So Pomona recently sent me their “re-confirmation” package and reading it electrified me.
I think Pomona (and many other liberal arts colleges) really has a foothold on exploiting youthful idealism, because their brochure makes it seem like every class is a discussion. To a philologist like me, that means that every class is a “creation.” And that none of the classes are “scramble, copy and paste” classes.
The re-confirmation package says that I must stay “in good standing” with my academics, which for me is a political dilemma. Why should I give these bad educators what they want if they don’t want to educate me, you know? But I spoke to someone recently who was none too interested in my youthful idealism. And this person asked me, “Which at this point is more important: your education or your grades?” Naturally, I said my education. They said, “NO.” Evidently my grades are what matter to Pomona, not my politics. Once I am there, I can get all the education I want. I don’t want to believe that, but the mathematics of it are all to convincing: academic correctness = Pomona; political correctness = not Pomona.
So, I’m going to pass my classes. And instead of being rude and contentious about it, I’m gonna have to “kill ‘em with kindness.”
Jackson
- return to top -
The mid-winter break is here and we get a week off. Now that my high school career is coming to a close, I’m becoming more and more surprised at how much time we actually have off from school. My school has begun this new process wherein students must read one piece of literature for every class. In economics and government we read Machiavelli’s The Prince, in gastronomy we are reading Slow Food Nation, Food is Culture, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Zingerman’s Guide to Good Eating, and a whole host of other things that when photocopied absorb two whole three-inch binders. Those are just a few examples of what our school is doing to us, and what I am doing this whole week. It’s pretty cool that our school wants us to do all this reading; it’s only a bit inconvenient because I have my own reading to do.
Madame Bovary is cool. However, I don’t think her character makes much sense; Flaubert doesn’t justify her behavior enough for me. It’s like she’s a one-sided character who doesn’t love her husband because he’s not “passionate,” “chivalrous,” or “daring” enough, so she goes on cavorting with other men. But he does so much for her and trusts her so much that she comes across as some creature of artifice who exists simply to make a point about society. But this is only my first impression, and not what Eye on Apply is about, so I’ll leave it here.
Jackson
- return to top -
I lied. Those books were way too long. I got lost in the lack of plot with Infinite Jest and the abstraction of Gravity’s Rainbow. Plus, they were just so long that I couldn’t deal. I read 100 pages in a month. So, I’ve abandoned those novels and have just finished Patrick Susskind’s Perfume. I’m now reading Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary—only 327 pages. I would promise you guys that I’m going to finish this one, but given my less than tenacious resolution, you probably wouldn’t believe me.
School is making this little literary venture of mine very difficult, but “I never let schooling get in the way of my education.” In school we have this course called “Writing the Academic Paper,” training us to…well, you know. Anyway we have to read mad essays and then write an 8-12 page paper on anything in the humanities. The book they gave us as a model for our future essays was William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, a play written in a century before 1900 and in a language that—for all purposes—isn’t English. Could they have picked a less desirable text?
But we do have this really cool course called “Gastronomy.” I’m not too sure what it is exactly but it involves the history of food, the politics of food, the culture of food and a honey tasting! The teacher is taking us on a trip to a bee farm to see where honey comes from and to try a whole bunch of different kinds of honey. It’s going to be fabulous!
Did I mention that I thought for the longest time that my grades were in danger? I could have sworn that Pomona was going to rescind my acceptance. And that, for lack of a better word, would not have been cute. But, I got my report card back and my average is as solid as it was on my junior year transcript.
So, things are cool.
Jackson
- return to top -
My senior quote was “I never let schooling get in the way of my education” by Mark Twain. Considering that I’m not exactly jiving with school this year, I decided that I’d do what I want to educate myself. So, I’ve created a reading list. I got 117 titles from Francine Prose’s book Reading like a Writer. Additionally, Time Magazine had a list of the 100 best English-language novels written since 1923.
Some of the books appear twice, some I’ve already read in school, and I have this sort of nativist-ageist thing going on, in which I don’t want to read anything that is translated or written before 1900. These factors trim my list down to about 17 novels.
Right now I’m tackling Thomas Pynchon’s 700-odd paged Gravity’s Rainbow and David Foster Wallace’s 1060 page Infinite Jest, both really challenging choices. But I am resolute, and no matter how many philosophical tangents Pynchon goes on or how many pages Wallace absorbs using a single sentence, I will read at least 17 novels before I get to Pomona.
