Me three on Texas A&M. General admission was grumpy and discouraging. Engineering session dispiriting as well.
Duke reception was snotty and tried to turn us away because there were two kids. And I had registered them both in advance.
UT-Austin biomedical engineering session led by a very bitter grad student. Wow was he a piece of work.
Macalester had a former student turned admissions staffer give a really weird session. During a packed house event. We walked out after awhile not believing that the school would allow someone to be in front of so many people representing the institution. He made jokes (but with deadpan creepy delivery) about not shaving and how the school wasn’t so bad because at least he had a job with a suit.
Bowdoin admissions made a vaguely racist joke about how applying ED wouldn’t affect aid because “we aren’t rug merchants”.
We’ve seen about 30 schools so I am not in general a malcontent as the above postings might otherwise indicate.
@treschicos , maybe it’s been a long day, but I don’t get the rug merchant joke, with or without vague racism. What?
Meaning they would not be deceitful or “tricky” like a rug merchant (her analogy, not mine) by luring you to apply ED and the not providing as much aid as they might if you were not locked in. It was pretty shocking to me to hear her say that.
@treschicos, oh, I guess like using “used car salesman” as a type. Tbh, I’m not offended. I think the racist elements, if present at all, are at least 5 degrees of separation from the comment.
Rug merchant is considered an ethnic slur against people of Middle Eastern origin, and refers to the haggling over price that can occur in bazaars.
http://www.eurekaencyclopedia.com/index.php/Category:Racial_Slang
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Rug%20Merchant (definition 2)
^^^Yes to definition #1. That is what was conveyed and the words used. My point is that in a presentation, especially if you are professional staff (not a student), you should be mindful of your language. I ran it past a friend of Middle Eastern origin afterwards they confirmed my impression (actually gasped when I used the phrase). “Ethnic slur” is a more precise fit perhaps.
I am sure she was not referring to definition #2!
@treschicos I think that there is some confusion about my second link. One should read the second definition in that link; you have to scroll down to see it. Obviously, the first definition in my second link is not fitting!
^^ well, I guess I’ve led a sheltered life. I know of the business model of haggling to enable “price discovery,” and that it exists in rug sales/purchases (as it does, btw, in antiques, cars, real estate, etc), but I never considered it an ethnic slur. I am unconvinced that it was the intention to denigrate an ethnic group that is associated with a particular profession, as much as it was to differentiate the business models used in setting FA versus rug sales.
Should I be concerned that mentioning my pet peeve of “grocer’s apostrophe” will make people think I’m racist because in our area a good number of local grocery shops are Korean owned? That’s what I mean by degrees of separation; for me, it’s a slur only if you are looking for one. I prefer to take things more at face value, unless there are other indications of bias that make the statements suspect.
I think it’s akin to saying “jewed down” in a price negotiation though it is somewhat less explicitly stated, I have a clear picture in my mind of who a rug merchant is and what ethnicity he would be.
[deleted by IxnayBob in the interest of civil discourse]
@OHMomof2 wrote: “… it’s akin to saying ‘jewed down’ in a price negotiation…”
You are braver than me. My mom used that phrase often, and even as a little kid, I knew that it was somehow not right. Now, it’s absolutely cringeworthy, and I couldn’t write it here. She also said “oriental” often, which now evokes the same reaction.
Is there a list somewhere of words or phrases (apart from the obvious ones, of course) that are unacceptable? Who makes up this list?
Seems off topic for the thread…
Worst–Cornell, hands down. We were packed into a cramped classroom with benches in front of desks which we had to slide down to squeeze everyone in. Admissions rep sat on the desk in front, swinging her legs and sort of mumbling, as if she couldn’t wait to go out. Tour goes by all seven colleges without ever going in a building. Since any one student is not applying to more than one of them, six sevenths of the tour was a waste of time. Did not see dorms, libraries, or pretty much anything else. Just–that’s the hotel school, that’s the engineering school, etc. etc.
We toured other large universities with separate schools, and nowhere else did they seem that that’s what you needed to see. S hated every bit of it.
I agree and I apologize for doing that.
But I suspect a lot of people feel the same way about the other term I was comparing it to.
On topic - I agree, a racist phrase in an admissions presentation (or tour) would be difficult to overlook.
re #75: Did they somehow fail to inform you that they have separate information sessions for each of the colleges, conducted inside a building of the respective college? And additionally they have a separate dorm tour?
Because all this information was offered to me each time I took the tour. (3 kids, + friend of kid was tour guide, =4 at least).
It’s a big campus. If they did everything you wanted in one tour it would take all day.
Then people would complain about that.
This was over ten years ago and I guess yes, they failed–because it was all that was offered. We were told there weren’t dorm tours. Why wouldn’t anyone want a tour of the outside of seven colleges if there was a more focused one offered for a particular school? I toured UM twice, as a comparison, which is a bigger university, but they did not seem it necessary to walk by all the different schools. Instead, we saw, as I recall–the library, a dorm, several classroom buildings, the student center, the Diag, etc. We got a feel for the University.
that’s very odd, because ten years ago all those other options were available.