Chances? Should I go early?

ivyalumni
Sat, 23 Sep 2006 20:35:14 +0000

Look I have nothing against passion. As I said, even the effort of applying to one of these elite colleges requires dedication and, yes, passion. And among those applicants are thousands of outstanding people driven by, yes, passion to one or more things.

But try to think of what it is like to read thousands of applications of people who inform you about their “passion”. Very few concepts are really “standard” and being “standard” is not what you want to be anyway! Good luck everyone: be passionate but be cool. Using cliche terms like passion can make someone sound a bit earnest and desperate. A cool candidate needs the college less than the college needs her or him.

My favorite line when I write a letter of recommendation is “you would be lucky to have this candidate.”