Pomona recently had its “Winter Break Party” where Pomona people could meet up. But considering that I didn’t have any questions, and that the only people there from my class (2012) could be from the early decision pool and the tri-state area, I didn’t expect much. And I didn’t get much. I met this one kid from my class and we luckily hit it off, then we met some freshmen from class of ’11 who were cool, but there were also people there from like class of ’72, and my ageism kicked in. I became really intimidated and felt like leaving.
That’s all folks. Good luck with apps.
Jackson
- return to top -
On December 1st Columbia University hosted its first dance competition—the Big Apple Dancesport Challenge. I was at dance practice the previous Friday, jiving with my partner when my phone rang. I couldn’t hear it due to the music in the background, but I saw the blue light flashing on the screen. I picked it up. It was QuestBridge. Boo Yowl! I’m in Pomona College next year!
I haven’t said much about the college throughout Eye on Apply, much less why it was my second choice, so here goes. Pomona’s a really great school, like the rest. But the special thing about Pomona is the Claremont Consortium: You can cross-register at any one of the other four (fabulous) colleges in the area. The area is completely snow-free and consolidated to the point that the campuses are all actually across the street from each other. And, unlike most liberal arts colleges, Pomona actually has a linguistics department. Other colleges have linguistics classes and majors that can be self-designed or similar cross-registry programs which would probably place me in a class of seventy-five students at some university taught by a grad student. But the liberal arts community combined with the department makes Pomona a great opportunity for me. And it’s like thirty miles from L.A.
Back in New York at the Columbia competition, I was flipping through a registration booklet, checking to see if I was registered for all the correct events. I was and, closing the booklet accordingly, I saw on the back cover an advertisement for WorldTone Shoes. They’re a performance shoe company with offices in New York and L.A. I thought, “Oh! Maybe I can find a team to join out in the area so I can keep dancing.” Then I read the rest of the advertisement. It said that WorldTone is where the teams from Columbia, NYU, UC and POMONA get their shoes. I looked in Pomona’s view book, and they’ve won nationals like four times. What?! Pomona, here I come!
Did I mention that through QuestBridge, I get everything (tuition, room, board, books, supplies and personal fees) paid for? For all four years! That’s like $200,000 or something.
I’m psyched.
Jackson
- return to top -
Back from Bowdoin!
I just spent a four-day weekend visiting Bowdoin College for the “Bowdoin Invitational.” Bowdoin is just like all those other high ranking liberal arts schools, except this one has the tastiest food and largest dorms out of all the schools I’ve visited. They’re actually amazing. What’s even more impressive is that, out of all the freshmen I’ve met at Bowdoin, few have seemed to gain the proverbial “freshmen fifteen”—indicative of Bowdoin’s athletic program.
The classes that I visited were great, and I participated more at this college than the other ones. The professors really made a great effort to include us. The program really changed my perspective on what I want to study: I thought I wanted to study philosophy and linguistics, and then two art history majors took myself and some other students on a tour of Bowdoin’s art museum. And I thought, “I can totally do this.” Then, I slept in a dorm room that had all of these political science books on a shelf and, sneaking an intellectual peek, I thought, “I can totally do this.” The next day I spoke to a man who was a history major and the admissions guy for NYC, and something about our conversation made me think, “I can totally do this.” Of course, I’m totally still taking classes in philosophy and linguistics—of that I’m sure. What I wasn’t so sure about, however, was Maine: Bowdoin’s location. Maybe it was the time of year, but Maine was very cold and there wasn’t very much to do in the area. And it didn’t help that we just missed all the fall colors, so the trees were all barren and unwelcoming. That’s never going to be a determining factor in my college choice, but it’s still contributing to my decision.
So that’s this week in college. With regards to high school, I’m trying to resurrect myself. At Bowdoin I learned: “Early decision is binding for students, not for the school.” That means, if, hypothetically of course, one’s average dropped from a ninety-two to, say, an eighty-four, the college will snatch your acceptance away. Upon hearing that statement, I called my friend in New York, and wrote down all my homework assignments—roaming charges, schmoaming charges.
