There is a common complaint about society today that I have and I have been hearing from my parents,
teachers and family friends:
There isn’t as much human connection as there used to be.
Conversations are rarely conducted in person (or even audibly heard) and instead communicated via text
message or e-mail. In customer service, persons first and last names are not even necessary, as everyone
has been reduced to an account number.
This “you’re just a number” phenomenon is frustratingly noticeable in the college application process.
Now the reason for why a college might reduce a prospective student down to a name and a bunch of
numbers isn’t hard to understand – colleges just have so many kids applying. University of California
Berkeley had over 48,000 applicants for its 2009 freshman class. UCLA? 55,000! Combine the number
of applicants with the sheer competitiveness of the whole process and it’s enough to put any applicant
(or parent of prospective student) over the edge.
I am an 18 year old high school senior waiting for my own college acceptances to come in. I have never
experienced a more nerve-racking time in my life. The truth is that it’s very easy to feel powerless and
insignificant when you realize just how many other amazing students are applying to the same schools.
Heck, that’s why my fellow qualified applicants and I have to apply to so many schools nowadays, just to
ensure we get in.
I know that the colleges, and their admissions officers, do not want to reduce each applicant to simply a
number or something less than a person. I firmly believe that the vast majority of admissions officers truly
want to know their prospective students, but the sheer numbers of applicants make this often impossible.
However, by focusing on the precious few direct communications I have in the college application
process, I have found ways to make my experience rewarding and personal.