<p>Some schools like Carnegie and Princeton ask me to list the books I have read and its significance to me. However, I don’t read books for pleasure or at all besides what the school requires me to. What should I write and how will this affect my overall application?</p>
<p>It means you’re not suited for those schools.</p>
<p>I disagree with that because there are more forms of gaining knowledge from besides books. Ted Talks, for example, are equally as educational.</p>
<p>Take a look at how long a TED Talk is in written form. Compare it to a book. The book wins every time.</p>
<p>A TED Talk is like the Cliff’s Notes version of Cliff Notes. It should pique your interest to learn more, and that usually means tracking down the author’s book, not make you think you know everything the author has written on that particular subject.</p>
<p>Didja notice that PTon and CMU didn’t ask for a list of TED talks and their significance?</p>
<p>Undoubtedly there are non-book forms of gaining knowledge. The absence of reading actual books beyond what is required is the exact item that these schools are searching for. Unfortunately for you.</p>
<p>“Fit” for a college means more than having the expected gpa and test scores; it extends to what you as an individual will bring to the campus intellectually. Schools that ask about books are seeking readers…they are looking for ocean depth, not baby wading pool.</p>
<p>You might do better applying to colleges with similar academic profiles that are more of a good personal match for you.</p>
<p>Looking at previous threads, OP has a 2140 SAT score, 750 Math II and a pretty good GPA. Are you all suggesting that he DOESN’T apply to top-tier colleges simply because he doesn’t read books?</p>
<p>I may not agree with him in that books can be substituted with other media, but I don’t think that he has to be so drastic that he shouldn’t even apply to the schools he wants to go to. And who knows? Maybe he just hasn’t picked up anything he likes yet… that could completely change in the next two years. Deciding where to apply based on one potentially-temporary thing like this seems a little absurd to me.</p>
<p>And while schools do look for fit, I highly doubt that every single person at CMU reads for pleasure. It’s like assuming everyone who goes to UMich loves/plays/watches football, and if they don’t, they shouldn’t apply there.</p>
<p>(Just the opinion of a high school senior)</p>
<p>There are plenty of top schools that don’t ask about which books you read. Apply to those.</p>
<p>Why can’t you talk about the books you did read for school. Is there some reason why those are off limits?</p>
<p>These lists usually aren’t a contest of quantity - it’s not expected or even preferred for students to completely fill out the box asking you to list your favorite books. If only even one or two books stood out to you when you read them for school, you can list those and go in depth about why you liked them. It’s not a contest of “who’s read the most books for fun” but rather “what can we learn about this individual from the books that he reads”.</p>
<p>Well, surely you must have read a book at some point in your life. Nonfiction books? Novels? Assigned reading from school? You might have to make up the significance part, if you can’t think of one or two books that had significance to you. </p>
<p>But if the school is asking a question about books you read (meaning they consider this to be a valuable insight into the student) and you don’t read, then maybe the school isn’t the best fit for you.</p>
<p>@MYOS1634, dude, that is just completely wrong. Just because you don’t read a lot does not mean you are not suited for an ivy. Yes, you should have the ability to read and exercise it, but you are not required to.</p>
<p>Some schools, like Caltech or Columbia, ask you to list the books you have read recently(Columbia) or to explain why three books were meaningful to you(Caltech). Others, like Princeton, ask you a question you have to answer in <20 words, “What’s your favourite book”, or something similar.</p>
<p>Simply put, if you need a quick advice: Don’t apply to schools like Caltech and Columbia, but apply to schools like Princeton. If you’ve never read, you could still read a book until the deadline and honestly answer Princeton’s question. Ask people who know you well to recommend you some books. But, since you’re an inexperienced reader, I don’t believe you could write a convicing and mature piece of writing for Caltech/Columbia/schools with similar prompts. Still, if your stats are stellar and your Common App essay is very strong, you could apply to them as well.</p>
<p>They might want to know how keen of a [self-]learner you are, especially if you’re going to highlight your field of interest, …do you go above and beyond to seek additional information regarding your subject of interests. </p>
<p>Information is priceless, books much so. Being self-driven has a lot to do with these schools & ‘doing your homework’ with regards to what you’re passionate about. One way to determine your interests/passions is asking what you read(chances are if you’re not esoteric abt reading thy might outright reject you). </p>
<p>PS. The man who does not read has no advantage over the illiterate; they’re basically of same stature in life.</p>
<p>I bsed mine for CMU. </p>
<p>Honestly it’s not your fault, I loved reading before I got to middle school, then the **** public education killed any interest.</p>
<p>Been more inclined to reading since I got to college though. As long as you’re not one of those idiots who is proud of the fact that you don’t read, it’s all good.</p>
<p>I meant that if you don’t like to read and the college asks you about what you read for pleasure, the college is a bad fit. You can find elite college that don’t require you to answer that question.
