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College Educations, Part II; Now with less sketchiness
Topic Started: Jun 2 2010, 11:24 PM (5,443 Views)
Rhadamanthus
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Legitimist

Congratulations Quaon.
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Union
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Pyrenees Republic
Quote:
 
Swarthmore


Ofc ;)
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Quaon
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A Prince Amoung Men-Shoot First and Ask Questions Later
Thanks RD.

And yeah, that was fairly predictable. We should meet up sometime you're around, Manny.
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Al Araam
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Demigod of Death & Inactivity

Well done, Q.
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meh
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1st Lieutenant
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What will you be studying?
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meh
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1st Lieutenant
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Well, for the first time it looks like I have a real plan for my academic future. The past year or so has been overly frustrating, having no idea idea about where my life was headed. Now I can finally say I am making a start.

After this semester, I will only be 9 credits away from Junior standing, and this is only my first year of college. This alone has me excited.

My overalls plans for the next year:

Get a job back home during summer. Take Arabic and Pre-calc at the local community college.

Fall semester, complete Islamic History, Religion of Islam, Model UN, Arabic, and Anthropology 354.

Winter, get a job and enjoy life a little bit.

Spring, study abroad in the UAE in Sharjah.

Summer, spend 2 months at an intensive Arabic language institute either in Morocco or Egypt.


Its strange being able to lay this all out. Its even more strange that my parents have my back on this. Such a nice change of pace.
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The Authority of the Grand Moff
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That's a very fine school Quaon, congratulations.
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Tristan da Cunha
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Sounds like a great plan, meh. A detailed and concrete plan of attack is almost liberating in a way.

Also anyone in, or going into, the natural sciences? Bueller? ... Bueller?
Edited by Tristan da Cunha, Mar 27 2012, 02:47 PM.
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East Anarx
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Anarchitect

Tristan da Cunha
Mar 27 2012, 02:47 PM
Also anyone in, or going into, the natural sciences? Bueller? ... Bueller?
As part of my self-administered crash course in applied existence, lately I've been studying earth science, biology, and to a lesser degree chemistry, with an emphasis on edaphology as it relates to ecology and permaculture. Also, I'm trying to brush up on physics in relation to architectural design. Basically, I'm hoping to become more skilled at designing, building, and growing food inside of, greenhouses.
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Tristan da Cunha
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Eastanarx
Mar 27 2012, 05:54 PM
Tristan da Cunha
Mar 27 2012, 02:47 PM
Also anyone in, or going into, the natural sciences? Bueller? ... Bueller?
As part of my self-administered crash course in applied existence, lately I've been studying earth science, biology, and to a lesser degree chemistry, with an emphasis on edaphology as it relates to ecology and permaculture. Also, I'm trying to brush up on physics in relation to architectural design. Basically, I'm hoping to become more skilled at designing, building, and growing food inside of, greenhouses.
Excellent. Autodidacticism is in many ways superior to studying an established curriculum, and I for one am prepared to recognize your autodidactic Doctorate if and when you have gained enough knowledge to recognize yourself as a Doctor Scientiae.
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Telosan
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The Foremost Intellectual Badass
Admissions decision day! All my colleges have finally responded with the results of my applications! Hurrah!

So where is our fine young intellectual badass going?

Nowhere! :lol:

I'm going to start my independent studies now while this starts to sink in.
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Rhadamanthus
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I'm sorry to hear that Telo. Did you have a safety school?
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Telosan
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The Foremost Intellectual Badass
Rhadamanthus
Apr 1 2012, 05:42 PM
I'm sorry to hear that Telo. Did you have a safety school?
Yup! Two, actually.
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Rhadamanthus
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No luck there either?

Have you considered taking a year off to do something else and applying to college again next year? Or enrolling in a community college with a program that transfers you to a four-year college after two years?
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Telosan
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The Foremost Intellectual Badass
I was too confident of getting accepted to at least one of the 7 places I applied to that I didn't both with the community college. The entrance exam for it was last Thursday. I have no choice but to skip a year at this point.

