At a recent retirement party for one of the docs one of the gifts was an official looking mounted form with a list of reasons why the patient was late for an appt. The patient was to just check one rather than bore anyone with their lies/stories. And that was one that can be repeated.
Where did it say she was PO’d at the world? I guess I missed the prior related thread.</p>
<p>When I saw the headline, I figured it was the anonymous Admissions Problems blogger being “outed.” </p>
<p>I’d say this ex-adcom would be unemployable now - but she’ll probably get a book deal out of it. :eyeroll:</p>