The College-obsessed Cab Driver and Other Believe-it-or-not Occurences

- Our Russian cab driver, when dropping us off at NYU admissions, asked GC's friend what he had scored on the SAT

- There was a student presenter at the Wesleyan info session, who addressed our group along with the admissions dean.  The student is a double major in Public Health and Gender Studies, plays varsity volleyball, works as an assistant midwife in Middletown, teaches salsa dancing to six year olds and is co-writing a paperwith her professor about Alternate Birthing in Chile.  Reminded all of us of our own extracurriculars in college.

- A friend of a friend in NY spent $40,000 in tutoring just for ONE SAT subject test (U.S. History).   Her tutor, presumably a Supreme Court Justice, charges $2400 an hour.  Sadly, the student was denied admission to Brown, but will be attending Middlebury. 

- We've heard of three or four Stanford alums who donated generously, only to find out, in horror, that their very qualified kids were rejected.  So save your money and invest in S'barro's instead – there are at least two on every campus.

- The opening of the NYU info session included exotic views of a new campus in Abu Dhabi.  Unlike NYU in NY, which costs $55k and had 42,000 applicants this year (up 11% from '10), NYU Abu Dhabi has only 150 students and offers students 100% merit scholarships.  The presenter compared life in the two cities, and encouraged all to apply.  A caveat to freshmen: It is difficult to get a parking permit for your camel the first year.

- We have now twice heard the following anecdote with the motto "Proofread rather than spell check."   Admissions officers on two different campuses told us about a boy who unfortunately repeatedly wrote that he enjoys "torturing" children, when he really meant to say "tutoring,'"

Comments

The College-obsessed Cab Driver and Other Believe-it-or-not Occurences — 1 Comment

  1. We had the same info session future child birther. When does she have time for all the extra curriculars if she spends all her time in the admissions office? Also, it must take a lot of coffee drinking to be so damn perky!
    Our proofread horror story at Vassar was about the hopeful who extolled her abilities as a candy stripper.