<p>keeping in mind that it will read by an adult. That’s what I meant. </p>
<p>I’ve got a copy of the letter I wrote my real freshman roomie and it’s utterly stupid. </p>
<p>I think students should always show their essays to an adult–preferably somebody who isn’t a member of the family–for a tone check. This is particularly important if the essay is intended to be humorous.</p>
<p>I liked your comment that the letter you wrote to your actual freshman roommate was “utterly stupid,” lookingforward. In the midst of all the student angst about writing essays, it’s refreshing to see a comment like this. I, too, have “utterly stupid” pieces of writing, many that were application essays for colleges, grad schools, special programs, scholarships, and fellowships . . . and in quite a few cases, I got in/won despite them! My hat is off to any high school student who can produce a genuinely good essay.</p>
<p>My mother just sent me a short story I wrote in high school, and that was published in the high school literary magazine. Holey Moley! I’d hate to see what my college essays looked like, because I didn’t have anybody to review them.</p>
<p>I’d like to revisit a comment I made that is ambivalent. While I maintain that the roommate essay should be an easy essay to write because of its nature, it would be a mistake to think that it does not deserve a series of edits and rewrites. It represents an opportunity that should not be wasted, and one should remember it does serve to send a message. In the end, the questions … why did I write THIS and what did I accomplish with this essay … should still be answered. </p>
<p>A very short essay is much harder to write than a lengthy expository one, Driving home a point is much harder to develop in fewer words. But there should be a point to the essay!</p>
<p>There are very good reasons why Stanford has not changed this prompt for a long time. It was not an afterthought for Stanford when it designed the prompt, and neither should it be for a Stanford applicant. </p>
<p>@WasatchWriter that’s good news! I’m hoping for similar results :)</p>
<p>Oh crap, I also have the essay I wrote for the college I did attend. I was a good academic writer but these sorts of challenges were - and still are- foreign to kids. I think smart kids should be willing to ask for help. </p>
<p>For supplemental essays, would it be better to have a more aggressive, determined, “in your face” attitude like the kind you’d have while trying to win an argument?</p>
<p>Also what is a “grinder”? It’s a term that, since I joined CC, I’ve only seen on this thread,</p>
<p>
Probably not. When somebody shows that attitude when arguing with you, do you like them better?</p>
<p>@Hunt
No; I wouldn’t. I suppose it would come off as strongly entitled/desperate.</p>
<p>Remember that the purpose of your essay is to cause the reader to say, “Hey, I really like this kid. I think he’d be a great, contributing member of the class here.”</p>
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<p>I attended an information session at Northwestern earlier this year (one of the deparment tours) where the presenter said don’t do an interview because adcoms are highly discounting the feedback.</p>
<p>Apparently, the applicants are never measuring upto the grumpy old alums’ standards. The alums did everything the hard way when they went to school like climbing both ways to go to school and leave school and these young weaklings would never be able to meet that standard. :D</p>
<p>All you need to impress an alum like that is a firm handshake.</p>
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<p>It is a pejorative term used to describe students who earn high grades by extensive work and typically accumulate honors of questionable value. The extensive work is not the issue but the term intimates that the grades are a mere result of that work and not from brilliance. Fwiw, it is often used to describe high scoring Asians who cannot separate themselves from the pack and used in tandem with other expressions such as Stepford children, robotic gradegrubbers, mindless or soulless. </p>
<p>By the way, that is also a term often used by Tiger Woods after completing a hard round where he had to survive hard conditions or simply did not play to his standards. </p>
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<p>Can they go with a fist bump instead? :p</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-oped-fist-bumps-handshake-sanitary-zorn-0730-jm-20140730-column.html”>Chicago News - Chicago Tribune - Chicago Tribune;
<p>^^</p>
<p>Nope, you need to know that "secret: handshake!</p>
<p>You know, I’m only sort of kidding when I mention the firm handshake. If your kid–and especially if it is a boy–is going to have an alumni interview–especially if it is with a man who is over 40–it really does pay to be sure that your kid knows how to offer and give a firm “business” handshake. Some kids actually don’t know how to do this. If people in your culture don’t shake hands, get somebody else to show your kid how to do it.</p>
<p>intimates that the grades are a mere result of that work and not from brilliance. Ya know, brilliance without achievement is just potential. </p>
<p>Given the advice not to interview because someone thinks something is wrong, I’d send my kid to the interview. Rather have adcoms discount it (if that’s so,) than be looking for the notes and learn my kid declined.</p>
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<p>I didn’t write to my future roommates, but one of the others wrote to all of us. (Forty years ago this week, as it happens.) It was utterly stupid, so much so that I can still remember the first paragraph verbatim:</p>
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<p>If something like this would scotch your chances at Stanford, I think that’s rather a plus for Stanford. On the other hand, the guy in question, while falling short so far of his oft-expressed ambition to win a Nobel Prize, is an MD/PhD department chair at a world-class academic hospital. Not too shabby. Maybe being a little smug and overbearing at 18 shouldn’t disqualify you for admission.</p>