The Perplexing College Admissions Process
Learning from other individuals experiences is one of the most readily useful methods to avoid dilemmas and mistakes when undertaking an endeavor that is new. One of the more complex endeavors these days may be the university admissions procedure. You can find therefore many factors and opportunities for apparently random outcomes that obtaining the benefit of other applicants’ war tales can be key to assisting you avoid pitfalls. This fall, the following information could be quite helpful to you if you will be applying to college.
There is an interesting — and very long — thread in the College Confidential discussion forum that details some ‘applicants’ war tales.’ What makes you ridiculously upset in regards to the college admissions procedure? explores, across 520 posts, the problems that perplex and also perhaps enrage university applicants and their parents. Although the qualifier ‘ridiculously’ within the thread’s name might be a bit over the top, you can find definitely areas of the college procedure that are at annoying that is least, infuriating and possibly, at worst, temper-tantrum inducing.
Meeting Deadlines Presents Challenges
From our viewpoint, having been through the school procedure period with a daughter and son, I can remember being forced to counsel and ‘encourage’ my son to meet a short-fuse deadline for publishing his EA application to at least one school. This was back in the rock Age of paper applications, but points out of the forms of issues candidates can even encounter when things seem to be going smoothly. Hence, my brief war tale:
A publishing error caused the college to delay sending its paper applications (this was back in the mid-’90s) before the very first week of October. The due date ended up being Nov. 1 with no extensions got to the very early candidates. Which was a difficult and angst-inducing experience for both my son and their moms and dads. Things were different back then, ahead of the advent associated with the access that is electronic enjoy today.
Getting back once again to today, there is apparently a lot of discomfort dwelling beneath and also at the top of these that are entering the application sweepstakes. I would ike to select some comments that are especially pertinent this ‘angry’ thread and atart exercising . comments from my perspective, where I have something substantive to express. Perchance you’ll find one thing right here which will press your hot button. Ideally, nevertheless, you will discover some wisdom that will help you avoid dilemmas this autumn whenever you are going to be performing your college that is own procedure.
The originator of this thread posits: ‘With college period coming, wanted to hear some rants about the admissions procedure. Myself, I hate the fact you need to spend such expensive costs to simply apply to college!’
That prompted some responses that are interesting
– I really dislike just how it forces kids to start out shaping their lives to fit applications therefore early in life. After your very early teenagers, all you do is evaluated by just how valuable it is on an app.
We completely accept this comment. When I had been a teenager, I never gave a considered to how exactly what I may have now been doing would ‘look’ to a potential college admissions committee. Like Popeye, my attitude had been essentially, ‘we have always been what I have always been,’ and virtually ‘we gotta be me.’ These days, some young adults (and their parents) have a look at adolescence as one thing of the scripted exercise in ‘becoming’ some sort of stereotyped young person who will score big into the admissions lottery. That could maybe not make me ridiculously furious, but I am made by it sad.
– The very fact that elite schools do not use equivalent supplemental writing prompts, essentially needing students to write an original essay for every application. This is extremely nerve-wracking for the entire household.
I realize that elite schools might use these supplements to filter random applications from pupils that are underqualified or not genuinely interested — but OP simply wished to understand me angry — and it did if it made.
The supplemental side regarding the typical Application irritates me, too. My position is: Why can’t the most popular Application be comprehensive sufficient by itself to remove the need for all the information that is supplemental by various colleges? Issued, this could take some unification that is coordinated those schools (possibly beyond the so-called ‘elites’), but that would be time well invested, in my view. a detail by detail study of these supplemental requirements reveals overlap within the information needed. I’d greatly prefer everything to be covered into the typical App itself, eliminating lot of more time and angst for the applicants.
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– It annoys me that more subject that is advanced (as demonstrated by AP and SATIIs) is valued less in admissions compared to fundamental generic material and particular test taking abilities (as demonstrated by ACT and SAT). The colleges (especially general public) are simply simple saying ‘ We don’t care just how much you love or know your future industry of research! Just get the best grades and test that is generic while having a long enough list of ECs.’
Overemphasis on GPA is playing a task, too. We find it ridiculous that 13-14-15 yr-olds are anticipated to be worried about college ‘resume’ by having straight As as to own that ‘perfect’ GPA. Consider how many brilliant ‘late bloomers’ the Ivys and such are lacking!
