"College applicants get creative to a fault" fine line between gimmick & creativity

[Hunt]

<p>I would suggest that if you are thinking about a “gimmick” submission, run it by a couple of level-headed adults who are not members of your immediate family. Ask them for their honest opinion: would getting this annoy you or impress you? Listen to their advice–and even if they say go ahead, think long and hard before you do it.
I certainly wouldn’t send homemade food. I can’t imagine that anybody would dare to eat it.</p>

[Papa_Chicken]

<p>“Admissions Ploys That Backfire”
<a href=“http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CEEDB153BF937A35752C1A966958260[/url]”>http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CEEDB153BF937A35752C1A966958260&lt;/a&gt;
…by Jacques Steinberg who wrote that great book a few years back on inside Wesleyan admissions.</p>

<p>

AN EAGER applicant to Harvard University once deluged the school with letters of recommendation from virtually everyone he knew, including his orthodontist, who described the work he did on the applicant’s teeth and the brightness of the applicant’s new smile. </p>

<p>A recent applicant to Stanford University sent a cassette on which he performed his rendition of the hit song “Don’t Worry, Be Happy,” which he had rewritten as, “Don’t Reject Me, Please Accept Me.” </p>

<p>Seeking to demonstrate her lifelong commitment to excellence, an applicant to Dartmouth College mailed the admissions office a box filled with every trophy, ribbon and award she had garnered since first grade. </p>

<p>All these students were playing the college admissions game at highly selective schools. All of them lost, as have unnumbered other would-be freshmen who made picaresque attempts to stand out from the crowd. </p>

<p>But that has not stopped a small percentage of high school seniors from opting for outrageous gimmicks each year. Even now, college admissions officers are preparing for the onslaught of gifts and blandishments, warning all the while that a bid to be different could backfire. </p>

<p>William Fitzsimmons, dean of admissions and financial aid at Harvard, said that letter campaigns and other excessive strategies “can call into question” students’ judgment and may diminish their chances of admission. </p>

<p>Mr. Fitzsimmons charitably noted that these strategies, which have included showering the admissions office with flowers or home-made cookies, are most often viewed as a response to the pressures of the process. “We have to remember that these are young people and they may be under the influence of their parents,” he said. </p>

<p>That doesn’t make applicants’ antics welcome, however. Jonathan Reider, associate director of admissions at Stanford, said his office “actively tells people” not to send videotapes, since the office doesn’t have a videocassette recorder. Baked goods are bypassed by admissions officers until after the admissions process is completed, he warned. </p>

<p>"Usually we’re wondering, ‘Why are they doing this?’ or ‘Why are they not trusting us to find their positive qualities?’ " he said. </p>

<p>Unless a submission is “really academically germane to a particular department,” Mr. Reider advises students to concentrate instead on their essay writing – a standard element on application forms – where they can demonstrate a sense of humor or of their own individuality.

</p>

[gouchicago]

<p>

A recent applicant to Stanford University sent a cassette on which he performed his rendition of the hit song “Don’t Worry, Be Happy,” which he had rewritten as, “Don’t Reject Me, Please Accept Me.”

</p>

<p>I almost fell off my chair when I read this.</p>

[Honestea]

<p>You would think it would be common sense?</p>

[TheGFG]

<p>The fact that students resort to these things highlights the perceived capriciousness of the admissions process.</p>

<p>I recently read an editorial written by a high school senior who had just been rejected by her ED school. She discussed the lack of transparency in the whole process. Everyone knows that certain things like GPA, SAT scores, and EC’s matter, but no one is absolutely sure how much or to what degree or what specifically a college is looking for. For ex., the application asks for the occupation of your parents, but you don’t know if it’s better for you if your dad is a lawyer or a plumber. You know they have this or that team or club, but have no way of knowing if the school is looking for an oboe player this year or a bassoon player, a goalie or a fullback, an editor or a poet. Since those kinds of things are a big unknown, kids try to find a bizarre way to distinguish themselves as creative and interesting.</p>

[StickerShock]

