One College, Two College, Red College, Blue College

Trafton B.

July 18, 2010 - 11:58 PM

Over the past week, I've been thinking a whole lot about college. College life. College admissions. Public versus private. Big versus small. East coast versus west coast. I don't normally think about these things. (I'm not that much of a nerd) They've just been thoughts on my mind recently for a few reasons.

Last week's theme at Aim High was College and Career Week. As part of the C&C Committee, as we called ourselves, I helped set up the weeks events. We had "Be a College Admissions Counselor," where the kids read through two faux applications and decided which student they would let in to their university. We played "Name that College Mascot," and you can rest assured that my advisory recognized the Oregon Duck immediately. We practiced interview skills and on Friday we invited some professionals to come to campus and answer questions about how they got to where they are today.

I invited my sister's friend and co-worker at Google, Mark, to speak about his experience in Social Networking division. First of all, I'd like to give a public shout-out to Mark because he said some of the most interesting and inspiring things that our students have ever heard. We literally could not have written a better speech than what he said. He had the other professionals on the panel jealous of his job. Then again, that's not saying much when you work at Google.

Anyways, this past week made me think back to my own college application process almost four years ago. As all you high school seniors know, or as you'll find out soon enough, the college application time is really hectic. You're writing essays, asking for recommendations and trying to remember your social security number for months on end! And most of the time, you don't even know what you're applying for. When I applied to Oregon, I'd never seen the campus or even set foot in Eugene. I had no previous knowledge of the Ducks, Prefontaine, Phil Knight or any of that stuff.

Most people don't know too much about what colleges their applying to until after they are accepted. We only know as much as the Fiske's Guide to Colleges will tell us plus whatever big name schools we here about on television. Harvard. Yale. Princeton. Stanford.

After a month of working as the TA for Speech Class at Stanford University this summer, I have to admit something. These students do not impress me. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt seeing as this is Stanford's summer session and there are a lot of high school students in this class, but I just glanced over some of the students' work and noticed two extremely apparent typos. One girl spelled the word ‘emphasis' as ‘enfaces,' and then she spelled ‘college' as ‘collage.' I'm no expert, but I think you have to spell the word right in order to be accepted.

What I'm trying to say, in an incredibly round a bout, sleep deprived way, is that I'm a little ticked off about the way we perceive colleges nowadays. The admissions process is practically a popularity contest. When I told my high school classmates that I was going to Oregon at the end of senior year, they usually replied with a solemnly condescending, "Congratulations. That should be good for you," as if getting into an Ivy League was the status quo. I'll tell you this much, I know a number of people currently attending Harvard. One of them is the smartest person I've ever met in my entire life and he'll probably end up working for NASA sooner rather than later. Another is probably one of the least intelligent people I've ever met. As you can tell I'm not sold on this "Name Brand" university thing.

Like I told all my high school classmates as they headed off to various ‘prestigious' colleges across the United States, have fun with your textbooks and study parties. I'm going to have an enjoyable college experience at Oregon.