Essays in College Applications?!?! BLASPHEMY!!!

I must thank Victoria Goldman, contributor to the New York Times, for bringing attention to an important issue concerning college admissions in our American society in her piece "Common Application Supplments: Too Much Information?"

In true investigative fashion, Ms. Goldman tries to shed some light on the horrors that our youngsters are having to go through to gain entrance into our nations finest colleges. First, Goldman explains that college admissions before the COMMON APPLICATION led kids to "trauma" since they had to fill blanks over and over again. God forbid.

More striking, though, is the continued horrors that colleges nowadays put kids through, such as the additional essays many schools require along with those in the COMMON APPLICATION. Goldman appropriately notes that that trouble that applicants have to go through would warrant "course credit." To gain entrance into Northwestern University, one of the foremost research institutions in the world, applicants have to go as far as to write "an essay of up to 500 words, a personal statement of up to 300 words and two shorter statements." In a single application, this comes out roughly to 1000 words!!! In turn, this would mean that an applicant would write about 3 pages of essays and short answers in order to gain admission to the college of his choice.

Let us hope that we never again put another aspiring Wildcat, Beaver, Tiger, or Quaker through this torture.

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All kidding aside, I personally feel that this article is quite disturbing. It has to be underscored that her article mentioned The University of Pennsylvania, CalTech, Princeton, and Northwestern, some of the best research universities and colleges in the world. For her to imply that the task of writing four pages in college application is a "trauma" is quite worrying, yet representative, of current views regarding college admissions. The standard of scholastic achievement at top universities - indeed all schools - ought to always be heightened, not lowered. Accordingly, there is no reason why schools shouldn't require more and more from the many students seeking admission; if for nothing else, as a means to gauge the student's interest in the school. Instead, most today feel that applying to college should be simple and painstaking, a process which would allow junior to apply to all schools that he wants without much trouble - certainly without writing 1000 pages for each!!!