High school senior blames Ivy League rejections on teh ghey, gains 15 minutes of fame

[KamaAina]

http://blog.sfgate.com/sfmoms/2013/04/04/high-school-senior-writes-scathing-letter-to-ivy-league-colleges-that-denied-her/

Weiss goes on to highlight three things she should have done—but didn’t—that would have gotten her that welcome letter from Yale.

1) Being more “diverse.” She writes, “For starters, had I known two years ago what I know now, I would have gladly worn a headdress to school. Show me to any closet, and I would’ve happily come out of it. ‘Diversity!’ I offer about as much diversity as a saltine cracker. If it were up to me, I would’ve been any of the diversities: Navajo, Pacific Islander, anything. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, I salute you and your 1/32 Cherokee heritage.” (Note: This is the section of the essay that’s leading some people to call Weiss racist.)

2) Starting a fake charity. “I also probably should have started a fake charity,” she writes. “Providing veterinary services for homeless people’s pets. Collecting donations for the underprivileged chimpanzees of the Congo. Raising awareness for Chapped-Lips-in-the-Winter Syndrome. Fun-runs, dance-a-thons, bake sales—as long as you’re using someone else’s misfortunes to try to propel yourself into the Ivy League, you’re golden.”

3) Having a Tiger Mom. “As the youngest of four daughters, I noticed long ago that my parents gave up on parenting me,” she writes. “It has been great in certain ways: Instead of “Be home by 11,” it’s “Don’t wake us up when you come through the door, we’re trying to sleep.” But my parents also left me with a dearth of hobbies that make admissions committees salivate. I’ve never sat down at a piano, never plucked a violin. Karate lasted about a week and the swim team didn’t last past the first lap. Why couldn’t Amy Chua have adopted me as one of her cubs?

If she dyes her hair blonde, there's an anchor slot at Faux waiting for her. In the meantime, she needs to dial Whine-One-One and call the

[Initech]

1. Is this moron trying to apply for a job as a Fox News correspondent?

[undeterred]

2. I saw her interviewed on one of the morning shows.

Despite being rejected at Ivy League schools, she was accepted at some very good state schools. She must have applied to a dozen places.. and applications aren't cheap.

[KamaAina]

12. One of them was Penn State.

I suspect she would fit in perfectly at Penn State.

[Generic Other]

3. So she let the admissions office know she has one skill?

being a whiner? Just what did she do in high school? No community service activities of any kind? No hobbies? She sounds like nothing special, a mediocre candidate who is throwing her application into a pool of higher achievers. Perhaps this is why she didn't make the cut. Instead of blaming it on those who apparently had more to offer, perhaps she should consider adjusting her attitude. This response proves she was not the best candidate for a highly competitive seat at an Ivy League school.

[undeterred]

6. I think she did have the academic credentials for a top notch school

but she didn't stand out from the crowd of highly qualified candidates, and she's not disadvantaged.

Thousands of other students who were also rejected did not complain about it to the Wall Street Journal.

[Generic Other]

19. She is whining because she did not even try

She probably knew in high school that she needed to show she was a well-rounded student by being involved in community service and extracurricular activities. She chose not to do that. It meant she met the minimum requirement -- good grades probably inflated -- the same good grades all the other applicants had. She should have tried harder and whined less. Sure she is not a diversity admission, but she could have volunteered at a food bank, played in a school orchestra, been a counselor at day camp for disadvantaged kids, struggled to overcome a disability while tutoring kids at math. Wonder what she did do? Walk around with a sense of entitlement, I bet.

[lpbk2713]

4. I was wondering whatever happened to her ...

[Brickbat]

5. Wait -- let me get this straight. She's mad because you need extracurricular activities and at least

some example of self-motivation to get into an Ivy League school?

[DinahMoeHum]

7. Personally, I think she dodged a bullet, tuition-wise.

Ivy League educations ain't cheap, even with scholarships. Oh, to be an Ivy League graduate, and $150K in the hole.

These days, Ivy League educations are waaaaaaay over-rated, anyway.

