Yet Another Article
540 words
College Admissions piece
If you love higher education like I do, I’ll bet you’re just itching to head off to college! Sleepless nights of cramming, getting high in the dorms, and a regimental all-pizza diet are all undeniable bonuses of the college experience, but did you know that there are certain academic requirements a student must meet before even being admitted to this perpetual funhouse? That’s right, like all awesome things, college has a terrible catch included somewhere in the fine print that you’re likely to overlook initially. Don’t expect to indulge in this mind-warping curriculum of fun and frivolity unless you are a caliber student with lots of fancy letter and number scores at your disposal to back up your acclaimed scholastic excellence.
Optimistically speaking, there are no actual guidelines for admission to most colleges. Okay, I’m lying, but maybe you’re the dean’s dimwitted son who’s skated through school on his father’s good name, and are now being handed a college admission on a silver platter, despite your flunking grades and persistent inclination to failure. There is hope for you! Excepting such rare and lucky cases, most schools do offer a general, suggested guideline, or rough blueprint of what your high school résumé should include. LSU, for instance, suggests its applicants have at least three, but advisably four, math credits securely under their belts. Maybe you hate math; I know I do. This could prove detrimental later on when you want to apply for college and have only completed half a semester of pre-algebra, which you passed miraculously with a D-. Even the most merciful of college admissions boards might be prone to skip on to their next applicant with an egregious math background like that to show for yourself.
In addition to completing core courses, and hopefully pulling decent grades out of them, you are also expected to take the ACT, SAT, or both. These are not just silly Dr. Seuss-level acronyms; they are rigorous standardized tests, the resultant scores of which could have a swaying vote in whether you are to wind up at an Ivy League school, some halfway reputable college, or one of those god-awful online university shams.
According to LSU’s effusively informative website, the fall entering class of 2005 had an average ACT score of 25.2, and an average SAT composite of 1150. It should be noted that the two tests use entirely separate numerical grading scales, and that the average SAT test-taker does not inexplicably whop the average ACT tester by a rough figure of 1124.8 points.
You can fret forever over every minute detail of your prospective college’s admissions rubric, pondering nervously whether you’ve got the grades to make the cut, but I think ultimately the easiest and wisest thing to do is recklessly peddle your application on a wing and a prayer to any seemingly collegial establishment that will take you in. This way, at least, you can ensure that no effort was squandered needlessly on college preparatory rigmarole when you do finally and irrevocably disappoint your parents, and go to work as a used-car salesman, or earn your keep as a broke artist in the French Quarter after a shamefully unproductive high school career. When they disown you, you can take a certain comfort in knowing you never bought into the whole prolonged-education hype to begin with.
College Admissions piece
If you love higher education like I do, I’ll bet you’re just itching to head off to college! Sleepless nights of cramming, getting high in the dorms, and a regimental all-pizza diet are all undeniable bonuses of the college experience, but did you know that there are certain academic requirements a student must meet before even being admitted to this perpetual funhouse? That’s right, like all awesome things, college has a terrible catch included somewhere in the fine print that you’re likely to overlook initially. Don’t expect to indulge in this mind-warping curriculum of fun and frivolity unless you are a caliber student with lots of fancy letter and number scores at your disposal to back up your acclaimed scholastic excellence.
Optimistically speaking, there are no actual guidelines for admission to most colleges. Okay, I’m lying, but maybe you’re the dean’s dimwitted son who’s skated through school on his father’s good name, and are now being handed a college admission on a silver platter, despite your flunking grades and persistent inclination to failure. There is hope for you! Excepting such rare and lucky cases, most schools do offer a general, suggested guideline, or rough blueprint of what your high school résumé should include. LSU, for instance, suggests its applicants have at least three, but advisably four, math credits securely under their belts. Maybe you hate math; I know I do. This could prove detrimental later on when you want to apply for college and have only completed half a semester of pre-algebra, which you passed miraculously with a D-. Even the most merciful of college admissions boards might be prone to skip on to their next applicant with an egregious math background like that to show for yourself.
In addition to completing core courses, and hopefully pulling decent grades out of them, you are also expected to take the ACT, SAT, or both. These are not just silly Dr. Seuss-level acronyms; they are rigorous standardized tests, the resultant scores of which could have a swaying vote in whether you are to wind up at an Ivy League school, some halfway reputable college, or one of those god-awful online university shams.
According to LSU’s effusively informative website, the fall entering class of 2005 had an average ACT score of 25.2, and an average SAT composite of 1150. It should be noted that the two tests use entirely separate numerical grading scales, and that the average SAT test-taker does not inexplicably whop the average ACT tester by a rough figure of 1124.8 points.
You can fret forever over every minute detail of your prospective college’s admissions rubric, pondering nervously whether you’ve got the grades to make the cut, but I think ultimately the easiest and wisest thing to do is recklessly peddle your application on a wing and a prayer to any seemingly collegial establishment that will take you in. This way, at least, you can ensure that no effort was squandered needlessly on college preparatory rigmarole when you do finally and irrevocably disappoint your parents, and go to work as a used-car salesman, or earn your keep as a broke artist in the French Quarter after a shamefully unproductive high school career. When they disown you, you can take a certain comfort in knowing you never bought into the whole prolonged-education hype to begin with.