Keep It Honest, Keep It Real
A veteran admissions officer says students only hurt themselves when they attempt to game the system. Colleges want authenticity.
Were he alive today, Edvard Munch could visit virtually any high school and randomly pick a senior to model for his famous 1893 painting "The Scream." Most students are already likely to be in the terrified pose Munch depicted. He also could as easily have selected the parents of a college-bound senior. With no compunction, almost everyone in a senior's life (including those having nothing to do with the admissions process) asks inappropriately personal questions—"What is your GPA? What are your SAT or ACT scores? Do you need financial aid? Where are you applying?"—while offering unsolicited and sometimes unwelcome advice. It is no wonder the whole family is ready to scream. The quest to get into college feels overwhelming.
Students' lives are jammed with complicated course schedules, extracurricular commitments and résumé-building summers. When the actual application process begins, everyone suffers from information overload, as well as hyperbole. Catalogs inevitably show trees green or bursting with fall colors. Northern New England and the upper Midwest do include several winter months on the academic calendar, but classes still seem to be mostly outdoors. Everyone has perfect hair, blemish-free skin and perfect teeth.
Pick the correct school and you will, of course, become a Rhodes scholar, Nobel Prize winner, president/ CEO/titan of Industry, managing partner of a major law firm, biomedical wizard—or perhaps, if you plan it just right, all of the above. The college's aura will shield you from everything bad. Conversely, if you don't get into your first choice, life will cease. At least, that's how it seems when you are in the midst of it.
Equilibrium is possible, but it takes fundamental honesty and energy from all parties. Colleges shouldn't oversell, and students need to be realistic about their options based on their grades, test scores, interests and goals. The school that is best for you is the one that suits your talents and work style. Honesty for students also means resisting pressure to make bad choices. Some purchase "successful" application essays online. They may undermine their candidacies because the essay submitted doesn't fit the person described in the rest of the application. I recall with particular pain reading the same essay from three candidates coming from three different countries. We traced that essay to a Web source boasting "Harvard-educated editors improve your college application essay to win admission." All three students were rejected.
Some wealthier families turn to the handful of high-priced independent college consultants who charge—and have clients apparently willing to pay—tens of thousands of dollars for the advice provided. Remarkably, they do this without evidence that the advice actually opens any doors at the most selective colleges. Is this consultancy presumed effective simply because it costs a lot?
For students, a pivotal first step toward control in the application process requires a look in the mirror and asking simply, "Where do I stand?" You may have heard that after a second date, but now it truly demands a self-critical, honest answer. Grades provide some clue to answering the question, but likely not enough. According to the College Board, the national mean GPA among SAT Reasoning Test takers during the 2006–07 academic year was 3.33. While the huge variety of grading systems make using this as a reasonable common standard impossible and ill-advised, it does make a general point. This national GPA continues to increase, meaning B+ is now "average."
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Member Comments
Posted By: cani77 @ 10/09/2008 7:14:15 PM
Comment: vIn a few weeks we will make a choice that will decide our future.
I follow an economist named Bob Proctor. He has called the top and bottom of every market crash since the 70s correctly.
Also, he perfectly predicted the current real estate market meltdown and the picture he paints about what will happen in the next couple years
is terrifying.He thinks it will be worse then the great depression.
The banks in the U.S. are going under one after the other. Countrywide ,Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch , Fanny and Freddy Mae ,AIG
The government took them over because they are essentially bankrupt. Even with the goverment nationalizing hundreds of billions of dollars in debt the stock market is crashing
the credit markets are frozen and all of us may suffer beyond anything in the last 80 years.
McCain just like Bush " doesn't understand the economy".
That not just my opinion its his own words. Not only does he not understand how to fix it but he does not understand exactly what is broken.
It is no surprise that he doesn't. The people that make up these securities use complex mathematical models very few people understand.
Bush and McCain both can take the credit for this mess since they helped deregulate the laws that were protecting us.
Bush's economic advisor Phil Graham wrote the deregulation bill that allowed banks to take huge risks with all of our future.
Now, Phil Graham is the head of McCain's economic policy.He is also McCain's choice for the next secretary of the treasury.
No one in this country can afford for that to happen. The last time Bush met with his economic advisors was in March. He didnt realize that anything was wrong. Phil Graham had the guts to say that we are in a mental recession after he helped create the worst economy meltdown in our lifetime. Check out this link to the truth http://my.barackobama.com/keatingvideo
It will take the best and brightest minds in the world to get us out of this nightmare. As bad as Bush has done, McCain would be
even more destructive because things are in much worse shape. The next president will not inherit a surplus like Bush did but a crashing economy and a 11,600,000,000,000 (trillion) dollars deficit. Most of it Bush created and it will take decades to pay it back.
If you do what you have always done then you will get what you have always got.
When it comes to policy Bush and McCain are the same 90 percent of the time.
So why are the polls even close then ?
Mccains team just said they no longer want to talk about the economy.Instead they would like to spend time talking about obama
which means running the biggest smear campaign in history.
They think they can just tell you lies and you wont be smart enough to see through it
Let's teach him we are smarter than that .
Elect Obama Biden 2008
Check out this video of sarah palins interview and ask your self if she understands what she is talking about.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r36Xc0GG4iQ
Posted By: cani77 @ 10/09/2008 7:13:58 PM
Comment: In a few weeks we will make a choice that will decide our future.
I follow an economist named Bob Proctor. He has called the top and bottom of every market crash since the 70s correctly.
Also, he perfectly predicted the current real estate market meltdown and the picture he paints about what will happen in the next couple years
is terrifying.He thinks it will be worse then the great depression.
The banks in the U.S. are going under one after the other. Countrywide ,Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch , Fanny and Freddy Mae ,AIG
The government took them over because they are essentially bankrupt. Even with the goverment nationalizing hundreds of billions of dollars in debt the stock market is crashing
the credit markets are frozen and all of us may suffer beyond anything in the last 80 years.
McCain just like Bush " doesn't understand the economy".
That not just my opinion its his own words. Not only does he not understand how to fix it but he does not understand exactly what is broken.
It is no surprise that he doesn't. The people that make up these securities use complex mathematical models very few people understand.
Bush and McCain both can take the credit for this mess since they helped deregulate the laws that were protecting us.
Bush's economic advisor Phil Graham wrote the deregulation bill that allowed banks to take huge risks with all of our future.
Now, Phil Graham is the head of McCain's economic policy.He is also McCain's choice for the next secretary of the treasury.
No one in this country can afford for that to happen. The last time Bush met with his economic advisors was in March. He didnt realize that anything was wrong. Phil Graham had the guts to say that we are in a mental recession after he helped create the worst economy meltdown in our lifetime. Check out this link to the truth http://my.barackobama.com/keatingvideo
It will take the best and brightest minds in the world to get us out of this nightmare. As bad as Bush has done, McCain would be
even more destructive because things are in much worse shape. The next president will not inherit a surplus like Bush did but a crashing economy and a 11,600,000,000,000 (trillion) dollars deficit. Most of it Bush created and it will take decades to pay it back.
If you do what you have always done then you will get what you have always got.
When it comes to policy Bush and McCain are the same 90 percent of the time.
So why are the polls even close then ?
Mccains team just said they no longer want to talk about the economy.Instead they would like to spend time talking about obama
which means running the biggest smear campaign in history.
They think they can just tell you lies and you wont be smart enough to see through it
Let's teach him we are smarter than that .
Elect Obama Biden 2008
Check out this video of sarah palins interview and ask your self if she understands what she is talking about.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r36Xc0GG4iQ