Utterly infuriating to hear the comments from my mom and grandmother, who insist this is the result of my not doing anything in the interim of applying and waiting for the results. According to them, I deserve the universal rejections for wasting the time of all involved. They are truly hilarious. :rolleyes:
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Rhadamanthus
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Legitimist

Well, try to find something productive, interesting, and impressive to do with your year, if taking off a year is what you have to do. You want to make sure that it will help your future chances and not harm them.

I'm sorry to hear about your mother and grandmother's responses. Aren't they disappointed at all? And what did they want you to do in the interim that you failed to do?
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Quaon
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A Prince Amoung Men-Shoot First and Ask Questions Later
Telosan
Apr 1 2012, 06:46 PM
I was too confident of getting accepted to at least one of the 7 places I applied to that I didn't both with the community college. The entrance exam for it was last Thursday. I have no choice but to skip a year at this point.

Utterly infuriating to hear the comments from my mom and grandmother, who insist this is the result of my not doing anything in the interim of applying and waiting for the results. According to them, I deserve the universal rejections for wasting the time of all involved. They are truly hilarious. :rolleyes:
There are colleges that are still accepting applications (I still get emails from them). I knew someone's whose niece was enrolled in a college three days before class started (strings were pulled but still). Admittedly most of these places are probably not very good, but you could go somewhere for a year and transfer out.
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Telosan
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The Foremost Intellectual Badass
Okay, so somewhat long post incoming.

I intend to make a stand, or, at least, I think I do. After several years of absolute torture at this high school, I have suffered numerous injustices stacked so thickly atop each other that fire couldn't even burn them entirely. Last Thursday, I discovered just 4 days prior to the admission notifications that the midyear reports I sent out to all my colleges contained Incompletes for every class for the second marking period.

Backing up for that explanation. I've been dealing with an ongoing medical condition for at least 4 years now. There has only been a name for this condition for 3 of those years. This has caused me to have to miss school sporadically for extended periods of time. Freshman year, I missed the last month of school, but made up all my work without home instruction. I managed to be one of the only 3 freshman in the school to be exempt from the finals on academic merit that year. Sophomore year went without an issue, but in Junior year, I missed school from the first week of February to the last week of May. The school handled the home instruction poorly, again, and I received no help while I completed all the work myself and dragged my sorry sewn together self to the school to make up my midterms. When I returned, it was just in time for finals. This past year, my counselor told me that this medical condition is a great thing to put on my applications, to showcase my ability to work through hardship. So I did and about 1/3 of my essays at least referenced it.

As for my Incompletes for this past 2nd marking period, I was forced to take off school again from Christmas to the end of January. In this time, no home instruction was given, yet again. Despite this being a shorter amount of time, I am also enrolled in all AP classes this year, so the work is exponentially greater in quantity and difficulty. By the time I returned to school by essentially pissing off everyone around me, arriving 3 weeks before I was supposed to and 2 weeks before my surgeon wanted to let me return, I had only a single month before the marking period ended. In that month, I busted my ass to complete all the work I missed, midterms included, as well as keep up with the current work that made little sense without the past work.

And I succeeded with a week to spare.

When the marking period ended, I had my midyear reports sent out. However, I made the horrific mistake of assuming the teachers I've worked with through my senior year were competent enough to put my grades in before the quarter ended, as they all assured me they would do. They did not. My colleges all received Incompletes for everything.

Discovering this only 4 days prior to the notification date, I had no choice but to hope and then make my moves after the results came. Once all the colleges rejected me, I took stock. Places such as Princeton were a long shot in the first place, so I won't bother with them. This reduces my list so something more manageable. I spent all Sunday calling these admissions officers and counselors before realizing (today) that none of these places are open on Sundays. So today, I went straight to my guidance counselor and let myself into her office, essentially telling the incredibly annoying and ineffectual secretaries that I was in no mood to deal with their bullshit. With my counselor, we set up a decent plan of action. While I went to class for the day, she was to call the colleges and find out on what grounds I had been denied admission and, if it was the horrific midyear report, we could send an updated transcript and request a review on extraordinary circumstances. We would reconvene before the day ended.

