The Perplexing College Admissions Process
Learning off their individuals experiences is amongst the most useful approaches to avoid issues and mistakes whenever undertaking an endeavor that is new. One of the most complex endeavors these days may be the university admissions procedure. There are therefore numerous variables and possibilities for seemingly random results that obtaining the good thing about other candidates’ war stories are key to working for you avoid pitfalls. This fall, the following information could be quite helpful to you if you will be applying to college.
There’s an interesting — and very long — thread on the College Confidential discussion forum that details some ‘applicants’ war tales.’ What makes you ridiculously mad concerning the university admissions procedure? explores, across 520 posts, the conditions that perplex and even perhaps enrage college applicants and their parents. Although the qualifier ‘ridiculously’ into the thread’s name might be sell my term papers a bit on the top, you will find certainly areas of the school procedure that have reached least aggravating, infuriating and perchance, at worst, temper-tantrum inducing.
Meeting Deadlines Presents Challenges
From our viewpoint, having experienced the faculty process period having a daughter and son, i will recall needing to counsel and ‘encourage’ my son to meet up a deadline that is short-fuse submitting their EA application to at least one college. It was back in the rock Age of paper applications, but points out of the types of problems applicants can encounter, even whenever things appear to be going smoothly. Therefore, my war that is brief story
A publishing mistake caused the institution to wait delivering its paper applications (this was back in the mid-’90s) until the very first week of October. The deadline ended up being Nov. 1 and no extensions got to your applicants that are early. That was a difficult and experience that is angst-inducing both my son and their parents. Things were different back then, before the advent of the access that is electronic enjoy today.
Getting back once again to today, there is apparently lots of discomfort dwelling beneath and also at the outer lining of the that are going into the application sweepstakes. I’d like to select some especially relevant reviews from this ‘angry’ thread and add some reviews from my perspective, where i’ve one thing substantive to say. Perhaps you’ll find one thing here that will press your hot key. Preferably, but, you will discover some knowledge that will help you avoid problems this fall whenever you are conducting your college that is own procedure.
The originator of this thread posits: ‘With university season coming, wished to hear some rants concerning the admissions process. Really, we hate the truth that you need to spend such fees that are expensive just apply to university!’
That encouraged some interesting reactions:
– I really dislike just how it forces young ones to start shaping their everyday lives to early fit applications so in life. After your very early teens, anything you do is examined by how valuable it really is for an application.
We totally trust this remark. I never gave a thought to how what I may have been doing would ‘look’ to a prospective college admissions committee when I was a teenager. Like Popeye, my mindset ended up being essentially, ‘I am the things I am,’ and almost ‘I gotta be me.’ These days, some young adults (and their parents) check adolescence as something of a scripted exercise in ‘becoming’ some sort of stereotyped young one who will score big into the admissions lottery. That may perhaps not make me ridiculously mad, but I am made by it sad.
– The very fact that elite schools don’t use exactly the same writing that is supplemental, essentially needing pupils to publish a unique essay for every application. It was exceedingly nerve-wracking for our entire household.
I understand that elite schools can use these supplements to filter out random applications from pupils who’re underqualified or otherwise not truly interested — but OP just wanted to understand if it made me upset — and it did.
The supplemental side for the Common Application irritates me, too. My position is: Why can’t the Common Application be comprehensive enough by itself to get rid of the need for most of the information that is supplemental by various colleges? Given, this might take some unification that is coordinated those schools (possibly beyond the alleged ‘elites’), but that could be time well spent, in my own view. a step-by-step study of these supplemental requirements reveals overlap into the information needed. I’d significantly choose every thing become covered in the Common App itself, eliminating large amount of more time and angst for the candidates.
Just How Are Later Bloomers Viewed?
– It annoys me that more higher level subject knowledge (as demonstrated by AP and SATIIs) is valued less in admissions compared to the fundamental generic material and certain test taking skills (as demonstrated by ACT and SAT). The colleges (especially general public) are simply plain stating ‘ We don’t care just how much you like or know your future field of research! Simply get the best grades and test that is generic and possess a long enough variety of ECs.’
Overemphasis on GPA is playing a role, too. We believe it is ridiculous that 13-14-15 yr-olds are required to worry about university ‘resume’ by having straight As as to possess that ‘perfect’ GPA. Think of how many brilliant ‘late bloomers’ the Ivys and such are missing!