Let's also consider that some of the worst excuses for human beings have been Ivy League graduates as well (ie. Goldman-Sachs execs, George W Bush, Mitt Romney, etc.)

[Blue_Tires]

10. I'm pretty sure "Goldman-Sachs execs, George W Bush, Mitt Romney, etc."

are her role models...

[KamaAina]

13. Ahem...

thanks to their huge endowments, the Ivies generally meet the full extent of a student's demonstrated financial need. State schools can't say that. And all save Brown have need-blind admissions.

As for "overrated", you're basing that on what? My own life in a sub-$40K cube farm?

-K-A, Y'85, cum laude

[CTyankee]

18. OTOH, really talented but poor students don't often know they really SHOULD apply to

Ivy League schools because they are so richly endowed. If they want you, they pay well for you. Ivy League educations are very, very good. However, being very, very good won't help if you don't persevere and do something with it.

This young woman is an idiot.

[aandegoons]

20. We have an ivy league daughter in her third year

and it cost us less to send her there than it does to send my youngest to state school. Ivy league school actually pays so much we end up paying taxes on some of it.

We also had a son who went to a top ten private who also paid almost everything. Son scored what this little cry baby racist did when he was 14 years old. Both of them did do the extra curricular, two sports a year, job, school leadership roles, and national and state awards needed to get them there.

At no time did we ever think that either of them were a shoe in.

[cloudbase]

8. Looks as though she received

an education from Yale. Free!

[Blue_Tires]

9. I must have missed something...Vanderbilt is an "Ivy?"

This paragraph just tears it:

Weiss got the idea to write the letter on a day when she received numerous rejection letters and she was crying to her mom. Her mom told her to stop complaining and talk to someone else. Weiss called her sister who told her to write down her feelings. This led to the article. (Weiss’s sister is a former assistant editor of the WSJ Op-Ed section.)

1. Kudos to mom for informing the brat that every day isn't going to be Christmas

2. I love how she complains how the deck is stacked against her, but a sister with enough pull to get her whinefest on the WSJ op-ed page (and get her little day in the sun for every RW blogger) is ok...

[KamaAina]

14. Vandy was probably her safety school

[winter is coming]

16. I wonder if they'll withdraw their acceptance. n/t

[truebrit71]

11. Seems to me that those schools got it absolutley spot-on...

...she sounds like a truly spoiled little princess that needs to grow the fuck up...

[ck4829]

15. If they ever open the College of Whining, she will be asked to be the first one in

I'm pretty sure you can apply to the college of your choice more than once in your life.

[frazzled]

17. I've been wanting to use the Whaaaahmbulance line all day

Not for this thread in particular, but just in general. Thanks for the laugh.

[aandegoons]

21. Why would the today show give voice to this racist?

Ugh.

[KamaAina]

22. Because Matt Lauer is a right-wing goon who pals around with OxyMoron and Annthrax in Palm Beach?

Just a thought.

[0rganism]

23. interesting, the contempt and resentment she shows for the things she lacks

Through her bitterness, she shows herself as not merely undiverse, but racist. So she was not the founder of a charity, very few of us are, but now she goes out of her way to showcase her uncaring nature and lack of respect for activities of those who help the disadvantaged. She blames her mother for her lack of extracurricular activities, but it's apparent from her comments on Karate and swimming that her "dearth" is of her own making, not her mother's.

It is not merely a lack of the qualities she resents in this essay that kept her from the college of her choice, it is her lack of appreciation for those qualities. Such resentment is not gained through a single rejection letter; it likely poisoned her adolescence up to and including the very application process she now laments.

If she gains wisdom in the years to come, she will learn that this public letter is the crystallization in material form of the real reason she is ill-prepared for higher education. She will come to understand that the personal qualities of charity, self-motivation, and appreciation for diversity are more valuable than a century of unproductive ego-inflating study under the professors of her choice. In her contemptuous letter, she unwittingly reveals how very important these traits are to humanity, and the unrelenting gaps they leave in the characters of those who lack them.