Do I Know You?

College recommendations received; essays written; applications sent; interviews conducted.  Is this the eye of the storm before final judgment?  Not if you applied for a scholarship.  In addition to the plethora of information that university institutions have already cajoled, pestered, and blackmailed out of my increasingly invaded life, many of them are pulling me part-way across the country to talk to them in person – again.  Even with alumni interviews on file and just about every detail of my recorded life splayed out on the page for their perusal, scholarship programs require a battery of interviews with faculty and students, individually and in groups. 

But I do not need to enjoy the process to give it a measure of respect.  Despite dire warnings that SAT scores will determine students’ lives, colleges appear to strive for a more holistic understanding of their applicants.  Even combined, course selections, grades, scores, awards, extra-curricular activities, service hours, summer programs, teacher recommendations, and student essays cannot truly convey what a person is like, and in America’s face-to-face culture, the solution is personal interviews.  There is, of course, a certain naivety in thinking that a thirty-minute barrage of questions to a nerve-wracked student from a panel of personality judges will yield accurate results.  But the only real alternative is to know each candidate for an extended period of time.  Smaller communities might have that luxury, but if Americans want their myriad of college choices, they cannot possibly expect to form personal relationships with representatives of them all.  As much as university selection committees may try to mitigate it, greater choice for students has outweighed accurate choice for admission staff, and how people can express themselves on paper and in short bursts is more important for institutional opportunity than the truth behind the art.