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There's a more general lesson here: personal interactions are the quickest way to bend the rules. You may have a stellar application/resume, but so do many othe

There's a more general lesson here: personal interactions are the quickest way to bend the rules. You may have a stellar application/resume, but so do many other candidates. If you want to get an unconventional outcome, do it in person. Related: I was a terrible student as an undergrad and when I later applied to grad schools I got rejected by every university with half a shred of self-respect. So, I enrolled as a non-degree student, took mostly Ph.D.-level courses and befriended my professors. That's how I "snuck" into grad school.

bobf 16y ago
This was also very similar to my biggest takeaway from Startup School, actually. Any of the advice about how to gain customers, traffic, etc. when starting out was centered on real-world actions people took -- like evangelizing via meetups, as one example.
kmfrk 16y ago
I'd rather say that the lesson is that getting in comes down to people, not rules. A bureaucracy requires bureaucrats. There are many people who'll stand in your way of getting into a university moreso than arbitrary rules. I don't know if you have a good term for people who occupy their administrative desks like thrones (here, we call them "desk popes" translated directly.) I recall applying to a highly-esteemed British university once, and I was aghast at what a sordid mess it was to apply as an international student (no info wheresoever, and Open Days was announced mere weeks beforehand), not to mention the admission gatekeepers themselves. It's worth noticing how she got in: >I spoke to a counselor at General Studies, who was similarly encouraging. I showed him my transcripts and the As I’d gotten at Columbia so far. He said: “Great! Yeah, you’d be a terrific candidate for GS!” He encouraged me to keep taking classes at Columbia and apply to GS for the following semester. I told him I didn’t want to keep spending money at Columbia if I wasn’t eventually going to get a degree. He told me I wouldn’t have any trouble getting in. And the credits would go towards my degree. > >Except it didn’t work out that way. Three months later, I applied to matriculate at Columbia through the General Studies program. My application was rejected. Let’s just say I was a little pissed. I could have applied somewhere else. Or returned to SUNY Geneseo. But taking two semesters of classes at Columbia is EXPENSIVE. Did she get in, because the rules allowed it, or because a guy there screwed up, and she called him on it? She got in because and in spite of him.
- nl 16y ago
  I recall applying to a highly-esteemed British university once, and I was aghast at what a sordid mess it was to apply as an international student (no info wheresoever, and Open Days was announced mere weeks beforehand), not to mention the admission gatekeepers themselves. I was in the UK once, and met a girl who'd just moved to Bath from Australia with her boyfriend to do her PhD. She got there and found out the position had been cancelled and they had forgotten to tell her.

bobf 16y ago

This was also very similar to my biggest takeaway from Startup School, actually. Any of the advice about how to gain customers, traffic, etc. when starting out was centered on real-world actions people took -- like evangelizing via meetups, as one example.

kmfrk 16y ago

I'd rather say that the lesson is that getting in comes down to people, not rules. A bureaucracy requires bureaucrats. There are many people who'll stand in your way of getting into a university moreso than arbitrary rules. I don't know if you have a good term for people who occupy their administrative desks like thrones (here, we call them "desk popes" translated directly.) I recall applying to a highly-esteemed British university once, and I was aghast at what a sordid mess it was to apply as an international student (no info wheresoever, and Open Days was announced mere weeks beforehand), not to mention the admission gatekeepers themselves. It's worth noticing how she got in: >I spoke to a counselor at General Studies, who was similarly encouraging. I showed him my transcripts and the As I’d gotten at Columbia so far. He said: “Great! Yeah, you’d be a terrific candidate for GS!” He encouraged me to keep taking classes at Columbia and apply to GS for the following semester. I told him I didn’t want to keep spending money at Columbia if I wasn’t eventually going to get a degree. He told me I wouldn’t have any trouble getting in. And the credits would go towards my degree. > >Except it didn’t work out that way. Three months later, I applied to matriculate at Columbia through the General Studies program. My application was rejected. Let’s just say I was a little pissed. I could have applied somewhere else. Or returned to SUNY Geneseo. But taking two semesters of classes at Columbia is EXPENSIVE. Did she get in, because the rules allowed it, or because a guy there screwed up, and she called him on it? She got in because and in spite of him.

nl 16y ago
I recall applying to a highly-esteemed British university once, and I was aghast at what a sordid mess it was to apply as an international student (no info wheresoever, and Open Days was announced mere weeks beforehand), not to mention the admission gatekeepers themselves. I was in the UK once, and met a girl who'd just moved to Bath from Australia with her boyfriend to do her PhD. She got there and found out the position had been cancelled and they had forgotten to tell her.