Jackson
- return to top -
I just got back from the DC Dancesport Inferno, a ballroom dance competition at the University of Maryland. My partners and I danced at a higher level than ever this time. Unfortunately, we didn’t even place *tears*. But I know that’s not what you guys want to hear about - you want to know about the college. Well, I didn’t attend any information sessions so any information about that school will come to you via events at the competition.
When I first got there, the school had a costume party. Of course, I didn’t know about it ahead of time. I told one of my friends that I needed a costume. She warned, “The only costumes I have are a ‘booty camp’ costume and one for Hermione Granger.” For me, it was like choosing between a million dollars cash and a yacht worth a million dollars. I chose Hermione Granger and walked around the freezing Maryland campus in a grey skirt, burgundy stockings and Gryffindor cape. The students evidently thought it was great: I got high-fives, high-eyebrows, and high-spirits. So, the University of Maryland is pretty progressive.
The competition lasted like three days. Generally visiting teams sleep in someone’s dorm, but we got to stay at someone’s house, awesome! I don’t know if it is common for undergraduates to stay at houses, but the people who lived in the houses I visited were all students. It was a so-called “party house,” and for Halloween our hosts did a cool group costume for the seven deadly sins. Another team member slept in a frat house and they had a similarly festive night. So, night-life is pretty alive at University of Maryland.
The competition was hosted by the school’s ballroom dance team BAM (Ballroom at Maryland) and took place in a building that had a dining hall and classrooms in it, so I got to see some of the facilities. Everything there was modernized: the bathrooms were all contact-free (except for the door-knobs), the air-conditioning was great, and there were a lot of social events posted neatly on a bulletin board. There were many other buildings that were just like this one too. And if that doesn’t get you, their kitschy mascot will: it’s a terrapin—the turtles from Super Mario.
So, the dance competition wasn’t that great, but the school was. And it’s not so bad, I did win first place for the costume competition.
Jackson
- return to top -
Hey guys, I realize that by this time I should’ve given you a little insight into my application process. Remember how QuestBridge required three essays, three recommendations, and a slew of short answer questions? Well, the short answer questions are pretty unique, so I’ll elect to neglect the explanation of those. The essays: first was about your background and how it has formed your ideals and aspirations; the second was about an idea that intellectually excites you; the third was about an experience that has affected you.
For my first essay I wrote about how growing up in a really “bad” area ran contra to my actual personality. Of course, it’s never too good to write a sob story—even if it has had a major effect on you—so I relayed the story through metaphor. I wrote about the novel The Awakening by Kate Chopin and how the main character lived an inner and outer life, and in the end accepted her inner-self. I paralleled this with my double life and acceptance of my true character. It was pretty well executed, I think. It also demonstrated my interest in language and my actual character which is most important, I think.
My second essay was about existentialism—not teenage angsty, wrist-slitting depressing existentialism, but freedom and responsibility existentialism. I mentioned this philosophy not just as an idea, but something more akin to a friend—complete with all the conflict. Basically, existentialism makes me sometimes strong and sometimes stoic, and while I haven’t fully decided how I feel about it, I know I want our relationship to progress throughout college. This demonstrated my interest in philosophy and also included over-coming obstacles.
The third essay was about a subway ride with my friend Peter. We had a conversation about Emily Dickinson’s and Tupac’s poetry. I touched on cross-cultural understanding and oppression. This demonstrated my interest in literature. I also spoke about how circumstances aren’t “good” or “bad”, just different. Now that I think about it, I may have put too much emphasis on how “bad” my situation was in all my essays, but if anything, that shows integrity.
Recommendations: You’re not allowed to see them so I won’t say anything about the content. One rec had to be from a guidance counselor but I got to choose my other two, and I made sure to get recommendations from people who actually understood me and my capabilities. These people were my English and poetry teachers. Although they are both literary, I think I made the right choice because I’ve spent a significant amount of time corresponding with these teachers, and they best understand how valuable I am as a student—very important considering my senior issues.
