Is the Stanford Admissions office doing its job?

[2boysima]

<p>From “The Loop” - an email newsletter sent out by Stanford</p>

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<p>Provost John Etchemendy, PhD '82, at the May 12 Faculty Senate meeting:
“On my way to the Senate meeting today, at the intersection of death, a student on a bike without a helmet, rode past and through the intersection of death, texting. I have to say that I wonder whether the admissions office is doing its job.”

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<p>(FYI…the “intersection of death” is a bicycle/pedestrian intersection near the central area of the Stanford campus…known for accidents and many spectacular near-accidents)</p>

<p>Humorous… I’m sure someone could turn it into an essay topic!</p>

[lololu]

<p>When I was growing up my father always played this game as he was driving " Oh look, a little old lady with a dog AND a full grocery cart – ten points if I hit her!" Or “A priest, a rabbi and a bartender – 100 points! 200 if they have a duck!” </p>

<p>We lived near a college campus and he always said “NO points for students – they don’t know enough to get out of the way”</p>

[Puzzled88]

<p>I grew up in Pasadena and Caltech students were infamous for crossing streets without looking - budding absent-minded professors. The other running joke was how the campus cleared out when Star Trek was on TV.</p>

[intparent]

<p>D2 has a non-verbal learning disability. One of the symptoms of this can be having a lot of difficulty dealing with crossing streets/walking in parking lots (she still grabs my hand sometimes at the age of 16 in those situations). D has actually said that one of her college selection criteria is a quiet campus where she can avoid traffic as a pedestrian. She is, by the way, definitely the absent-minded professor type in other ways. :)</p>

[mathmom]

<p>Caltech students came up with a good way to get around the traffic problem:

5. The Green Team
   There was the time that the students complained that the traffic light at a crosswalk on a busily traveled California Boulevard did not stay red long enough for students to conveniently cross on their way to class. After their complaints went unheeded, the students launched a nocturnal reengineering foray, and the next day, the traffic light suddenly began to operate in the pedestrians’ favor. With a long line of angry motorists growing even longer, the traffic light engineers arrived and set to work to right the problem. But try as they could, the puzzled technicians could find nothing wrong with the light’s timing mechanism. They labored long and hard to solve the problem, until one of them finally noticed that the students had simply climbed up and switched the red and green lenses.

from: [Hijinks</a> at Caltech](<a href=“http://www.globalprovince.com/caltech.htm]Hijinks”>Hijinks at Caltech)</p>

[Consolation]

<p>A grad school friend almost ran down Saul Bellow at the U of C. How many points do you get for bagging a Nobel laureate? :D</p>

[cptofthehouse]

<p>I guess we have to have rules against cyclists texting while riding a bike. Argh! I can’t stand the stupidity that makes one even have to consider these things.</p>