9 Responses

1. Tracy

   October 25th, 2006 at 11:14 pm

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   I just stumbled across your blog (it was either one or two links away from the MIT website) and I think i’ve wasted (or put to good use?) almost 20 minutes browsing through your various entries. I’m impressed. You write really well; a perfect balance of intelligence and humor. It’s fascinating, in fact. Likely because I’m in a very similar position- a senior at a private school in minneapolis drowning in the college rush. I’m definitely not quite as well informed as you are, and i genuinely have no clue how you have time to write organized and intelligent blogs on top of senior year and that whole wonderful myriad of things that comes with it (namely college applications). I am curious though. I’ve been warned that colleges can see myspaces, facebooks, etc, but that seems rather overhyped and preventable, and I find it incredibly hard to believe that admissions officers would take the time and effort to search these out. That said, do you think there is any chance that the colleges you apply to will find this site? personally if i were an admissions director, i would let you in because of this, but since i am only some confused high schooler, i have no idea. good luck with this whole process. i’m pretty sure you’re headed somewhere good. are you applying early somewhere? well, sorry for the indecently lengthy comment, we both probably have to get back to those horrific slash terrific essays.

2. Sam Jackson

   October 26th, 2006 at 10:16 am

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   Hey Tracy, glad you enjoy the content… I’ve asked some college admissions office(rs) about the extent to which they might ever go looking for such things, but I’m still waiting back for any good answers. When the topic crops up in newspapers etc it’s always just a fact, a practice–no explanation is ever given for the time it takes to do the checking, however minimal. When so little time is given per student, I have no idea how the additional time to ‘check someone out’ is justified–if there is uncertainty, there are always other candidates (in selective admissions).

   Now, the question of whether colleges I am applying to will find this site… they already have. I’m 100% positive about that. Usually it is not first admissions officers who stumble across it but people from the marketing / web content side of things, who sometimes forward it along (I think! this is my assumption). I have had visitors from literally hundreds of schools (as tracked by unique .edu domains). In the summer I could usually investigate a specific hit and say “well, this school isn’t in session yet, so it probably isn’t a student who just visited…” but at this point if a visitor comes from a specific school I generally have no idea who they might be unless they tell me.

   Now, of the schools on my list, I can only definitively say that two or three of the schools have dropped by and checked things out–those places that have their own blogs that I comment on, which then tends to draw them out of the woodwork–because I’ve had e-mails chats about blogging and things like that with those schools. I have positive IDs for more schools not on my list, so I expect there are more schools besides those few that have checked things out but have been too shy to comment and say hello.

   I can’t predict how people will see this site–I hope they don’t find it and look at it as something that I’m doing “to get in” because that’s not the point at all. I wrote earlier that this website is just my writing down what I’m otherwise thinking, so it’s a good way for me to clarify my thoughts. It’s also a fun way to try to influence the process as a whole for the future by telling marketers and others about ways that they can both be more effective and also more student-friendly! … positive change in that direction would be good. Maybe I can help make things better by the time my sister is applying in 3 years; I don’t know.

   Blogging has become habitual at this point, so I’d have to work to stop. There is so much mystery about college admissions that I’m just trying to help others out and make things easier for people who come after us, if I can. Good writing practice, too.

   My comment was indecently longer, so, don’t feel bad. How are things different at your school?

   thanks again for reading.

3. Tracy

   October 26th, 2006 at 1:17 pm

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   i love that you look beyond your own ollege admission to the somewhat-bigger-picture of the process as a whole. i think the whole college admissions thing is getting way out of hand…to me, it seems like things can’t last the way they are forever, especially as the college fever spreads from the east west coast to the rest of the country and graduating classes continue to increase. There is a good article i read on this topic (by an admissions officer at MIT, i believe) that points out the backwardness of funnelling so much time and energy into marketing (by colleges) and getting admitted (by students) when the whole purpose of the matter is or should be education (on both sides). i don’t have a link to it but if you happen to find it, it’s rather interesting. anyways, for everyone’s sake (i have two younger brothers to think about too), i hope things do improve.

