What *not* to do in your college application

MBP
Mon, 11 Feb 2008 20:01:33 +0000

Should we hide ourselves until we develop into a more mature, sophisticated being? Should we hide our true selves just to impress an admissions team? Just to prevent a harsh judgment from society?

I’m not saying that people should try and look fully mature in their applications. The reason that I’m in love with UChi so much is because they give you a real opportunity to show your true personality and your quirks (which, I typically think of as immaturity shown in the right light). However, I still think there’s a difference between being yourself, and putting something on the internet that, while it may represent you now, may come back to bite you later.
Your question “Should we hide our true selves just to impress an admissions team?” to me seems more rhetorical (though correct me if I’m wrong). However, “Just to prevent a harsh judgment from society?” is far more interesting. While your ideals are so that you would rather be “true” to yourself, even if it means receiving said harsh judgements from society, I think that it’s would be bad advice to give to a large percentage of teenagers. You are already in a very good college and obviously very smart. You have made up your own mind as to the long term consiquences, and you would be ready to deal with them, because to you it’s worth it to be the real you. However, the majority of high schoolers won’t have thought out the long-term consequences of posting something on the internet. I, myself, am already fairly “conformed” to what society wants (I would say it’s of my own accord, but that’s debatable). I don’t smoke pot or drink, so there aren’t pictures of me to be posted, however, if there were, I would rather further conform myself to societies expectations for the end result of getting what I want.
In the end, it really will be up to the individual. Can you be both independently happy and “acceptable” to society.



wouldn’t you say that it’s then the job of the Core to do nothing less than ‘teach us how to think’? How is that not conformist?

If the Core does its job in teaching the students truly how to think, then it isn’t supposed to conform people. People naturally don’t think alike. It’s why we are disagree right now.
While some of the smaller things taught by the Core may force students to conform (to write in MLA, or something like that), however, conforming thought is not one of those things.



Just because I disagree with you doesn’t mean I think you’re naive.

nice point.