All colleges, of whatever level, are bureaucracies.

Very little skill, of any sort, is required to "game" a bureaucracy. Patience and persistence are pretty much all that is required, though an ability to act congenial in a face-to-face interview can also handy.

Find which forms need to be filled out. Fill out the forms correctly. Follow the proper procedures. And that''s about it.

Even if you get rejected, just find out what the appeal or grievance process is, and then follow that. To the letter.

And again, if necessary.

It may take a few rounds, but you will evitably get what you want.

This applies to just about any kind of bureaucracy you care to name.

FWIW, I really enjoyed college, and I learned a lot there. I fully recommend a college education. Just don''t take the admissions process *that* seriously. Pick the college you want to attend, and just follow the posted signs--and learn to turn your head and cough on cue.


DavidRM
Samu Games

I think you don't understand the admissions procedure that well, David. "It may take a few rounds, but you will evitably get what you want." That statement is false. It may work for some middle-of-the-line colleges and universities, but it will not be successful for the big "dream" schools that everyone looks to get in to. I mean, Harvard or MIT aren't going to accept at 2.0 GPA student no matter how many grievances he or she files.

Gumby: Well, there are a bunch of schools with good computer science departments. Before I give you some suggestions, where are you located, and how far are you willing to travel for college? And no matter what schools are mentioned here, make sure you do a lot of research on them, and visit them if possible. If you are going to spend 4 years somewhere, you have to like the campus.

EDIT: Oh, and to answer the original questions, most colleges look for about the same thing. Good recommendations, a good academic record, an essay or interview, and SAT scores (though the academic record is *usually* given more weight).

[edited by - Erunama on July 15, 2002 12:08:30 AM]

My first year I used to go to Pace University (that''s a private school in NYC). Then I transferred to Stony Brook University and this fall I''ll be a Junior. I also have a lot of friends in many different colleges.

Based on my experience, unless you want to go to IV League or colleges that are almost in IV League (did I spell League right?) you can pretty much accept DavidRM''s post as given. Unless you dropped out of high school or got 600 on your SAT you have absolutely nothing to worry about. The claim that colleges look for some kind of "extracurricular activities" has proven false in dozens of cases that I am aware of, and these people went to pretty good schools. I wrote my "personal essay" in about 30 minutes and it seems that it was perfectly good for both colleges. I had a 1230 SAT score and a high school average of 90.0 or something close to that (on a 0-100 scale). I know many people with SAT scores close to 1000 and average around 75 that got into schools that are generally considered as good as stony brook (which is not a bad school). So please, don''t buy the propaganda.

I am originally russian and I found that in America it''s considered by many a great accomplishment to finish high school. To be honest I didn''t do anything in high school, I got the results that I got with minimum (that''s close to none) work. I also bought into propaganda how competitive it is in colleges, so I studied my a** off to get a good score on the SAT. Then I found out that I could have gotten into the same schools with a significantly worse SAT results.

Again, I can''t summarize better then DavidRM''s post.

Just to throw in my $0.02. I think David is right... yes some really hoity-toity college might be an exception to the rule, but who the hell would want to go to one of those colleges anyway?

For computer science, there are many good state universities with really good CS programs: UC Berkley, U Michigan, U Texas at Austin (my alma matter)... plenty of others I''m missing.

In fact, here''s a little link for you:
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/college/rankings/engineering/phd/computer.htm

Half of these schools are state schools. If you can breath, you can get in.

And one final thing... even schools with low acceptance rate DO take some students with 2.0 or 3.0 averages. There is a reason for this, but I don''t feel like explaining it here.

I am honestly laughing out loud.

Some background. I just graduated from U.C. San Diego. I was accepted as B.S. Computer Engineering, switched to B.S. Computer Science, in the Same (CSE) department. Had I not been accepted into the CSE department as a major or premajor, I would NEVER have gotten into it later.

I was accepted with a highschool GPA of 4.2, SAT of 1390, Extra curicular (primarily, but not limited to, sports) out the wazoo, with awards.

I had friends early on who were premajors, with 3.8''s and 3.9''s. I don''t know that I would be accepted directly into the major today with those scores. Our department has gotten to be at least (if not more) competitive than any other UC CS department.

I was denied to U.C. Berkeley (which I am honestly happy about now, but at the time definitely was not). Most likely because I did not study for my SAT 2 scores and took them out of synch with the subject matter they dealt with. This led to only scoreing above average, as opposed to extremely high. This was also the only blemish on my application, and as said, they were above average just not on par with the rest of the app.

Don''t consider a State school easy to get into, especially if you are trying to get into a top notch department. You can be average and get into most colleges for unknown/non-impacted departments. If you want to go to a nice programming college, save yourself future dissappointment by working harder now. It is not overly difficult to succeed in highschool, it is typically just about doing the work and showing up for class. Again, good luck.