Holding College Chiefs to Their Words
By ELLEN GAMERMAN</p>
<p>Reed College President Colin Diver suffered writer's block. Debora Spar, president of Barnard College, wrote quickly but then toiled for hours to cut an essay that was twice as long as it was supposed to be. The assignment loomed over Wesleyan University President Michael Roth's family vacation to Disney World.</p>
<p>The university presidents were struggling with a task that tortures high-school seniors around the country every year: writing the college admissions essay. In a particularly competitive year for college admissions, The Wall Street Journal turned the tables on the presidents of 10 top colleges and universities with an unusual assignment: answer an essay question from their own school's application.</p>
<p>The "applicants" were told not to exceed 500 words (though most did), and to accept no help from public-relations people or speechwriters. Friends and family could advise but not rewrite. The Journal selected the question from each application so presidents wouldn't pick the easy ones. They had about three weeks to write their essays.</p>
<p>The exercise showed just how challenging it is to write a college essay that stands out from the pack, yet doesn't sound overly self-promotional or phony. Even some presidents say they grappled with the challenge and had second thoughts about the topics they chose
<p>I can’t believe that is any tougher than one from U Chicago a couple of years ago, in which you were invited to describe yourself as a mathematical function. Zimmer should have tackled that one.</p>
<p>midmo, mathson liked that essay prompt. He had an equation and a reason to pick it in no time at all. If only the MIT prompt had been as easy!</p>
<p>Most of those essays were really, really boring. I kind of liked the one about the lack of routine, the Rilke quote one and the one about the influence of the dead brother. The rest were forgettable.</p>
<p>Wowie zowie. Being a good writer on your own is obviously NOT a prerequisite for a college presidency. Many of those essays are both turgid AND self-aggrandizing. But . . . they are all pretty accomplished, ambitious kids, so I would favor their admission anyway.</p>
<p>Luckily Chicago always has a bunch of choices - I like their essay prompts, I wish more colleges took that route. BTW many (all?) the Chicago essay prompts are written by U. of Chicago students.</p>
<p>By the way, the Chicago essay prompts are submitted by accepted students, not enrolled students. Many of them are submitted by students who wind up enrolling elsewhere. Of course, hundreds of students submit questions, and the admissions staff decides which ones to use, and also edits them, so the student origin of them has a little asterisk on it. Still, a cute idea, and lots of them are really interesting.</p>
<p>This is by far the worst. Racist, sanctimonious, self-serving garbage. He hit a mugger but because the mugger is black now he is worse than a mugger? </p>
<p>What about, white, black or any color, if someone mugs me or my neighbor, I’ll hit them with a baseball ball and recover the stolen the goods. And I’ll never apologize for it.</p>