How To Get Into College And Be Successful (Have I Piqued Your Interest?)

I was out to a lunch with a friend for her birthday the other day.  Her oldest son is beginning the college search (read: she is beginning her son's college search).  Anyone who has gone to college or has had a child go to college knows, the process can be filled with anxiety and worry, real and imagined.  Being a doer from a family of doers, our friend has gotten a jump on the college search (her son is just only a junior).  She explained that she is a person who knows how much time she has and will actively work towards her goal until the due date.

We can contrast that with the thinkers, who ruminate on a subject during most of the precious available time and only take action when the remaining time is less than or equal to the time required to complete the task at hand.  That would be us.  I'm not making normative statements here, just identifying two types of people.  In this case, the thinkers were able to assuage the doer's fear that her time was running out, assuring her that she needn't feel so pressed as to act rashly.

Our friend had already gone to the public library and checked out The Princeton Review's 377 Best Colleges and a heap of related tomes.  I laughed a bit at her and a bit at myself: at her because she can well afford to buy the books ten times over and would actually read every page twice, and at myself because I hadn't ever thought of checking the books out from the library, and the purchased books remain unread on my shelf to this day.  You are how you were raised, it seems.

In any event, our friend was disappointed but also slightly amused to find her son not reading these books but rather interlocking their pages as if shuffling playing cards.  Once they were sufficiently intertwined, he would try to pull them apart to test their (and his own) strength.  Perhaps he has a future in physics and/or bodybuilding.

Noting some anxiety, I assured my friend that everything would work out as it was meant to.  In general, we're big believers in that.  That doesn't mean we believe in fate.  Rather, we believe in our natural ability as people to find our own way.  If you are open-minded and take one day at a time, you'll always wind up where you belong.  Of course, when talking about college, few people are comforted by hearing that, especially from me.

But it is true.  I find that many and most people start out thinking that they should go somewhere or do something because it is what they are supposed to want.  My school was right for me, but it isn't right for everyone.  Admittedly, I didn't look at college guides, and I never visited any other schools, but I followed my gut.  And that's why I got in, I think.  Maybe I did exactly what I'm saying not to do and got lucky, but I don't think so.

So, I advised, keep reading about and visiting schools until you find something that you like and that feels right to you.  Again, you don't want to hear it from me, but forget about US News rankings and all that baloney.  The rankings are based on statistical fact, but in viewing these aggregate data, we forget two things.  The first is that the students they measure already go to that school.  They have been selected by an admissions committee on the basis of its expert evaluation.  The fact that students who go to a school are performing a certain way says nothing about a student who doesn't go there.  Furthermore, aggregate data are rarely useful enough to reliably predict the performance of any individual.  You are unique and will fit in to an environment in your own way.  And if it's a bad way, then it doesn't matter what the statistics say: you will do poorly.

Like I said, admissions committees are the experts when it comes to how students will do at their school.  They review thousands of applications each year and have a solid grasp on who will thrive and who will wither, and they will use your application to determine into which category you fall.  Given that, there is that great temptation to tell admissions committees "what they want to hear."  But, trust me, they will know what you're trying to do and reject you.  Even if you've managed to trick them, you're not doing yourself any favors.  By putting yourself in a place you don't belong, you're doing more harm than good.  You will be miserable.

The best applications, then, are the most honest ones; the ones that tell the committee who you are and not what you do; the ones that show a whole person and not just a student, not just the captain of the soccer team, not just the president of the student council.  Just be honest about yourself and what's important to you, what makes you different and unique, what makes someone else want to know more about you.  Just be honest, and you will be fine.  And you will wind up where you belong.

After you wind up where you belong, you'll find out you didn't know yourself as well as you thought you did.  College is a place where you can expect the unexpected, where you can expect to find out you aren't the person you were told you were or who you thought you wanted to be.  You'll meet all sorts of kooks and weirdos and/or find out that you are one.  My advice always is to take every chance you get to hang out with people that are different from you, as long as they're not doing anything dangerous or stupid.  Most often you'll be surprised how much you like them once you give them a shot.

To make my point more concrete, I recounted a story over lunch about a conversation I had had with a recent college freshman.  It was not a girl I knew well, but whom I had known quite some time.  We had volunteered at Sunday School years back.  She had always been a sweet and smart girl, a good sister and daughter, and as far as I could tell, a good friend to others.

