Posted on 04/03/2013 8:09:12 AM PDT by TSgt
Like me, millions of high-school seniors with sour grapes are asking themselves this week how they failed to get into the colleges of their dreams. It's simple: For years, they—we—were lied to.
Colleges tell you, "Just be yourself." That is great advice, as long as yourself has nine extracurriculars, six leadership positions, three varsity sports, killer SAT scores and two moms. Then by all means, be yourself! If you work at a local pizza shop and are the slowest person on the cross-country team, consider taking your business elsewhere.
What could I have done differently over the past years?
For starters, had I known two years ago what I know now, I would have gladly worn a headdress to school. Show me to any closet, and I would've happily come out of it. "Diversity!" I offer about as much diversity as a saltine cracker. If it were up to me, I would've been any of the diversities: Navajo, Pacific Islander, anything. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, I salute you and your 1/32 Cherokee heritage.
I also probably should have started a fake charity. Providing veterinary services for homeless people's pets. Collecting donations for the underprivileged chimpanzees of the Congo. Raising awareness for Chapped-Lips-in-the-Winter Syndrome. Fun-runs, dance-a-thons, bake sales—as long as you're using someone else's misfortunes to try to propel yourself into the Ivy League, you're golden.
...
Then there was summer camp. I should've done what I knew was best—go to Africa, scoop up some suffering child, take a few pictures, and write my essays about how spending that afternoon with Kinto changed my life. Because everyone knows that if you don't have anything difficult going on in your own life, you should just hop on a plane so you're able to talk about what other people have to deal with.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
My essay to MIT decried the reverse racism of affirmative action and racial quotas. I didn’t get in.
The link was about McDonalds
While what everyone says here about the preference for PC experiences is true, it is also true that educators are interested in those who want to learn something and have shown it. That is what they are in life: educators.
An application loaded with gimmicks to try to dazzle the admissions committee is not as convincing as a sincere interest in learning. They can spot the difference a mile away.
It is no longer time for coddling and developing your self-esteem. This is the big time. Especially at the Ivies. Be dazzled with your future professors and your field of endeavor rather than expecting them to be dazzled with you.
In my next life I intend to come back as a mixed race, bisexual, transgendered, welfare recipient, liberal activist, community organizer from Hawaii, illegal alien, Hollywood elite darling with a handicap. I think I will skip the surgical transgendering gig, that might be a bit too extreme.
I think affirmative action could start me off as president. /Sarcasm
Great book. I liked the contrast where the former maid was considered far more valuable than the million-dollar talent agent. :-)
I saw previews for the movie....looks like the only similarity with the book, is its title. Think I'll skip it.
My daughters did well, but nothing got handed to them. Dad and Mom offered to help out with most of the college expenses for the first year.
Welcome to the Class of '17! Good writing. Except of course for
We can probably beat that out of you with peer pressure here at Halls'o'Ivy U. See youse inna Fall.
If she was able to get merit-based aid somewhere, she may have done very well. If she was primarily dependent on need-based financial aid, the Ivies are unbeaten with their financial aid, especially Harvard, Yale, and Princeton.
My son's original first choice was Johns Hopkins but ultimately chose Harvard in part because he going to Hopkins would have required taking out student loans.
sitetest
That happened to me, but I didn’t check the box.
Seems that there was another student with my same last name (adopted in his case) who was well known. They thought I was his younger brother.
A bit shocked to see me as a white kid from Nebraska, but I got a different scholarship anyway.
There's your smart move, right there. People are always going to need to eat. They're not always going to need "experts" in 'Transgender justice and Racial Equality'.
And, at the end of the day if you decide not to take a job, then you're still a good cook. :-)
There are plenty of 4-year degrees that are worthwhile. Engineering comes immediately to mind, but I'm prejudiced in that regard. However, anything with "Studies" or "Arts" in the title, is unlikely to provide a good living.
My daughter applied to, and was rejected from Harvard, Yale, Princeton & Columbia. She is Valedictorian with a 99+ average, taking all AP & IB courses. She scored 1570 (of 1600) on the SATs and 35 (of 36) on the ACT. She was calculus tutor her junior and senior years in high school. Speaks two languages. Plays piano. She was 6-year Varsity and State champion swimmer. Lived a semester in Costa Rica. All while working three jobs during the summer. And it wasn’t good enough. It’s not about grades, scores and achievement. The author is correct in that all that touchy-feely crap matters. So she didn’t have sob-story to tell. And she’s a white kid from upstate NY, mom and dad aren’t rich or well connected. That matters also.
I listened to the audiobook. That was good.
I especially liked the chapter where the gal was talking to a support person on the radio who coached her out to rescue,
but then found out that there was no support person and it was only herself and her training that coached her out.
He played Free Safety in college until a substantial shoulder injury sidelined him and essentially knocked the wind out of his desire to play ball.
He was pretty good in track and was also fun to watch as defense in basketball.
Maybe you could affect a severe speech impediment, instead. Would be less invasive.
LOL! I went to school mostly because I needed to learn how to cook. The part-time job (like 10-15 hours a week in the summer) was an added bonus!
The elite colleges are going to discover the law of genetics; keep inbreeding and purifying the blood line and shortly physical and mental defects begin to appear.
The elite schools have convinced themselves that their way is the best way, and they’ve become ideologically rigid. Add a cup full of arrogance and ethical emptiness, and pretty soon the forces of the universe begin to move against them. Next stop, irrelevance, the very thing they dread the most.
washingtonexaminer.com/mcdonalds-want-ad-demands-bachelors-degree-two-years-experience-for-cashier/article/2526145
OT post from Enterprise.
Colleges are ranked on the average GPA of incoming freshmen. They need to accept applicants with very high GPAs to balance the lower GPAs of others. Transfer students don't figure into that average. Students who would never be considered for admission as freshmen are frequently accepted as transfers.
Another good strategy is to live in Wyoming, Panama or Samoa - and not live in Berkeley, New York or Chapel Hill.
Yeah...screw me...I didn’t go back two or three posts to see somebody made a McDonalds ditty (a poorly linked one at that) in the midst of a thread on educational opportunities and college acceptance.
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