Interesting Interview

Colleges & Universities Duke University
1

<p>This is an interview of Christoph Guttentag (Director of Admissions for Duke) by some Atlanta journal. It’s kind of interesting (but not by any means mind blowing).</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/custom/blogs/education/entries/2005/01/11/not_a_referendum_on_parenting.html[/url]”>http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/custom/blogs/education/entries/2005/01/11/not_a_referendum_on_parenting.html&lt;/a&gt; (if you click on that, it should work; if your browser won’t let you, copy and paste this as the URL after “<a href=“http://www.ajc.com%22:”>www.ajc.com”:</a> /metro/content/custom/blogs/education/entries/2005/01/11/not<em>a</em>referendum<em>on</em>parenting.html)</p>

2

<p>boooooring. who’s the loser now?</p>

<p>i’m so mean.</p>

<p>:)</p>

3

<p>Oh, I’m sorry, I failed to recognize that SOME of the people at this board can’t appreciate grown-up writing. Maybe if we make it into a fun story, little r2005 will be able to learn something.</p>

<p>One man, Chris, is in charge of letting little boys and girls into a big school for big kids! Not all the kids can get in, and the kids that don’t are very sad. So, Chris gives some information about how he decides whether to invite Little Johnny or Little Suzie to the big school! He knows they’re both special; we’re all special in our own way! He said he looks at how hard they work on spelling quizzes and whether or not they wash their hands after they tinkle. Does one talk back to their mommy? Uh oh…</p>

<p>Tell me if you need more info so I can break it down for you.</p>

4

<p>i needed it further broken down for me, ay_caramba. all this “big kid” talk worries me. </p>

<p>could you make it a bit more fun? please?</p>

<p>you know… instead of going pre-med, how about a career in children’s journalism? </p>

<p>har har.</p>

5

<p>Children’s journalism… sounds like a booming field… after all, what child DOESN’T want to learn about college admissions and other boring things they can’t really grasp anyways, I mean COME ON.</p>

6

<p>Oh, but you can write about so much more than that!</p>

<p>(i.e. spelling quizzes, innate “specialness,” and the art of cleansing after tinkling).</p>

<p>It’ll be a best seller, I promise.</p>

7

<p>It almost seems as though you’re not-so-secretly hoping I do take up this venture… Does somebody need a little help with their bathroom etiquette? Christoph Guttentag may be interested in hearing this… he is not so forgiving if he finds out that someone frequently runs out of the bathroom without “cleansing” first.</p>

8

<p>Well anyways, I thought that this interview actually WAS interesting because:</p>

<p>He states: “We have a numeric evaluation system.” I guess that means that basically everything on the application has a point value and you need a certain score to be admitted. I did not know that it worked that way at Duke.</p>

<p>Also interesting:</p>

<p>“Curriculum, grades and test scores count for 50 percent.” I would’ve thought that these sections, which basically measure academic achievement in a relatively concrete way, would’ve been worth more than just 50%.</p>

9

<p>Yeah, wasn’t the system used when giving a 1480+ the highest possible number of points? Rachel Toor mentioned that, but I wonder if it’s outdated.</p>

<p>It seems a bit strange to me-- I’m sure thousands of kids end up with identical points. How do they, then, measure those “intangible qualities” the interviewer spoke up?</p>