<p>confidentialcoll, thanks for unintentionally reminding me of Freakonomics. That was a great read.</p>
<p>^I thought it had new ideas, but actually disliked it, I thought it was pretty biased, some of the far-fetched claims were not classified as such, and the whole thing should have been written in half the space. But the ad com will look favorably on it, as would I if I were evaluating applicants.</p>
<p>If I were evaluating applicants, I would gain 20lbs out of frustration and pity alone.
It is sad, but I have a very kind heart. If you do not follow instructions, and explain why you read the book rather than list it, then I will stamp a question mark on your application. Pity is not for everyone!</p>
<p>Columbia2002 speaks the truth -- as usual. There are more important things to worry about.</p>
<p>And confidentialcoll, if you think you know what the admissions committee is "looking for" in this response, you're deluding yourself. But hey, whatever quells your anxiety.</p>
<p>
[quote]
And confidentialcoll, if you think you know what the admissions committee is "looking for" in this response, you're deluding yourself. But hey, whatever quells your anxiety.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>^this is a very presumptuous post. there are more important things to worry about, but that doesn't exclude discussing factors of lesser importance, the book list is part of the evaluation process. </p>
<p>unlike most speculators, I'm a current student at Columbia. I've been here multiple years now, I've chatted directly with admissions officers, I talked to peers at columbia about their applications, I've seen high school classmates and others apply to columbia and fail, and I have personal friends who help evaluate applications with the ad com. I should kick myself if I don't have a decent idea of what the admissions committee looks for. It isn't rocket science Sherlock.</p>
<p>confidentialcoll, in your opinion, do you think its better just to list the books or give a short phrase explaining why you chose the book? they responses give you a lot of space so it seems like they want a little more.</p>
<p>^ Actually they don't give you THAT much space. If i remember correctly the prompt was to "list" books that you read in the previous year, and i could only write down about 10 titles (or less) before i ran out of characters.</p>
<p>I think i listed: My Life (B. Clinton), Faith of my fathers (J. McCain), Clash of civilizations (S. Huntington), Future of freedom (F. Zakaria), Grotesque (some Japanese author), Politics (Aristotle), Central liberal truth, the dark side, the american wife, homosexuality and civilizations, kite runner, last lecture, LBJ & the american dream & memoirs of a geisha. </p>
<p>No Harry Potter because i thought the quality of the series has deteriorated towards the end. No chicklit (or young adults' novel or wtv you call it) because quite frankly i loathe them. I think the point is not making your book list believable or diverse, but to make it real and leave the judging to those who are paid to do so. After all, if you really can't and are not interested in heavy, intellectual reads, how are u going to survive Columbia? Hey but what do i know, i'm an RD applicant after all :D just my 2 cents.</p>
<p>^but your book list is diverse and believable, There's a low threshold for these, I should have phrased the points as don't make the list mono-faceted or unbelievable. you have a book by Clinton, McCain, Zakaria, Aristotle and some Japanese author in there. It's clearly thought-provoking, it's pretty possible that you would have read these books, and you have a theme which is tells them a side of your personality, you seem to care about politics, social issues etc,</p>
<p>concoll - I have a problem with your formula. I like point 2, because I know adcoms want that, and point 3 works. Reading Harry Potter, Stephanie Meyer, insert pop author of the year - is filler space. If let's suppose that a large majority of students in high school read a certain book or series of books, the fact that you have read it would be taken for granted. I have heard adcoms directly say "we are looking for students to show us something beyond the New York Times Bestseller list," and others privately muse that Harry Potter-esque is something they will just skip right over. So why would they want you to read a pop book that could also be read by 5th graders? Believability is contextual as you said. But once you open up the pop author floodgate it is pretty hard to turn it off - why just put down Harry Potter 1 and not 2-7? In general, if a book you want to put down has been read by many of your friends, don't put it down because it is not going to be unique and indicate a personal interest. </p>