However, you must be prepared: mandatory reading, in high school, is fairly limited. In college, your first semester, you may have to read 400 pages - almost two short books - a week, every week, plus 5 for each final paper. That means, reading, highlighting, outlining, annotating, and being able to discuss coherently all those pages. I assume you don’t intend to be a Humanities major so it won’t be more than that, but since in high school reading speed and ability often correlates with reading outside of class, you should probably find a book - any type you like: sci fi, non fiction… - and start reading every day.</p>
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<p>No, but not all “top-tier” colleges are the same. With a 2140 score, it’s unlikely that the OP has super high scores in both CR and M. Last year only a quarter of incoming students at Princeton had a CR score of 700 or below. A quarter, however, had a score of 790 or higher. That will be the OP’s competition. These kids can easily be assigned hundreds of pages of reading a week. If he doesn’t like to read, he’s going to be in trouble. He should not ignore the signals the colleges put out through their application requirements, and he should know himself.</p>
<p>“Information is priceless, books much so. Being self-driven has a lot to do with these schools & ‘doing your homework’ with regards to what you’re passionate about. One way to determine your interests/passions is asking what you read(chances are if you’re not esoteric abt reading thy might outright reject you).”</p>
<p>Except with nowadays there is something on the internet called khan academy that can teach in less than half the time a book would teach us.</p>
<p>(I got high scores on CR and writing and I don’t really read anything I’m not assigned for school. I feel bad about this…I used to read all the time when I was little, but children’s books are easier to read than the classics or whatever I ought to be reading now.)</p>
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<p>Khan Academy misses a lot because each video would have to be like an hour long if he didn’t. It’s a good resource, but you can’t rely too much on videos because after a certain point there aren’t any videos. (There are like thirty gazillion calculus videos online, but there are fewer for linear algebra and differential equations, and for higher-level stuff there’s hardly anything at all.)</p>
<p>“Except with nowadays there is something on the internet called khan academy that can teach in less than half the time a book would teach us.”</p>
<p>The statement above both saddens me and scares me.</p>
<p>I have been using the internet since 1992, worked at the western Ivy League during the years they were developing and using the browsers that went mainstream, and I recall being so excited to see the new world wide web and the Library of Congress’ page letting me know it was about to be available. As a PoliSci/EnglishLit/Linguistics major who had spent so many hours in the library researching and using the paper versions of everything that is now available online in databases, I saw this great thing called the world wide web as my opportunity to do all of that research from home. Never once did I think “oh good, now somebody else who is already educated can just condense what they know and share that with me in the easiest, quickest way so I don’t have to suffer through getting educated myself.” Sure, I was never a student who used Cliff Notes either, and have always wanted to learn things myself along with having access to teachers who know their subject and could share their insight and wisdom. So maybe I am just from another planet, but I saw the internet as opening the doors to helping people educate themselves, not just feed off some derivative form of knowledge. I always saw being uneducated, and the inability to educate oneself, as the surest path to being easily propagandized.</p>
<p>So I read that statement above extolling the virtues of Khan Academy, and consider the general desire of young people these days to use the internet not to educate themselves more fully, but to short-change (and unknowingly, due to their lack of real education) their education by seeking the most superficial, easiest way to grasp a basic knowledge of subjects. On occasion, I score college essays and 95% of what I read is of no value, because the college students have all utilized the internet to cut and paste and plagiarize Wikipedia or other even less authoritative sites. Sometimes, the plagiarism is just so pathetic - the students don’t even know how to plagiarize with any skill and finesse - and, I admit, I just have to laugh when many of them plagiarize some text that is full of errors to begin with. Then I take a moment to consider the fact that a whole generation of students may not know what real education is because they only experience a derivative one. Knowing how to cut and paste is useful, but it is not a sign of being well-educated, and to be well-educated with the ability to self-educate is the definition of freedom.</p>
<p>Khan Academy is useful (though my three homeschooled teens cannot take listening to Mr Khan’s voice for too long), but it took someone very well-educated, as Mr Khan is, to have the mind to tutor his niece in the first place, and then to turn those tutoring sessions into the website we know. What will people who only know how to click to Khan Academy, and watch those short sessions, be able to create?</p>
<p>We utilize online courses in our homeschool, and I can assure you that even the best online course is no substitute for an old-fashioned text book, with good ole binder paper and pencil, and a teacher who can explain and demonstrate concepts. I am constantly having to supplement my kids’ courses with my own high school and college education, and teach them the concepts behind all of the summaries offered in online classes. I am even having to teach them Chinese - and while I took five languages, I never took Chinese - but the online course is insufficient because it does not offer what a good foreign language teacher, or any teacher for that matter, would offer - wisdom, and perspective, and an understanding of the bigger picture. My college education, which included so many languages, gave me a basis to teach a language I have never even learned myself. That is called education.</p>
<p>Khan Academy is a tool to be used to supplement, and should never be the sole source of anyone’s education. I think Mr Khan would agree. The internet can be a great resource, if you are picky about what resources you find valuable (my one regret is how cluttered the internet has become with so much worthless junk.)</p>
<p>As far as reading books, in this day and age, because of the internet, there is no excuse for not reading books. Gutenberg.org and Google Books give you free access to every single book that has stood the test of time and, once read, would give you the start to an Ivy League education for free, really. I don’t think students have to have read every great book before they head off to college - after all, the purpose of a great university education is to inform one’s mind by reading the canons of literature, science, philosophy, history, etc. I hate to say it, but my public high school, even though I was in college prep, gave short shrift to Shakespeare - I did not really read and study his works until I was in college, along with so many others of the western canon. But if you don’t want to read great books out of desire to become well-educated, why in the world would you want to go to Princeton? Choose a vocational school and get some skills so you can get a job. Don’t waste your time and money pursuing a liberal arts education. </p>
<p>And please, with all of the advantages that the internet gives you these days, don’t be someone who is satisfied to just open their minds and let someone else dump in the input (including what they want and not including what they don’t want), and you just let it sit there without any critical analysis. You will be the propagandist’s favorite student, and you will find yourself uneducated, and a slave to ignorance, even if you do manage to get into Princeton.</p>