<p>Video recording = True Personality and Individual > Essays = Can easily deceive or make up something in it; sometimes plagiarised or written by hired people</p>
<p>^ I like it. We just send em a link to our Vlogs :)</p>
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You are totally singling me out. I was not the only person who mentioned this ok~</p>
<p>^^^ Yeeesss.</p>
<p>The Tufts woman who came to my school said they encouraged submission of a video as a supplementary “essay”. Too bad I’m not applying there…that would be so much fun.</p>
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Lulz, so rather than good writing skill, you need to be a good actor?</p>
<p>socioeconomic AA all the way</p>
<p>I’m all for throwing gpa out. =P
SAT ftw.</p>
<p>I’m kidding. (though I really would like that)
I like the video thing, but it would be hard to judge sometimes because the quality could depend on resources and programs available. But if someone’s really creative they could get by on minimal fancy stuff.
This just brings us back to that whole socioeconomic deal.</p>
<p>Speaking of which, I’ve been thinking of alcoholics anonymous a lot reading this thread.</p>
<p>Racial affirmative action.</p>
<p>I think it would be good to see an intra-Michigan common application, and all Michigan Universities be separate from the “common AP.”</p>
<p>@Harvey I was thinking the same thing</p>
<p>I honestly wouldn’t change too much. SCEA sounds annoying, but I can’t think of much else</p>
<p>^just change it to a regular EA! makes life so much easier</p>
<p>Make EC’s count for less. Taking piano lessons for 10 years doesn’t mean you’re gonna be any better at anything except perhaps piano.
More and more it seems volunteer work/leadership positions show absolutely nothing about a person’s drive or ambition, save for their drive and ambition to impress a top school. </p>
<p>Contrary to most people here, I think essays should count for <em>more</em> in the admissions process. But essays should be different for each school, and more specific (I like how Chicago uses the essay). </p>
<p>As wary as I am of the SAT and GPA, unfortunately they are at this point the most reliable indicators for admissions (save for essays and interviews).</p>
<p>^Everything you said. Even though I’m biased because I enjoy writing essays and don’t have many ECs, ECs are important because they can be so much more than ECs; someone could help out at an animal shelter or whatever, and then it ends up changing their life and/or becoming a part of them. But for many people, they volunteer solely to get into college. There needs to be more write-ups for each EC than just stating the ECs; simple questions like “why did you do this EC” or “what was your favorite part of it” in a paragraph could suffice. On the common app, it’s just ‘pick one EC and talk about it for about three sentences’.
It’s also pretty sucky if a certain applicant lives in an area where there are less opportunities to volunteer or get a job than in other areas.
Prior interest should count for more (except in the case of Ivy Leagues where interest is pretty much a given). A great applicant with stellar scores who eventually attends a school because it was the top school that admitted him/her (as a safety) vs. a good applicant who is passionate about attending and loves certain aspects of the school and its organizations who gets rejected…which student is more likely to contribute to the school, assuming that both were accepted?
I’m also all for interviews, except that interviews are entirely subjective and depends on the interviewer as much as the student. It’s still the only ‘live’ part of the application, though.</p>
<p>1) Institute a ban on applying to more than 12 colleges.</p>
<p>That’s it. I’m fine with racially-based AA and everything else people whine about.</p>
<p>compared to the job-seeking process it’s pretty excellent. at least there’s no politics, and they make it pretty clear what they’re looking for.</p>
<p>1) Limit the number of colleges that someone can apply to (around 9/10)
2) You can keep racial AA, but add socioeconomic based AA
3) Less dependence on the guidance counselor, how will a teacher that i only see once a week be able to write anything meaningful about me?</p>
<p>“3) Less dependence on the guidance counselor, how will a teacher that i only see once a week be able to write anything meaningful about me?”</p>
<p>LOL, in my case I saw my guidance counselor a total of once in 4 years. That’s one I forgot, get rid of guidance counselor recommendations, they’re a hassle, and aren’t worth anything.</p>
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Awful, awful idea.</p>
<p>A little less essays, making the common app not ■■■■■■■■, and losing waitlists would be good.</p>
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Love this. My guidance counselor’s actually cool (as in, nice and accessible) but she thinks I’m a freak (long story, one of my teachers, meaning well, mentioned me to her and suggested that I have certain issues, which took the situation out of proportion) and acts patronizing to me sometimes. Counselors, in general, only know the student as a student and not as a person. If there’s any college that requires a rec from her I might just panic.</p>
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I think 10-12 is a good maximum number; any less than 10 and I’d be worried about it infringing on personal rights (in case someone really wanted to cough up fifty+ bucks more than several times…let him/her). Hard to track, though. Only the high schools can really enforce it and I get the feeling that some schools will take this law (if it ever becomes one) less seriously than others.</p>
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<p>Seeing as my school already does this (8 colleges), I think it’s a very good idea. I’m not exactly sure of my school’s reasoning, but my own is that it forces people to choose an appropriate number of reaches, matches and safeties instead of applying to, say, the top 10 schools in the US News rankings or every single Ivy League.</p>