<p>confused - I hope you read Huntington with the same vile and disgust that I did. A good book to read, a vicious one to believe in.</p>
<p>I put:</p>
<p>A thousand splendid suns [K Hosseini]
The selfish gene [R Dawkins]
Perfume [P Suskind]
All quiet on the western front [E M Remarque]
The extended phenotype <a href="Didn't%20like%20this%20as%20much%20as%20the%20selfish%20gene">R Dawkins</a>
Lifelines [S Rose]</p>
<p>and a few more iirc, I had 10 or 11 total. Not entirely sure what the booklist is supposed to tell the admissions officers besides the fact that I really like genetics.</p>
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[QUOTE]
^but your book list is diverse and believable, There's a low threshold for these, I should have phrased the points as don't make the list mono-faceted or unbelievable. you have a book by Clinton, McCain, Zakaria, Aristotle and some Japanese author in there. It's clearly thought-provoking, it's pretty possible that you would have read these books, and you have a theme which is tells them a side of your personality, you seem to care about politics, social issues etc,
[/QUOTE]
</p>
<p>I realized that after i've sent in my application. They were really books that i read and could remember off the top of my head. </p>
<p>I was just advising against fabricating a booklist that is intended to "impress" the adcom. Idk, i have a problem with people trying to be who they are not. I think it's counterproductive. There's very little point in pretending to be a reader of heavy books, you're just gonna suffer in columbia. I heard the freshman's reading list for the Core is pretty crazy. </p>
<p>But yeah, i agree with you that if you can show diversity then it's even better. I don't think many HS seniors could honestly go a year reading only the Zakarias and Friedmans of the world.</p>
<p>@admissiongeek: I wouldn't use the word "disgust", but it was certainly thought-provoking and i can see why people might be repulsed by it :)</p>
<p>I agree 100000% with admissiongeek's comment about Huntington. Not only is his argument (in "Clash of Civilizations") despicable to embrace, but also flawed and extremely outdated. All it does is promote pre-eminent strikes by western powers and seeksto create an absolutist "us vs. them" binary which does nothing else but Orientalize non-western cultures.</p>
<p>... i get the feeling loads of kids put The Onion and Stephen colbert on their lists.. lol way to "stand out," right?</p>
<p>that's the thing...i think people are trying too hard to stand out instead of honestly listing the books they have enjoyed. just answer the question, stop trying to be something you're not. i was not about to leave harry potter out simply because it may not have wowed the adcom.</p>
<p>^ yes I agree totally. I put down that I liked the Alex Rider books even though they're very easy reads and written for like 12 year-olds :P </p>
<p>Pleasure Reading: Catch-22, The Bourne Series, Freakonomics, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the Alex Rider novels, Red Storm Rising, Blink, Stumbling Over Happiness</p>
<p>Required Reading: The Great Gatsby, To Kill a Mockingbird, Animal Farm, As You Like It, The Merchant of Venice, Othello, The Tragedy of King Richard III, The Pearl</p>
<p>i forgot about great gatsby. blast. :p</p>
<p>I forgot to put The Tempest on my list :P</p>
<p>Ah, this was a tricky question for me. I read a lot, so it was hard for me to condense my list to just a few...here we go:</p>
<p>The Road by Cormac McCarthy, No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy, Atonement by Ian McEwan, Then We Came to The End by Joshua Ferris, Match to Flame: The Fictional Paths to Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury; Long Way Down by Nick Hornby, Model Summer by Paulina Porizkova, Thousand Splendid Suns by Hosseini, Lullaby by Chuck Palahniuk, Geek Love by Katharine Dunn</p>
<p>That's a pretty good cross-section of what I read-I'm not saying I read medical texts (one of my acquaintances did that) but I'm not exactly reading Twilight.</p>
<p>i love lullaby by palahniuk.. creepishly weird stories are fantastic :P</p>
<p>i believe i did put that one on my list as well.. </p>
<p>anon, which of cormac mccarthy's books would you recommend most?</p>
<p>The Road for sure, it's a lot deeper and basically changed my life. A great, great book. No Country for Old Men was more shoot-em-up and less thought provoking, but still very good. </p>
<p>If you liked Lullaby, definitely read Geek Love. Great story, interesting-it's kept with me for a while. I read it around this time last year, and I still think about some of the parts of it on a weekly basis. It's one of Palahniuk's favorite books, too, hah.</p>