As a freshman, the college admissions process, having painfully endured it just last year, remains fresh in my mind. Like every other university-bound high school senior, my stomach churned with anticipation from the day I submitted my applications to the day I received my last decision letter (well, e-mails, actually). Embarrassingly, my friends and I frequented collegeconfidential.com, a chat room website where equally paranoid students can post their statistics – SAT scores, list of extracurricular activities, GPAs, etc. – and ask their peers to “chance” them. They respond to the original post with comments like, “You’ll definitely get accepted. Congrats!” “I’d say 70% chance,” and “I doubt you’ll have a good chance at Duke.” (Yes, those are taken directly from a “Chance me for Duke!” thread.) Despite how silly this may seem, it’s popular. In fact, there’s an app for that!
AdmissionSplash, the new facebook application, was launched last week. Just for fun, I tried it out. I filled in my test scores, checked yes that I volunteered in high school, no I don’t plan on being recruited for sports, and other similar things. At the end, AdmissionSplash told me that my chances for acceptance at Duke University were only fair, and the accompanying yellow emoticon seemed to say, “Be careful.” I believe I was rightfully accepted, and so, albeit a bit late, I have some reservations about the application.
Continue reading “AdmissionSplash: An App for Curbing Admission Anxieties”
This recent opinion piece from The New York Times explores the evaluation—or rather, an instance of miscalculation—of teachers based on a rather complex formula.
