Your Sinus Add Me Ski Ons

"The more I want to get something done, the less I call it work."
-Richard Bach

I started my new job at Ursinus College today. Not only am I pumped about working so close to our home and getting to wear my new heels, I really enjoy reading these applications. Unfortunately, I signed a confidentiality statement and am not allowed to post snipits of their essays, honors, email usernames or club listings as I had planned to.

Although we're encouraged to read the application from front to back, I like to read the essay first. It's hard to get a feel for someone from just their name, school, address and racial boxes. Reading the essays is like listening to these kids. Some are really intelligent with complex sentences and genuine discovery. Others are totally lame and you can tell they just copy and pasted the name of the college into this template essay. It's always funny to me when these students write with this overly dramatic tone, this my-life-was-useless-before-this-moment, this I'm-so-enlightened voice. They probably have been reading a lot of great works by authors who do write in that tone. The difference, though, is in the content: great works authors have incredible things to say; these high schoolers are just bullshitting.

Thus far, the most popular sentence variation I've read is: "That's when I knew, I had to help people." Which I find incredibly interesting.