Famous Yale alum, Mr. Burns--Class of 1914. (Sideshow Bob is also a Yale alum.)

I’ve always had a soft spot for Yale.  Two of my favorite former students are there now, as is one of my finer former colleagues from my University of Chicago days.  I also feel their office, for reasons mostly unknown to me, continues to make the most reasonable and thoughtful decisions year in and year out.  And on a semi-related note, I think it’s one of the few universities that begins to compare with my alma mater in terms of a rigorous undergraduate education. (But yes, I’m biased.)

So, it was a lot of fun reading this story in Saturday’s NYT about a set of quadruplets who were ALL admitted to Yale under Early Action last week.  The kids sound pretty amusing and compelling and it makes for a great story. I hope Jacques will follow up with them in the spring so we learn what their final decisions are…

And in a complete aside, one of my favorites vignettes from a Simpsons episode was when Mr. Burns was trying to get his dolt of a son into Yale as a legacy. He asks the admissions officer, “So, how were his test scores?”  Her reply, “Let’s just say he spelled ‘Yale’ with a six.”  When he then asks what kind of donation he’ll need to make to ensure his son’s admittance, he’s told Yale needs an international airport.

UPDATE: Seems that some folks got a little nasty in that cesspool of humanity also known as The NYT Readers’ Comments.  Jacques wrote up a quick followup post on his post and I can’t say I disagree.  Almost as good of a read as his original post on the quads.

And you thought he was talking about rims...

Regarding their transcript, I used to tell prospective students at Caltech, “Leave the killer B’s to Wutang.”  I was usually met with blank stares either because I wasn’t referencing some unbelievably complex physic problem or because it was a lame joke.  But today, I saw the Facebook status update of an old Collegewise colleague, Christina Wright, who is now an admissions counselor at Marquette University and burst into laughter.

A word of advice to high school students: The song “Throw Some D’s On It” should not apply to your transcript.

Never have truer words been spoken.  Especially by Rich Boy.

As a fairly voracious consumer of online media, I often stumble so deep into the Internet that I lose any sense of what I’m actually reading.  A couple days ago, while reading through several articles offering lots of truly awful advice on college essays (write 25 college essays in 25 weeks “because practice makes them better”), I came across one announcing the College of Charleston was testing having students apply via Twitter:

“Succinct is the new in-depth,” said assistant deputy admissions director, Chip VanDerveld. “Anybody can make a case for admission if you give them the time and space to do it; the real challenge is to convince us that you belong at the College of Charleston in 140 characters or less.”

Well, after being convinced the Apocalypse was upon us and muttering a few choice four-letter words–totaling less than 140 characters, of course–I realized I was the sucker.

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