So you wrote the Waldo essay, eh? I wrote the present essay. Good luck to you, and good luck to us all.
Show HN: UChicago admissions asked me to find Waldo. I did.
51–60 of 61 posts
Re: Show HN: UChicago admissions asked me to find Waldo. I did.
#52I wish I was this competent at that age.
Re: Show HN: UChicago admissions asked me to find Waldo. I did.
#53Well now my essay feels inadequate...
But seriously though, good job, and best of luck!
Re: Show HN: UChicago admissions asked me to find Waldo. I did.
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
I disagree. I'd estimate his writing skills are in the 95%+ percentile for 17/18 year olds. In the last 5-7 years, the English curriculum in US schools has changed significantly in an effort to improve NCLB reading scores. One part of the curriculum that had to get trimmed down was writing composition. These days, unless you were home schooled or attended grades 9-12 at a quality private school, you probably won't be…
Keep in mind that the University of Chicago is considered roughly a top 10 university (tied for 4th, if US News is to be trusted, which of course it should not). The 25th percentile of admitted students is at the 95th percentile of SAT scores. Rest assured, 80%+ of people who are admitted into the University of Chicago know how to write a decent essay (the other 20% allowing for athletes and development cases). That…
>the other 20% allowing for athletes and development cases
Chicago is not known for letting people in because they are athletes...
>80%+ of people who are admitted into the University of Chicago know how to write a decent essay
Actually, as an '06 U of C grad, I was a little bit shocked at how poorly the majority of the first years wrote. I say this without praising my own writing abilities as necessarily better. If the students represent some of the best in the country (they probably do), it doesn't say anything positive about writing eduction in the country.
Re: Show HN: UChicago admissions asked me to find Waldo. I did.
#55Went to U of C ... Interviewed prospective students ... all that.
And, frankly: this essay knocks it out of the park. My essay (which, I'm convinced, got me into the school) was similarly off the wall.
Remember that the point of a response like this ... in addition to being well-reasoned, thought-out, and written ... is to leave a unique impression in the reader's mind ... one where, after they've read a gazillion apps that day, makes them say "admit the waldo programming kid!"
Re: Show HN: UChicago admissions asked me to find Waldo. I did.
#56Awesome. And I feel for this guy, knowing what the next four years is going to be like for him. Sitting in classes listening to an instructor spend a whole week explaining how a "for" loop works to students who for the most part won't be able to successfully write their own "for" loop by the time they graduate (with a 3.5 GPA in CS). I wish there was a degree path in "software" rather than "computer science", since t…
I'm sitting in a intro web development class at my university. We're learning C# and basic HTML/CSS. I didn't know when our exam was, and I showed up one day and got a 100%. Intro programming classes are a waste of time for someone who knows how to code.
Re: Show HN: UChicago admissions asked me to find Waldo. I did.
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
i'm sure many enterprising young applicants used the same essay for both the common and (un)common apps.
Parent was lamenting Chicago's decline into "common" status.
As a parent of a kid who is currently undergoing this "torture" of the admissions process [1], I beg to differ. The Common Application is definitely one of the ways the pain is alleviated. I wouldn't want to imagine the times when every college/university had their own application format.
Every institution that uses the Common App also has their own supplement and I have seen them very varied in complexity: from simple one-page form with no additional essays to much more involved ones with three essays. The supplement is now the place where the institution can show how "special" they are and how rigorous their admissions process is.
I wish all colleges went the Common App route.
[1] I didn't go to college in the United States, so I didn't really have any idea how complex this process is until now.
Re: Show HN: UChicago admissions asked me to find Waldo. I did.
#58Awesome. And I feel for this guy, knowing what the next four years is going to be like for him. Sitting in classes listening to an instructor spend a whole week explaining how a "for" loop works to students who for the most part won't be able to successfully write their own "for" loop by the time they graduate (with a 3.5 GPA in CS). I wish there was a degree path in "software" rather than "computer science", since t…
Just as a mechanical engineering degree requires a lot of physics classes, a software engineering degree would require a lot of computer science classes. There would still need to be intro courses; he has demonstrated he could probably skip them.
I'm not sure what your "turning algorithms into code" comment means. If you're trying to say that he should skip the beginner courses, then sure. But I don't see how that relates to software engineering versus computer science.
Even if there were separate software engineering and computer science tracks, you can't say which one the author should be in. That depends on what he wants to do after college: be a professional software developer, or do computer science research?
Re: Show HN: UChicago admissions asked me to find Waldo. I did.
#59Awesome. And I feel for this guy, knowing what the next four years is going to be like for him. Sitting in classes listening to an instructor spend a whole week explaining how a "for" loop works to students who for the most part won't be able to successfully write their own "for" loop by the time they graduate (with a 3.5 GPA in CS). I wish there was a degree path in "software" rather than "computer science", since t…
I'm sitting in a intro web development class at my university. We're learning C# and basic HTML/CSS. I didn't know when our exam was, and I showed up one day and got a 100%. Intro programming classes are a waste of time for someone who knows how to code.
Then why are you in it? Is it a prereq for higher courses? Can you test out of it?
Re: Show HN: UChicago admissions asked me to find Waldo. I did.
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
Keep in mind that the University of Chicago is considered roughly a top 10 university (tied for 4th, if US News is to be trusted, which of course it should not). The 25th percentile of admitted students is at the 95th percentile of SAT scores. Rest assured, 80%+ of people who are admitted into the University of Chicago know how to write a decent essay (the other 20% allowing for athletes and development cases). That…
>the other 20% allowing for athletes and development cases Chicago is not known for letting people in because they are athletes... >80%+ of people who are admitted into the University of Chicago know how to write a decent essay Actually, as an '06 U of C grad, I was a little bit shocked at how poorly the majority of the first years wrote. I say this without praising my own writing abilities as necessarily better. If…
True that UoC does not give very much of a boost to recruited athletes. Nonetheless, that 20% estimate would account for borderline legacies, development cases (parents donated), and possibly affirmative action admits (the data is mixed on this).
As for the second point, obviously your experience is purely anecdotal, which is hard to refute (other than dismissing it as anecdotal). I suspect that this opinion might be biased by our tendency to view things relatively rather than objectively - someone in the 75th percentile would see that most first years write poorly compared to him/herself, and thus might conclude that most first years are poor writers in general, when objectively that is not the case.