A thought struck me today. Colleges are most incongruous in their attitudes and actions toward prospective students. The scenario goes something like this.
Fresh-faced high schooler: All right! PSAT's out of the way. I hope colleges like my scores.
Sycophantic Director of Admissions: Mr. Smith, we feel sure that you are just the right fit for our academically broad, culturally rich, ethnically diverse college! We live in the ABSOLUTE MOST BEAUTIFUL AREA OF THE WORLD. Our professors will blow your socks off with their talents, which the survey America's Best Colleges has raved about as "pure genius" and "the nonpareil tour de force of all academia." We have a 2:1 student to faculty ratio, societies named after every letter combination of the Greek alphabet, a world-class sports team in every known sport from football to Sorry! to go-moku, a 25,000 acre botanical garden, guaranteed five minute bus ride access to nine symphony halls, thirty eight restaurants, fourteen shopping malls, over sixty brew pubs and 499 of the Fortune 500 headquarters (internships abound here!!). Our students come from all 50 states and every country except Antarctica. They hold to every known world religion and ideology (including the largest Ba'hai and animistic fellowships on any campus). We also offer superb need-based financial aid, which allows people from the ENTIRE spectrum of backgrounds to attend. With over 1,200 courses in everything from nuclear physics to an ROTC in the Swedish milita, you can set out on an unparalleled career path, and become a better world citizen.
Feel like challenging the norm? Want to be an achiever? Like being exposed to people different from you? This may be the college for you!! Just go online with your user name and password and request the booklet I've written, 87 things you need to know for your college search. Johnny, we can't wait to hear from you!
Fresh-faced high schooler: Boy oh boy, that sounds great! I think I'll apply there.
--Six months pass--
Suddenly purple-faced Director of Admission: All right, pencil-neck. The burden is on YOU to prove that you're qualified for this college. You'd sure better be able to encapsulate all your life's struggles, your greatest weaknesses, and what measley skills you can contribute to this college in a five hundred word essay, and throw together a bally good transcript, or by Jingo, this is the last you'll hear from us! Do I make myself clear? You may think you're a jolly good student. You might think your academic accomplishments have marked you for greatness. Yeah? Prove it! We don't have time for slackers!!
Fresh-faced high schooler: Um...I just wanted to play Sorry! in your 25,000 acre botanical garden...
Has anyone else been getting deluges of e-mails and letters from colleges? It can be rather amusing. ;-)
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2 comments:
Ha-ha! Colleges' responses certainly do differ. I know first-hand. The high-schooler who has just taken his PSAT's or SAT's is flooded with hundreds of college e-mails.
Once the student starts to apply to colleges, those certain colleges hound him at every moment. Or, rather, some do and some don't. The big state universities really couldn't care less--they'll get enough students one way or another. However, the smaller, and sometimes Christian schools will stalk you all the way to your hovel. They will send you personal postcards and thank you notes, thank you notes to your music teacher for his recommendation--they will call you up on the phone to remind you of every single thing . . . it is interesting to discover how all the different colleges see you as a person. At some places, the advertising and incessant "COME HERE!! IT'S THE BEST!" stops and you get no contact except for that which you start. But then again, like I mentioned above, some hound you all the more.
However, you hit the nail on the head in the "Sycophantic Director of Admissions" part.
hahahah!! lol! that's great. :D
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