News of the day-ish

[mzrowan]

Should a single essay in an unfamiliar style count more towards college admission than a student's entire academic and extracurricular history? "In fact, [the most selective US] colleges give more weight to the essay than grade-point average. Let me restate that: one writing assignment is more critical to a high school senior’s chances of getting

Comments

[sunspiral]

Glad I saw this College Essay article after Gabriel's college applications were in. Before would just have been crazy-making.

[fuzzyila]

I have to agree with the beginning of the fever article that all the different medications have different doses and instruments and it's kind of annoying. Each brand comes with a different kind of dropper - American Tylenol comes with a 1.8ml dropper (and is 100mg/ml), Canadian Tylenol comes with 1.5ml (and is 80mg/ml). Target's Up and Up ibuprofen comes with a 1.875ml dropper and I think the Canadian Advil comes with 1.24ml or something equally ridiculous. And Ro needs 120mg of acetaminophen, so 1.4ml of the American version and 1.5 of the Canadian....it's fun doing calculations at 3am with a screaming baby

[littlehoudini]

I wonder if the airlines' tactic to pull out of sites like Expedia won't backfire on them...if *most* of the airlines are available through such sites, isn't that where people are still going to go to buy tickets?

BTW, I read another article recently that said that airlines are going to start charging a fee for using credit cards to buy tickets (since the credit card company charges *them* a fee for that purchase) - essentially, they want people to start showing up at the airport with a handful of cash.

[mzrowan]

Except they also charge a fee for using a ticketing agent's time (either in person or on the phone).

[littlehoudini]

So basically they'll have to set up a kiosk that accepts bills, like at the supermarket.

And speaking of the fee for using the ticketing agent's time...I've had a few times at the airport where kiosk check-in simply doesn't work for me, for any number of reasons. I'm going to be supremely annoyed if I'm charged a "talking to a human" fee when I *can't* use a kiosk.

Seriously, I don't know why anyone flies for "pleasure" any more.

[mzrowan]

They don't charge for the agents who check you in, just the ones you buy tickets from.

[horsetraveller]

Let me restate that: one writing assignment is more critical to a high school senior’s chances of getting into many top colleges than his or her average grades from four years of high school."

At the end of four years of high school, the applicants who have written a decent essay will stand so far out from the crowd it won't matter what the grades from their high school had been. With marks inflation and teachers not being allowed to penalize students in any way, like taking marks off for handing in the assignment after the deadline, high school marks are probably meaningless anyway.

[keyne]

I'm glad to learn about HandicappedFraud.org -- I can't tell you how many infuriated notes I've written on paper torn out of spiral notebooks :/