After 4th period, I stopped by the office and reminded her to make the calls, which she had not begun. I did so again after 6th period. Finally, during my lunch, second to last period of the day, I went to her office instead of the cafeteria and took my place in her office where she was just starting the calls when I arrived. So on what grounds have I been rejected?

Two things.

1) My midyear report, as expected.

2) My previously heralded trump card, the illness that has caused me so much trouble these past 4 years.

Wait, what? As my counselor explained to me, the colleges are of the impression that my absences are too sporadic and unpredictable in length. They believe that this will render me incapable of completing coursework. You know. Despite the fact that I more or less taught myself for much of my high school career. Despite the fact that I essentially completed a month of independent study of SIX COLLEGE LEVEL AP CLASSES while simultaneously attending classes and keeping current on the classwork while I was present. They believe I can't complete their coursework.

I. Cannot. Describe. My level. Of anger.

After screaming at everyone in the office and being calmed by a nurse and a security guard, my counselor and I decided that we would attempt to reverse the decision anyway and the only way we could attempt that was by sending a new transcript. Alright. That's simple. Just hit the send button. Hm, not exactly. See, it looks like my 5/8 of my teachers never bothered to submit the second quarter work altogether, in the couple extra months they've had, so an updated transcript would still include 5 Incompletes. That brings my yearly average in those 5 classes down to about 45%.

So I left the guidance office and skipped my last class of the day. By the time the final bell rang, I had tracked down those 5 teachers, demanded to know if they had the work graded and in their gradebooks (which they did), demanded the work itself back since it was graded (which they eventually relented to), and told them all they had until tomorrow morning to get those grades from their neat little gradebook charts into the neat little teacher portal charts and update my transcript. I took the graded papers down to the guidance, secured a folder to put them in, and managed to find a sympathetic and intelligent secretary to help me input the grades into an Excel file myself, which I gave to my counselor. The point of this is that my teachers should now put the grades in. If they do not, there is another record of the grades in my counselor's possession to attach to my transcript if necessary. This was all done between 1:30 and 3:30. In two hours I have made more progress than a handful of paid professionals have in two months.