Issues: Report cards are here and my friends all have like 90+ averages and I really feel like I may not have such a good time. I have a bit of temerity criticizing my own school on this public venue—temerity which is a testament to my quasi-fascist education. I’m enduring courses in which very little is learned. Learning is to be done after school, at home, in a book. In class…I don’t even know what happens. The English course is just like any other course (save existentialism), and is revealing no insight into life. It’s as if we’re taking a guided tour of a really boring forest: “If you look to your right you’ll see a tree, representing some abstract concept; to your left you’ll see a doe, doing the same; if you look up, you’ll see leaves blocking the sunlight and anything else that enlightens you to the world of literature.” Hopefully, all this disillusionment doesn’t adversely affect me, because I need to get into a good school. I need to be in a small liberal arts college where there are very little course requirements. I need to be in a small liberal arts college so I can choose my own courses. I need to be in a small liberal arts college so I am educated in the right way. I need to stop sounding like an advertisement. Seriously though, I need to be in a small liberal arts college.
On that note, I visited Williams College for their “Windows on Williams” program and the people were nice and the campus was in this mad bucolic valley and they have really small classes and a rockin’ Black Student Union and a quaint Queer Student Union and five dining halls and amazing professors and this stream-of-consciousness gimmick is getting old. So in conclusion, I’m applying.
Hopefully my grades get me in.
Jackson
- return to top -
Third post, and my sentiment towards high school has not changed. Luckily, nor have my friends: they say that they’ll collectively break my neck if I end up on academic probation. Isn’t that sweet? But seriously though, I need to be in college like right now.
On a not-so decapitatory note, I got accepted to Williams’ “Windows on Williams” open house thing, and applied for Bowdoin’s “Bowdoin Invitational”. They are similar to Amherst’s “Diversity Open House” in that they’re overnight weekend programs that give people who do not normally have the resources to visit colleges the chance to do just that. Because I have to apply (and therefore compete) for these visitation programs, being accepted so often serves as a good augury for the actual application, which I hope is not contingent upon my graduating at the top of my class.
You know, I have a lot of extra-curricular activities, like running the philosophy club, ballroom dancing, and stickin’ it to the heterosexist man, which I enjoy a lot more than calculating z-scores, reading economics hand-outs, and playing “the ecology game.” And dedicating so much time to extra-curricular activities is good: last weekend, I went to a dance competition at Cornell University and my partners and I won 1st in Waltz and Quickstep and 2nd in Tango and Rumba.
The thing about ballroom dancing is (wow that sounds like a good essay opening) that since it’s a collegiate thing, you get to visit colleges in the process. Cornell has an amazing campus, and there are these really cool gorges. There was all this space but no one was there, so it was like this really green, hilly desert. Plus, there were mad facilities and dorms, so it’s a pretty cool looking school, just too big for me. I’m thinking small school, big education.
QuestBridge notifies students of finalist status at the end of October, and if I don’t make it, I have to use the Common Application. So, I’m thinking I should get started now rather than wait until October 26th and end up rushing things. I was actually really nervous about what QuestBridge would say, but then I read this article about a guy who traveled to the South Pole alone and had to cover himself in his own mucus to create a protective layer. He said, “If you worry, you die; and if you don’t worry, you die. So why worry?” Granted it’s easier to get through the application process than it is to get through snow dunes, it’s a pretty inspirational quotation. So the wheels are set in motion, the ball is in their court, and all I have to do is keep my friends from breaking my neck.
Jackson
- return to top -
Second post guys, and by this time I should have acclimated to all the changes from summer to school, right? Well I am, and as an aspiring philosopher linguist, I realize that I don’t want to be taking any of my courses. You see, students in my school are different in that we finish all of our NYC high school requirements in our junior year, leaving all our senior (college level) courses to our discretion. But it’s a math, science and engineering school and those were the courses we could choose; the humanities courses—economics and politics in the american novel—were all foisted upon us. The math courses were statistics, advanced calculus, and discrete mathematics; the science courses were advanced biology, advanced chemistry, and advanced physics; and our engineering courses were inventor’s workshop, advanced architecture, and networking (not the cool social kind). To put it in perspective, it was like I could choose from nine weapons with which to commit suicide.
So that’s how I’m handling senior year: with disdain. “But oh,” you say, “can’t you just use that disdain as motivation to get good grades and into a good college?” Yes, had it not been for QuestBridge. QuestBridge is a type of application/scholarship for people at an economic disadvantage who demonstrate intellectual foison. It provides its winners with four fully financed years at any one of its partner colleges – Amherst, Pomona, and Bowdoin to name a few. This was particularly auspicious, and discovering it on August 24th, I thought I was ahead of the game. It turns out, the application was due on September 30th. So I had about thirty-six days to write three essays, answer god knows how many questions, and get recommendations from three people, with whom I had no contact until September 4th.
