EPTOn September 21 2008 05:16 KlaCkoN wrote:
I will probably never understand this *sighs*
If the most intelligent students are "nerds" then why don't the colleges want a "nerd fest"?
Shouldn't the goal of the university be to produce as many nobel prices as possible, period?
When I applied to oxford (A fairly prestigious uni in Europe) they didn't seem to care at all for what I did in my spare time (Not that I did anything noteworthy =P) They did however lock me in a room for an hour where they bombarded me with questions regarding the subject I was applying for, expecting me to reason my way out of them. I was accepted.
To me that seems like a more relevant way to go about it, but as said I am probably just beeing very european.
Is it perhaps because the overall status of the school is increased if the students going there are beautiful and active as well as smart? Or is it because they believe that an active student is likely to produce better results in the long run?
I will probably never understand this *sighs*
If the most intelligent students are "nerds" then why don't the colleges want a "nerd fest"?
Shouldn't the goal of the university be to produce as many nobel prices as possible, period?
When I applied to oxford (A fairly prestigious uni in Europe) they didn't seem to care at all for what I did in my spare time (Not that I did anything noteworthy =P) They did however lock me in a room for an hour where they bombarded me with questions regarding the subject I was applying for, expecting me to reason my way out of them. I was accepted.
To me that seems like a more relevant way to go about it, but as said I am probably just beeing very european.
Is it perhaps because the overall status of the school is increased if the students going there are beautiful and active as well as smart? Or is it because they believe that an active student is likely to produce better results in the long run?
I think you're partly right because in the US, since colleges look at other things besides the intelligence and academic achievement of the student, many students go out of their way to do all of these extracurriculars and build up a huge resume consisting mostly of things they don't care about doing. So you have so many people doing hours of community service when they don't give a rat's shit about community service or the guy who plays an instrument just to put it on his application.
However, let me point out something about the comparison between the two applications shown before. Honestly, there really is no difference in the academic potential of the two applicants. A 4.0 compared to a 3.8? A 2400 to a 2250? What's more likely to account for the superior academic achievement of Applicant A over Applicant B? Is it more likely that Applicant A is a truly superior student who is more likely to do better in college? Or is the minute difference probably due to the immense number of environmental factors like difficulty of teachers, personal issues, etc? I got a 750/800 on the math portion of my SAT and I only got 2 questions wrong (and I was pretty sure I hadn't a single one wrong when I took it). So would the 2 questions really be the difference between me and Mr.800 who didn't make the 2 silly mistakes I made?
But now, let's say I helped organize a math competition for gifted middle school students during all four years of high school because I genuinely enjoyed it and like helping other students. Wouldn't that be a much bigger differentiator between me and Mr. 800? Doesn't it show a certain passion and humility that's always required even in research?
Besides, outside of the hard sciences (e.g. math, physics, chemistry,etc) extracurricular activities are far more important than classroom education. You will learn far more about leadership by being a captain of a sports team that you led to the playoffs than you will sitting in a classroom where a teacher tells you all the wonderful ways you can "lead". You will learn far more about government by working as a senator's aide than by taking notes in a political science class. And you will always learn more by doing something than sitting down and learning how to do it.