Tomorrow, I present my case.

~~~~~

Ranting aside, I'm torn over the course of action I've chosen. I have been told by almost everyone I have spoken to with any depth that I am an incredibly stubborn person and that this is a negative trait. I have taken measures these past few years to fix it, but I never seem to have any success. Here I am making another stubborn stand, though and, however justified it seems to me and I have laid out here, it still irks me that I'm being stubborn yet again.

That is just one problem I'm having with this. The other problem is that, for years, part of my issue with the people around me is that so many 'succeed' by pulling strings or having others pull the strings for them. Every quarter, there are countless parents in the office and on the phones say "But not MY son. He would never do that!" and then they pass. These students, quite a large number of them, get to where they are because of who they are or who they make themselves out to be. In fact, the only blemish on my student record is a suspension in middle school that resulted in my being submitted to a psychiatrist evaluation at the regional hospital to prove I wasn't a danger to myself or anyone else, all because the other kid's parent came in and said "But not MY son. He would never do that!" and my parents didn't back me up similarly.

But... here I am trying to do the same thing, to an extent, in getting into college. I want to get where I get by my own efforts, not but the under-the-table deals and arguments that convince them to let you by, if only so they stop getting yelled at. I don't want to be one of those people. I would rather climb my own mountain, rather than let the guide pull the line for me.

I understand my circumstances are most likely vastly different, but I still hesitate. I feel as though it cheapens the victory. Do I go ahead and do this? Do I continue to be the stubborn ass, at least for this one case?
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Quaon
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A Prince Amoung Men-Shoot First and Ask Questions Later
Telo, you are doing things exactly right and are handling yourself remarkably well given the circumstances (if i were in your situation I'd basically be in a daze). Keep fighting; the reasons you got rejected are bullshit.
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Tristan da Cunha
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Do what you have to do. The measure of victory in grade school (and even college and grad school) is unrealistic, because achievement in the real world does not work along the black-and-white, pass-and-fail standards of school. In this way the educational system fails its students by giving them wrongheaded expectations of how real-world systems work. The real world is all about pulling strings, calling in favors, assembling your network of allies for battle. Don't just climb the mountain, own the mountain and own all the guides on it. There are higher and more glorious mountains that you haven't even conceived of, don't even have an inkling of, awaiting once you pass this current hurdle, so do not hesitate in achieving mastery of your situation..

Any mistakes that they may have made, any mistakes that you may have made, that is all in the past now. Right now you're in a certain situation and you have to do what needs to be done. The only thing that can cheapen victory now is defeat. I tell you to exhort, cajole, raise hell, lie, scream, misrepresent yourself. From now on feel free to misrepresent yourself as something better, more worthy, or more deserving than you "actually are". Because when you do so with determination, you are setting a challenge and goal for yourself to live up to, rather than sinking back to old forms and old norms, the familiar.
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Rhadamanthus
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Telo, a few things:

1) You are not doing anything wrong. You are, as Quaon said, doing precisely the correct thing. You are not being a stubborn ass. You are being persistent in correcting an error. This is nothing like those parents who connive to get their children out of just punishments. That is corruption. What you are doing is correction.

2) Before I state this, note that I am not justifying the schools' decisions. Noting that beforehand, I want to explain to you about your condition. Your advisors were not wrong when they said that showing your ability to surmount hardship can be a benefit. But, as you have seen, an ongoing disability can be a detriment. Reading that last line, it is almost a tautology. There thought process is essentially "Look at the herculean effort it has taken for him to keep up with his high school work - how will he keep up with college classes that are significantly harder than even AP classes?" I believe you can do it, but I know you better than they do. That doesn't mean you are out of luck, but it is important that you see where they are coming from. Now that that is out of the way, let me say that I think that when they see your grades, that will help further demonstrate to them your ability to surmount your condition - and the fact that this your senior year and you are taking harder courses should help to set their concerns at ease.

3) I'm kind of disappointed by how passive your school seems to be. I remember that, back in the Fall, you said that they didn't even give you information about applications, deadlines, etc. This is very shocking to me because my own high school was so much the opposite. They were very concerned with getting their students into college, at least for those students taking classes aimed at college preparation. The guidance office managed our applications, teachers were getting recommendation requests early on, SATs were a common subject of discussion. Hell, I annoyed my English teacher because he had us write a personal statement for applications as a class assignment very early in the year and I didn't feel like doing those yet. It seems to me that schools have very different cultures. I went to a public school in New Jersey, as I believe you do.
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Telosan
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The Foremost Intellectual Badass
I do see the university side of the problem and it makes perfect sense to me. However, the fact that that is one of the few things holding me down at the moment, in addition to the perceived incompetence of faculty, is what bothers me. That is something I have absolutely no power to change and things outside of one's power are usually the things that bother one the most.

And yes, the differences across schools are startling extreme; even within the same district.

Thanks guys for the comments. I'll keep you all updated on the (hopeful) progress.
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flumes
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CLEVELAND ROCKS!
I wouldn't have handled myself as well as you did.
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Sedulius
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Telo, you just earned my greatest respect and admiration. I can only ever hope to be half as hardworking as you are. You are utterly justified in your actions for this situation. Keep up the pressure and take what you have rightfully earned.

I hate to suggest this, but if all other efforts fail, give Cameron University a whack. It's one of the easiest state universities to get into. Though, wow, after looking it up they have actually raised their requirements significantly from when I got it in. I think you'd still have a clean shot though. It's those imcompletes that are killing you. I'm sure once you have that cleared up, you'll get in somewhere.
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New Harumf
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Bloodthirsty Unicorn
Te advise coming at you in this thread is all very, very good, and I really have nothing to add except - good luck. Oh, and you are now my hero because there is absolutely NO WAY I could act as cool and levelheaded as you have if a bunch of so-called "educators" had screwed up as much as your lot. Fight the noble fight, and, quite honestly, if you don't get excepted at EVERY SINGLE COLLEGE you applied to I would hire the crookedist, slimeist schyster lawyer I could dig up in New Jersey and sue the pants off of everybody!
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