You know how if you drink coffee early in the morning without any breakfast, you crash about 3 hours into the caffeine high? Well, when you put all of your new-school-year energy into writing applications without any attention to school work, you crash about 3 weeks into it. And now that my QuestBridge application is about done, I’m stuck in my room with a pile of make-up work to do, and without anything motivating me to tackle it.
Except college acceptance letters, which reminds me: I visited Amherst College for their Diversity Open House and (don’t tell Williams) I frickin’ loved it! Of course, I knew they had oodles of resources, both academic and financial, but it was a place where, in all its platitudes, “I could be me.” I have these very, very short shorts—my own little device for testing tolerance without having to ask and receive a horribly Politically Correct answer—and I wanted to know how the students would react to it. So I got off the train, and when the students saw me, they were shocked and amused and we hit it off just fine. Then we met some of the ultra-accessible administrators who surprisingly wanted to impress us, rather than the reverse. We visited some classes, and the professor for the 8 a.m. political science class was really involved, but the students were not. I assumed it was because college 8 a.m. is different from high school 8 a.m., as many people have told me. That’s probably why because the students in the 9:30 class were really alive. I found some time during the jam-packed session to sneak off and visit Emily Dickinson’s house, which wasn’t that interesting. I expected to see ghosts reciting poetry, but all I got was a house. It’s still a pretty cool landmark to have on your campus though.
So, I hope that QuestBridge will holla back with good news on my finalist status, and that Amherst will do the same. But right now, I’m going to get back to this pile of work – what does standard deviation mean?
Jackson
- return to top -
Jackson here. If it’s incongruous vitals you’re looking for: I live in the South Bronx, am 17, attend the High School for Math, Science, and Engineering at the City College of New York, and want to be a philosopher linguist. Long story.
HSMSE is pretty boss because it’s small and the literature department is killer! We just took existentialism for junior English. I know—mad frou-frou for a public school, but still, how cool is that?
Despite the heady intellectualism, the kids are all cool. September fourth is the first day of school and some of us students are planning a senior pride event, which involves (yep, you guessed it) purple face paint. We have only 3 days to plan, but hopefully all goes well. That’s how fun it is to be there.
Obviously, school is a large part of my life (we’re in there from 8-4), but it doesn’t stop there. I am President of the school’s Philosophy Club, a member of the Junior Statesmen of America, and the National Honor Society, all considerable after school commitments. OK, that’s where school stops.
After after-school programs, I dance with NYU’s ballroom dance team, which is oodles of fun because 1.) I get groovy subculture points, 2.) I can be at the front lines of the dance revolution, and 3.) I get to see how college students behave, even at such an elite school. Spoiler: They are not all presumptuous and blasé, so everyone should fit in somehow.
This summer, I participated in an internship called ELP 2 (the Education for Liberation Project Part 2) with FIERCE (Fabulous Independent Educated Radicals for Community Empowerment), an organization handling issues that face LGBTQQTSGNC (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, two spirit, gender non-conformist; or just queer) youth of color in NYC. Gotta love those acronyms! Resisting things like police brutality, gentrification, and straight up classicism and learning how to become an organizer/activist with FIERCE has been a wonderfully enriching experience. And I plan to do ELP 3 during this coming school year. FIGHT THE POWER!
So, Eye on Apply sounds like it’s going to be fun, and a bit nerve wracking, because I’m not very knowledgeable about the college application process, but that may also be some of you guys out there, so we’re like in the same, rickety, paddle-less boat, right?
Lightning round!
My closest friends are the ones with whom I can share conversations that go beyond who, what, when, and where. My top three college choices are Amherst, Pomona, and Bowdoin Colleges. I’m not trying to be valedictorian, because my grades aren’t good enough. My pet dog just died, and my uncle wrapped her in a bag like garbage and tossed her in a cardboard box - it was beautiful. I am not dating anyone because my family members do not approve of “Friends of Dorothy” (and hopefully not reading this post).
Jackson
- return to top -
Quick Facts