<p>Very good post, GFG. Up until college application time, kids are usually given fairly straight & understandable expectations. Grading rubrics, course syllabus, conditioning requirements for sports, repertoire/skill benchmarks for the arts. Then --BAMM – it’s a big mystery.</p>

[dag89]

<p>Interesting Article:</p>

<p><a href=“Page Not Found”>Page Not Found;

[BunsenBurner]

<p>dag89, thanks for the link! I enjoyed the article. I truly do not envy the adcoms who have to deal with piles of odd-shaped and just plain odd stuff!</p>

[ager08]

<p>I think a gimmick that shows intelligence and creative thought can work occasionally. For instance, Vassar has a part of their application called “Your Space” which is a piece of paper that you can use for anything you want, including non-paper items. When I visited their campus, the director of admissions told us that last year, they got two Your Spaces that stood out in his mind. One was a girl who was into the environment and playing the flute. She built a green flute that had flowers coming out the end. The other was a guy who cut out the middle of the “Your Space” page and wrote, “You said this was my space, so I’m keeping it.” The flute girl got rejected, but the guy got in.</p>

[DanAdmiss_Tufts]

<p>GFG - completely correct. The lack of perceived transparency leads applicants to do and say a lot of things. </p>

<p>The challenge that we have in articulating the extent to which each of those things matter is that each is a moving target. There are some applicants where the EX get them in, and others where they have no effect (extreme examples). So when we are asked, “How much does [insert criteria here] count?” - it’s hard to answer that in a satisfying way. </p>

<p>I’m going to steal from Libby Pearson over on the UChicago boards:

There is never a concrete answer as to how much each portion is “weighted.” If there’s some telling detail in the teacher recommendation, then suddenly that becomes the most important document, and weighs 55 pounds. If there is a beautiful argument in the essay, then suddenly that becomes the most important document, and weighs 61 pounds. Reading an application is like reading a short story. Page 7 does not mean more than Page 3.

</p>

<p>I hope she doesn’t mind; it’s an homage to her great explanation. </p>

<p>So I get why applicants things the ‘gimmicks’ might help: and sometimes they do. But the ones that end up mattering are the ones that deepen our understanding of the person behind them; that usually comes from a synergy with what we read in the rest of the application. I’ll give a quick example from this year’s ED pool. One of our optional essay prompts is, “Use an 8.5 x 11 inch sheet of paper to create something. You can blueprint your future home, create a new product, design a costume or a theatrical set, compose a score or do something entirely different. Let your imagination wander.” That’s a hard question to answer in a way that isn’t gimmicky, and that’s ok. I had an applicant draw a comic version of the inside of her head. I loved it! She had characters from Where The Wild Things Are and other referential characters tromping around inside her head, looking through her eyes, doing all sorts of things. So when her teacher rec mentioned the things she reads for fun, I was able to use each piece as a reference point for the other. There’s nothing wrong with being gimmicky, so long you aren’t doing gimmicks for gimmicks’ sake. </p>

<p>As applicants, you don’t always see the harmony or dissonance in your applications that can form the crux of a decision. This, too, contributes to the lack of understanding and a perceived lack of transparency in the process.</p>

[catsushi]

<p>For my top choice school, I decided to send something special. After I had sent in everything required for my application, I created a comic that detailed why I was a good choice for that school and why I wanted to go to that school. I didn’t think it was a desperate gimmick, just something that revealed my enthusiasm for going to that school and my passion for drawing comics. I hope they see it that way, too.</p>

<p>I showed the comic to my friends and family, and they really liked it. So I’m crossing my fingers and hoping that everything went well. :)</p>

<p>I once asked a Brown admissions officer about what was the most annoying essay he had ever received. He said that one was written on a piece of wood painted blue, so he could hardly read what was written. Another he thought was annoying was an essay written in a spiral. Given that admissions officers try to spend about 10 minutes on each application and reading those essays late at night takes a long time, I can imagine that they’ll be quite annoyed to be forced to read one of those.</p>

<p>Somebody told me that Ivy League colleges love essays written on cute/nice stationary paper…is that really true? I didn’t think that Hello Kitty paper would help students be admitted into Harvard.</p>