Finally, somebody thinks something’s wrong at last!
Thankfully, Tuesday’s the best day to blog (18 hrs straight of free time!) so here I am double and potentially triple posting. I came across this somewhere today (I think it was CNN, but it’s no longer available there so I grabbed it from CNBC) and nearly forgot to post this until I was working on a related piece.
Anyways, this concerns a matter which is undoubtedly familiar (and dear) to our hearts : The University Admissions Applications process. Ahhhh yes, the very mention of that brings back gushing emotions of indecision, anxiety, fear, last-minute panicking and whatever stress related emotion that you can think of. Question: ‘Do you think the entire process is flawed?’ Ok, I don’t think I get a lot of yea, raised hands and nods here. Ok, let’s rephrase it again. Question : ‘Do you think the entire process is flawed in the sense that it is overtly successful?’ Aha, this is more like it. We should know best, since we’re ‘fresh’ from the roller coaster trip. From personal experience, I knew almost exactly what was going to happen, but admittedly it was still hard to endure the wiggling worms in your stomach having to wait. We all know the process is fundamentally wrong somehow right? At last, some one at the top came to realise that.
MIT Dean of Admissions, Marilee Jones had gone through the same process with her 18 year daughter, and has decided to try and change the system for the better. BTW, what’s with women clustering at the top of the admissions food chain? Not to say that it’s bad, but I guess Nancy Hopkins has done a pretty good job of revamping the whole picture. To really understand what’s she’s fighting for, go here for the article. Let’s see if Marilee Jones could pull off an equivalent stunt. She has clout, but unlike gender equality her cause is more ambiguous, hence more difficult. All the same, let’s hope she will prevail. 
P.S. : If Nancy Hopkins sounded familiar to the biology students out there, it should be. She’s mentioned in Campbell & Reece Biology 6th Edition (somewhere in the genetics section I believe) where she talked about zebrafishes and gender equality. However, I might be wrong in the details because I last touched that book almost a full year ago. 
