Useless complaining...

[evilhippo]

Well, I somehow survived. Paper turned in on time (though my TA hasn't e-mailed me back about how to get comments). I got my portfolio in exactly ten seconds late, but I was the only one who noticed that, so it doesn't matter. Of course, I'm not entirely happy with it, but... not really anything I can do about it now. And goshdarnit, I worked on it for 18 hours, so... whatever. Most of the prints were okay, so I'll just live with it. I wish it hadn't been so rushed, but everything's been rushed the past three days or so. It's scary that I feel like it's relaxing that I've got six pages plus corrections on seven more due by tomorrow night (technically, Thursday afternoon, but my mom's coming to visit and she gets here Thursday morning. I refuse to ditch her for poetry).

My current random annoyance, though? (Aside from my horrible lack of sleep.) It seems the UofC has gone and actually switched over to accepting the common application. Which wouldn't be an all-out sell-out move if our application wasn't pointedly called "The Uncommon Application". So, unless we're judging applicants on whether, in a choice between Common and Uncommon, they pick the right one, that's just plain silly and hypocritical. Oh, and stupid. This year I feel like all of a sudden the UofC's decided to start trying to be like the Ivies or something. But the point is that we're different, in an obscure way. The point of the Uncommon Application wasn't the essay questions, which the administration says we're keeping as a supplement to the Common App. Those were important, but it's what the Uncommon App stands for. Other schools have unusual essay questions, let's face it guys. I'm sure, at the least, Reed does. And though they're on the Common App, they've already got self-selecting down pat since they refuse the ratings. Come on, UofC. You move up a few spots because you can't do your taxes right and suddenly you get greedy and want more?

Needless to say, lots of students are in an uproar. There was even a well-attended protest. I mean, seriously, one of the excuses the admin is giving us is that the common app will make it easier for low-income people to apply. ... Because it's paperwork standing in their way, not the fact that we're one of the most expensive universities in the country.

Oh, and last I saw in the press release, there was a grammatical error. What is this place coming to? It abuses me for four years, and now it's trying to change its image to attract lazy front-running applicants (probably so they can reject them and decrease our acceptance rate which, at 30-some percent last I checked (four years ago), looks like we're easy. Until you do your homework and see our average scores). Sigh. For seriously, UofC, now is not the time for an identity crisis. I'm going to be stuck with the reputation you develop for the rest of my life.

Comments

[linen.livejournal.com]

*petpet* Millsaps accepts common app, but they have a supplimentary application, and then a second application + interview + essay for scholarhips applicants.

I looked at UofC, actually, because I was attracted to their silly essay questions and the idea of an "uncommon" app, but... alas, Mom wouldn't let me go that far from home and, alas, apply to somewhere that expensive. )': Millsaps is about the limit of our "spending limit" on college, I think. XD

[evilhippo.livejournal.com]

It's not so much that it's the common app (I think there's only one other school, at least at our tier, that doesn't take it now), but that it's yet another switch to more conventional things here, which is really getting to the point where it's clear the administration is trying to buck the "quirky" reputation we have. Which just... it's just stupid. Without that, this school is a dry ridiculously academic wasteland. There's just no reason, considering the sort of students we're supposed to attract, to make a switch to something simpler (the argument for "less intimidating" is completely bogus. If people are intimidated by the application, they'll never survive here anyway.) The only reason to go back on the "Uncommon" thing is to gain more in the rankings (thus attracting more of the Ivy rejects (i.e. people who tend to go to college for the name) the student body has a fun time despising, but who are probably less stingy when it comes to donations/paying full price).

You know, I really wish I could explain exactly why this is such a gigantic moral problem, because from outside the school it must look utterly insane. (-;

And goshdarn the "too far away" rule. If it hadn't been for that, I'd have tried to go someplace warmer. (Actually, I would've tried, but unless Stanford or Reed accepted me, I'd still be here. (-;)

[linen.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it really is a shame. >: I just know that my friends and I had a good time working on apps for UofC, because they fit the kind of people we were... and knowing that "us" kinds of people end up there is comforting, even if I'm not one of them. It's depressing to see schools make a change from something like that. Millsaps is actually trying to find ways to attract new students without changing TOO much -- all of our adds emphasizing that this is a very academically-oriented school, but we can be good at other things too (though not with any sort of regularity) and I know how pissed I'd be if they started to try and dumb that side of them down to simply get more rich kids (not that there aren't a lot already...).

Actually, you know, it kind of makes me think about MSMS. In the years since I graduated, the school has really changed it's image to try and get more people applying, but all it's done is make the school itself a skeleton of it's former glory. I remember the quirky, awesome people I went to school with, see my sister's current classmates and just wonder what happened. Changing for higher application numbers did nothing but allow for more "dumb" people to get in, ruining the overall quality of the school. It's also the reason us alumni are so violently oppposed to tuition fees to the school; it's just going to become another elite private school, no longer a place where ANY smart kid can go for a GOOD education and a UNIQUE experience... That's still up in the legislature, and as MS quickly proves its failures at managing education, it only becomes more likely...

It just makes me so terribly sad. I loved that school with all my heart, and seeing this kind of thing... Makes me want to go up there and smack some people until everyone understands just what it is they're messing up.



So, er, yes, I can totally relate.

[linen.livejournal.com]

Also, let's see if I can stick another "it's" in there in the spirit of bad gram. 8D

[linen.livejournal.com]

Or, maybe I'm not done yet. *cough*

"from outside the school it must look utterly insane"


Maybe that's why the legislators don't understand why we're fighting so hard to keep the school the way it was when it was founded. They didn't go to school there, haven't sent their kids there, and they just don't get it. They don't understand how much it meant to kids like me -- I came from a TERRIBLE public school system where I was another kid to make their test scores go up and nothing more. I didn't matter to my teachers (except a select awesome few) beyond being the smart kid. I was weird and different, but smart so it would work out. MSMS really gave me a chance to be me.

.____. It pains me to think about the kids that are going to lose that sort of opprotunity due to stupid, stupid, stupid higher-ups. It also emphasizes that as much as I hate the "just go somewhere else" strategy, I will not raise my kids in a state where special education of my kind is ignored.

[evilhippo.livejournal.com]

::sigh:: It's so depressing that this sort of thing is happening other places, too. I've got this terrible fear that, if I ever come back here, I'll find it full of disturbing preppy kids. The Reynold's club will be a place where people actually hang out (rather than the all-night study space in the library). The Shoreland's already going to belong to someone else two years from now, that's bad enough. (They're turning the first six floors into a parking deck. A PARKING DECK! How utterly disgusting is that? The view I have of the lake right now? It will belong to a CAR in a few years. Freaking depressing.)

And at the same time... I went to a public high school, and though it can't go about reinventing itself in order to get tuition, it's really looking like a skeleton of itself lately, too (from what I've seen of it through my sister). Her classmates are just... nothing like the people I went to school with. Whatever happened with the five years of people going through while I was there has just kind of gradually disappeared. I'm starting to get worried that this sort of thing is happening everywhere. Which means I'll never be able to adapt to the "real" world. Never.