Having said all that, good or bad, the system can there be and all sorts of the kids are left doing is play along. The only hope is that Einstein are Einstein even though he goes through a residential district university in the beginning.
Amen, especially to your ‘late bloomers’ guide. How many kids have a clear image of what their futures hold? How many have locked onto a real passion … about any such thing? I did not begin to appear dedicated to anything specific until I became within my 30s that are later. That has been when I finally decoded the cumulative impact of my liberal arts education and found my true calling. You’ve got to wonder exactly how many ‘difference makers’ are turned away at ‘elite’ ( and other) schools given that they do not have the correct profiles that are numerical.
This topic reminds me of Princeton University’s late and Dean that is legendary of Fred Hargadon, who, each admissions season, would reserve only a few slots for those he thought had been diamonds within the rough. They did not have the luster of all other Princeton admits, but Dean Fred inferred their gave and potential them an attempt at Old Nassau. There may be other admission deans available to you willing to allocate ‘chance’ admits, but if there are, i am unaware of them.
– How secretive selective universities are about their admission procedure and making use of bs terms like ‘holistic’. …
I’ve discussed holistic admissions before. For me personally, that process (if, indeed, it may be deemed a ‘process’) is a two-edged sword. In the one hand, it provides the admissions committee latitude to look beyond the strict numerical aspects of a job candidate’s profile and look for subjective aspects that could be of value up to a specific year’s class. On the other hand, the holistic approach lends itself to obfuscation.
The credibility of a applicant that is certain admission can always be relegated to ‘holistic’ facets. Sometimes I cannot assist but consider holistic admissions in the same sense of that saying about hot dogs: that you do not want to observe they are made. Whenever we knew the reason why behind some holistic admissions, we might find ourselves, such as the name of this forum thread, ‘ridiculously annoyed.’
– It’s stupid just how much work that is busy made me do in high school, which on top of my extracurricular activities and my almost nonexistent social life, gave me very little sleep throughout all four many years of highschool to help make me personally a ‘competitive applicant.’
This reminds me of Paul Simon’s song Kodachrome, where he says:
When I think right back
On all of the crap I discovered in senior school
It’s really a wonder
I’m able to think at all
And though my lack of training
Has not harm me none
I will read the writing in the wall
Demonstrably, there must be some types of structure and curriculum planning in senior high school, but the force of this college procedure tends to backfire straight down through the system, thwarting some aspects of young adults’s lives. Luckily, I have managed to suppress all the ‘crap’ we discovered in high school ( along with a lot of essential material, too), therefore my mental hard drive has freed up lots of space for just what actually matters, such as catching most of the good brand new films for March on Netflix or Amazon.
Debt Is Another Issue
Now, me angry about the college admissions process, it would be the ‘ridiculously’ high amount of loans college students need to acquire in order to complete their degrees if I can add one other ongoing issue that makes. You may already know, I’m not afraid to jump through to my soapbox and preach about the perils of loan financial obligation.
This brings me personally to the dilemma of consequences. Just I saw this news article today:
Florida Board of Health suspends a huge selection of medical care licenses over student loan defaults — That headline alone ought to be enough to sober up any scholar who’s considering throwing care towards the wind about taking on loans, thinking, ‘There’s no genuine penalty for blowing down re payments.’ Check this out, through the article:
Nearly 1,000 health care workers have lost their permit to apply in Florida since they can not repay their figuratively speaking a crackdown that is new placing hundreds out of work, the I-Team found.
The proceed to suspend healthcare licenses comes after federal student loan companies invested years lobbying states to look at legislation to punish those who default on student education loans by firmly taking away their professional licenses. …
Yikes. Now that’s a consequence … of blowing down loan payments. Why is me personally angry about loan financial obligation is the fact that it’s so easy to fall under. I won’t rehash my sermons that are past this. You should be alert to the old saying: there isn’t any such thing as being a lunch [or student loan] that is free.
To put a cap on all of this, we’ll provide this parting advice to vexed high schoolers and their parents about preparing to enter the faculty process: Try to be who you are, regardless of the negative pressures. In most situations, should you choose, then things prove to find the best!