She was telling me about her small Liberal Arts school, and how excited she had been to meet her new suite mates.  She had been randomly assigned to a suite of six girls (herself included).  The last suite mate to arrive was a girl named Melissa (names changed).  She walked into the suite wearing jeans, a t-shirt, and a backpack.  She had short hair, and wasn't wearing any makeup or jewelry.  By process of elimination, my friend greeted the girl as Melissa.  Melissa responded, "I go by Matthew.  You can call me Matt."

It caught her off guard.  It's not every day you're freshman roommate is a trans man, after all.  I was impressed, though, with how gracefully and maturely she seemed to have been handling the situation.  Sure, she was a little uncomfortable, at least at first.  But she soon realized that being uncomfortable was a personal problem, ultimately have little to nothing to do with Matt and his lifestyle.  He showed no interest in her other than being suite mates, maybe even friends.

Back at the lunch table, our friend was reminded of when she had visited Skidmore just over 30 years earlier.  She told us how her mother thought the Saratoga Springs campus was simply lovely.  But as soon as her father saw two girls kissing, he had seen enough.  They were out of there in a New York minute.  "I'm not like that," our friend said, "you do what you want, as long as your not in my face about it.  I mean, you can do what you want as long as your not making other people uncomfortable."

It was a fair point but one that I thought needed qualification.  As far as I'm concerned, everyone needs to look in the mirror and ask themselves if their own standards of normalcy are making all the weirdos feel bad about themselves.  Everyone deserves the right to be who they are, and if that makes you uncomfortable, well, then that's your problem.  Just because you're more "normal" doesn't give you priority.

And that's one of those beautiful things you learn in college.  Be who you are, and learn to tolerate, even enjoy, the people around you for who they are and what they believe in.  Be honest about what you think, but don't judge others for having different opinions.  Don't apologize for what you have or lie about where you've come from, but also don't look down on those with less or mindlessly worship those with more.  They are worth no more or less than you are.

So, in the end, my advice was nothing more than what I would have said in almost any other situation.  Be honest and open, tolerant and accepting, willing to learn about others but especially about yourself.  And stop worrying so much about what or who you're supposed to be.  Frankly, it's the safer and easier choice anyway.  But if you can handle a little risk and are interested in long-term returns, then bet on yourself.  You are a solid investment.

Is/are there any question/s?

I woke up this morning to a interesting text message.  It asked about the peculiar feature of the English language shown in the two example sentences below:

1. Let me know if you have any questions.
2. I'm sorry for any inconvenience.

You'll notice that in the first statement, the noun following "any" is in the plural (questions), but in the second, it is in the singular (inconvenience).  Why should that be?  Mightn't it be just as proper and make just as much sense if these sentences read as follow?

1a. Let me know if you have any question.
2a. I'm sorry for any inconveniences.

If you're a native speaker of American English, then these sentences surely sound odd to you.  Additionally, you might have been reminded of any of the following common phrases.

1b. Is there any question (that)...?

Perhaps you've discovered that the usage of "question" in instance 1. differs from the usage in 1b.  In the former instance, the word refers to "a sentence worded or expressed so as to elicit information."  In this sense, "question" is a countable noun.  That is, he has two questions, but I only have one.  However, in the latter instance, this same word refers rather to "a doubt about the truth or validity of something."  Here, "question" is less concrete, more conceptual, and (althought technically countable), less apt to be counted in the same way.  Now see this.

2b. The inconviences of rural living can wear on aging people.

Here, "inconvenience" in instance 2. refers to trouble caused, whereas the instance in 2b. refers to instances of such trouble.  The line is indeed blurier, but still there somewhere.  Below are a few other fun examples, just to push the point a little further.  These examples are not consistent in terms of usage differences, but they all still illustrate a point I make earlier about countable and uncountable nouns.

3. I don't see any glass.
3a. I don't see any glasses.

These are totally different words.  The first "glass" is an uncountable noun.  Now that you've swept up, there is no more glass on the floor.  The second "glasses" can be both an inherently plural noun, referring to eyeglasses, or it can be a countable noun in the plural, as in wine glasses.  This sentence could have either meaning.

4. Do you have any money?
4a. Have there been any monies exchanged?

Here, "money" refers to a medium of exchange, whereas "monies" refers to discrete sums of money.

5. Is there any soup on the menu?
5a. Are there any soups on the menu?

The first example here also can have two meanings.  Do you see?  The second is more specific, asking about the existence of a soup or variety of soups listed on the menu.

Hopefully, there isn't any question that I've made things clearer, but if there are any questions, please do let me know.