   i’m very curious to see how the admissions process plays out for you. i would guess that most schools will catch on to your blog if they havn’t already, since you have already recieved some press and recognition for it. i’m thinking it will have a similar effect as writing an amazing but edgy essay- it is obvious you are very intelligent and driven and dedicated and involved but maybe 1 or 2 colleges will dislike it for one reason or another. either way i am really confident you’ll get into most of your top choice schools. are you applying early anywhere?

   things at my school right now are pretty…hectic. i am actually in economics right now and should be paying attention but instead i am lost on the internet, something that tends to happen a lot ever since our whole school got laptops. my school is less intense than yours in respect to the college process, i think. Probably because of greater diversity (academic and economic) and a midwest location, among other reasons. Our school’s college profile isn’t quite as impressive as yours, but so many of the things you write about are exactly the same at my school (last week, we did mock admissions, we also do the top 5%/cum laude thing but don’t rank, etc etc.)
   congratulations again on having such a well organized and well written blog. i hope it continues to get greater readership and recognition…i think it will. Good luck with everything!
   tracy

4. Stephen

   October 27th, 2006 at 4:20 pm

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   Hmm, I think that it’s nice that your admission office does this, but this seems sort of rushed (and useless). If a senior, the week before early applications were due, couldn’t at least give a rough estimate to their past peer’s chances at a college, I would be worried… This would be much more effective at the beginning of college counseling…when does Exeter start, at the middle of junior year?

   If you get deferred/rejected from Yale SCEA, I swear this is no humanity in college admissions anymore…

5. Sam Jackson

   October 27th, 2006 at 5:00 pm

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   There was a little Exonian article on the thing yesterday and in it Ms. Dolan did say that she was sad there there was not more time for the process, and that it couldn’t have been split into more harkness-like (and useful) 10 person groups or so. Just logistics, I suppose.

   I gave a couple quotes for the article and they dropped my URL again, but since no one reads the newspaper I don’t expect we’ll see any jump in traffic.

   I am not sure how much of the senior class here applies early. The % is in fact, a closely guarded secret. Even if I knew I couldn’t say… but most people think it is around 30-40%, I think. I don’t know. I’ll check up on that. Certainly a lot of people apply early, even with the “treat EA as ED” philosophy (not rule).

   Exeter CCO process formally starts winter term of junior year–so around the middle, since we work in trimesters. To be exact, we started on January 15th for the class of 2007, in terms of CCO involvement.

   I think that not only the students but also the CCO would have liked to have scheduled it earlier, but it was sort of just ‘thrown in’ like an experimental section on the SAT or some such. I didn’t really care much one way or another, although on Wednesday it did mean that I had to get up earlier than usual (for a wednesday, the only day I have a sleep-in!) :\

   tracy, very interesting that your school does things similarly to exeter! I looked around on the internet (okay, googled a little bit) for early cum laude / mock admissions type stuff at other high schools and didn’t find out anything, attributing it to jargon issues rather than anything else.

6. Ryan Caro

   October 28th, 2006 at 7:22 am

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   I’ve heard that 55% of last year’s class applied early, but I have no way of knowing if that figure is correct. I may take an informal survey at the early cum laude induction ceremony this Sunday, but that’s obviously a very narrow demographic.

7. Sam Jackson

   October 28th, 2006 at 1:43 pm

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   Survey from today’s lunch table: 6/7ths!

   Again, small survey size.

8. Ryan Caro

   October 28th, 2006 at 2:57 pm

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   Really? Was it the Peabody table? Who and where?

9. Sam Jackson

   October 28th, 2006 at 2:59 pm

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   Lunch in Elm St. there is no Peabody table… I meant the table we sat at; you were there, but when you were not, everyone else but female-Sam was. Linda, Tessa, Ned, Wesley, me, someone else. Something like that.