This weekend I've spent an inordinate amount of time with high schoolers trying to get into college and I'm thanking my lucky stars (and my parents) for birthing me in the 80's when kids weren't so ambitious. I mean I've done the research, I've read about the Millennials and I've seen tinges of the professed generational personality in my own first wave peers, but WOW.... did I need to proctor SATs and give college interviews for my thesis...
On Saturday I participated in my Alma Mater's Interview Day, where alumni give applicants to the school informal interviews. I figure I don't have a lot of money to donate at this point in my life, but I have time, so that's how I give back. I mean they taught me some valuable skills at good ol' Wash U, like how to write well, so you all can read this well written blog. HAHA. Okay back to the point. The kids I interviewed (with the exception of one who was like most of the men I've gone on dates with in my recent dating life, AWKWARD) were fairly normal, which is surprising seeing as the guy assigning the interviews kept throwing the artsy kids at me, since I was the token artsy Wash U kid, as usual. Some of the other kids though! Wow! OVERACHIEVERS. Several interviewers were given multiple page resumes (I mean like 4 and 5 pagers). One kid had a perfect SAT score and was ranked first in his class of 300 and held a record in rubix cube solving. Others had done humanitarian work in Burma as sophomores in high school or ventured to Egypt to learn Arabic. When I was a sophomore in high school I was worried about the zit on my forehead and getting kissed as my new year's resolution. Oh, and another kid gave his interviewer not only a paper he'd written during a SUMMER program on the healthcare issue, BUT ALSO the first chapter to his novel. I'm sad to say that I don't know if myself or any other of my WashU friends would have gotten in today... How the times change.
Also, if nothing else my online dating life has come in handy. I used most of eharmony's profile questions as questions for my interviewees, such as what are three adjectives to describe yourself, what is one thing you wish people would notice about you, etc. I'm glad online dating has given me something, since it certainly hasn't resulted in a relationship or anything...
And lastly the best answer to a question I've heard in awhile:
Interviewer: If you could go to dinner with three people, dead or alive, who would they be?
Student: Ghandi, Lady Gaga and..... yes, definitely Jesus.
Amazing. Those darned Millennials will say the darnest things... Moral, followers of God and Gaga as they are...
So here I dedicate this post to all my WashU TWIMOers for paving the way for these overly zealous youth who will carry the torch of our Alma Mater into the future. I'm just sayin' that we better watch out, cause these kids might just surpass us on our way to greatness...
I know, right? My little bro is applying, and I have no idea how he is withstanding the pressure... - B.
ReplyDeleteI apologize if I have told you this story -- but waaaaay back when I was a Senior Interviewer at SLC -- (you know, back when it was easy to get into college) -- I had a day filled with wonder.
ReplyDeleteIt was a Saturday -- which makes it especially interesting. First off:
-- Young gentleman comes in who is an aspiring film maker. He tells me of his amazing idea for his high school senior project to film a 42-day trek through the Appalachian Trail with one buddy. (Only 42 days because he only had summer vacation to prepare and do the hike.) While on the hike he did not change his socks enough so he got gang-green and had to be airlifted out.
--Next that day: Young Woman walks in who used to be a WORLD CLASS Olympic-hopeful gymnast . . . until the day she slipped off a balance beam and almost broke her neck. Seriously. She had pictures of her in coma post-fall. So now she wants to major in business.
--Finally, if this wasn't all enough -- Young (lovely, sparkly) Woman comes in. She is from San Francisco and discusses how she has started a non-profit after school organization teaching low-income students to dance as it is something so important to her and helped her overcome her poverty and status as a first-generation American . . . So I ask her if she would continue HER dancing when she comes to Sarah Lawrence. She says, "Well no." BECAUSE -- just 9 months before she had been HIT BY A TROLLEY car in San Fran that had ripped her right leg from her body. She now has a prosthetic and is trying to compete in dance competitions for people with disabilities.
Yeah. So no perfect SATs... but these kids are trying. And that was 6 years ago.