Having said all that, good or bad, the operational system is there and all the children are left to do is play along. The only hope is that Einstein is going to be Einstein even in the event he experiences a residential area university at first.
Amen, specially to the ‘late bloomers’ guide. How many school that is high have clear picture of exactly what their futures hold? Exactly how many have locked onto a genuine passion … about anything? I did not commence to appear centered on any such thing particular until I was within my subsequent 30s. Which was once I finally decoded the impact that is cumulative of liberal arts education and discovered my true calling. You’ve got to wonder how many ‘difference makers’ are turned away at ‘elite’ ( as well as other) schools simply because they would not have the best profiles that are numerical.
This topic reminds me of Princeton University’s belated and popular Dean of Admission Fred Hargadon, whom, each admissions season, would reserve only a few slots for all those he thought had been diamonds within the rough. They did not have the luster of all of the other Princeton admits, but Dean Fred inferred their potential and gave them a shot at Old Nassau. There could be other admission deans nowadays willing to allocate ‘chance’ admits, but if you can find, i am unaware of them.
– just How secretive colleges that are selective about their admission procedure and making use of bs terms like ‘holistic’. …
I discussing holistic admissions before. For me personally, that process (if, certainly, it can be deemed a ‘process’) is a two-edged blade. Regarding the one hand, it offers the admissions committee latitude to look beyond the strict numerical components of a job candidate’s profile and seek out subjective aspects that may be of value up to a specific year’s course. Having said that, the holistic approach lends itself to obfuscation.
The credibility of the applicant that is certain admission can invariably be relegated to ‘holistic’ factors. Often I cannot assist but think about holistic admissions in term papers websites the sense that is same of saying about hot dogs: that you don’t want to see how they are made. Whenever we knew the causes behind some holistic admissions, we might find ourselves, such as the title of this forum thread, ‘ridiculously furious.’
– It’s stupid just how much busy work they made me do in highschool, which together with my extracurricular tasks and my nearly nonexistent social life, provided me with hardly any sleep throughout all four many years of senior high school to help make me personally a ‘competitive applicant.’
This reminds me of Paul Simon’s track Kodachrome, where he says:
Once I think back
On all of the crap we learned in senior school
It is a wonder
I’m able to think at all
And though my lack of education
Has not harm me none
The writing can be read by me on the wall
Obviously, there must be some form of framework and curriculum planning in high school, but the pressure of this university process has a tendency to backfire straight down through the machine, thwarting some areas of teenagers’s life. Happily, I have been able to suppress all of the ‘crap’ we learned in senior high school ( and also a large amount of essential material, too), therefore my mental drive that is hard freed up lots of room for just what actually counts, such as for instance catching all of the good brand new films for March on Netflix or Amazon.
Financial Obligation Is Another Issue
Now, if i could include one other ongoing problem which makes me mad concerning the college admissions procedure, it would be the ‘ridiculously’ high quantity of loans students need to obtain so that you can complete their degrees. As you know, I’m not afraid to leap up on my soapbox and preach concerning the perils of loan financial obligation.
This brings me personally to your dilemma of effects. Simply today, we saw this news article:
Florida Board of Health suspends a huge selection of health care licenses over student loan defaults — That headline alone ought to be sufficient to sober any college student up who’s contemplating tossing caution to your wind about accepting loans, thinking, ‘There’s no real penalty for blowing down payments.’ Check always this away, from the article:
Almost 1,000 health care employees have lost their license to apply in Florida because they can’t repay their student education loans a new crackdown potentially placing hundreds away from work, the I-Team discovered.
The proceed to suspend medical care licenses employs federal education loan businesses spent years lobbying states to adopt rules to punish people who default on student loans by firmly taking away their expert licenses. …
Yikes. Now that’s a result … of blowing off loan payments. What makes me annoyed about loan financial obligation is it is very easy to fall under. I will not rehash my past sermons about this. You need to be aware of the old saying: there is no such thing as being a free lunch [or student loan].
To put a limit on all this, we’ll offer this parting advice to vexed high schoolers and their parents about getting ready to enter the faculty procedure: play the role of whom you are, despite the negative pressures. In most cases, when you do, then things turn out for the right!
