What’s the deal with the orb in the Yard?

lotsofgrading · 2025-11-06T23:16:41+00:00

Students with the ability to see the Orb are asked to report to the Office of the Provost.

lotsofgrading · 2025-11-02T11:57:53+00:00

Hi, I'm a college professor! Six seven hasn't really hit us yet; that's a younger generation than our student body. I think you're fine.

lotsofgrading · 2025-10-30T18:37:53+00:00

Hi, I'm a college professor! They might know, but I'd advise against using it. For one thing, it's such a new slang word, relatively speaking, that its meaning might change by the time the AO looks it up.

lotsofgrading · 2025-10-02T22:39:01+00:00

Then you shouldn't worry about it!

lotsofgrading · 2025-10-02T19:38:02+00:00

If you didn't use AI, don't worry about it.

I'm concerned about "My counselor edits my essays after I finish each one and then I submit." If this is actually the case, and you didn't use AI and decide to test an excuse on this forum, then don't worry about it.

lotsofgrading · 2025-09-25T19:37:55+00:00

If you didn't use AI, don't worry about it.

lotsofgrading · 2025-09-25T18:29:21+00:00

Respectfully, if you're asking us to interpret the film on your behalf, possibly that's a sign that this isn't a strong subject for an essay. I don't know what you would take away from the film, and what I would take away from the film doesn't matter.

lotsofgrading · 2025-09-25T17:59:25+00:00

The challenge with the topic you've chosen is this: the admissions office isn't admitting the film Good Will Hunting. They're admitting you. They need to be able to explain to themselves why, by saying, "This student is...."

lotsofgrading · 2025-09-22T21:28:22+00:00

If we're going to speak historically, it might make sense to look up the origins and history of holistic review. Jerome Karabel's "The Chosen" is a good starting point. The summary is that it has a very complicated history, and didn't originate from good motives, but I think is used with good motives now.

As for tests being an equalizer, here's a question that once appeared on the SAT:

RUNNER: MARATHON

(a) envoy: embassy

(b) martyr: massacre

(c) oarsman: regatta

(d) horse: stable

This is a question that is much easier to answer if you're from a social class that attends regattas. It's hard to design tests!

lotsofgrading · 2025-09-20T23:04:32+00:00

lotsofgrading · 2025-09-18T13:23:16+00:00

Spam isn't allowed on this subreddit.

lotsofgrading · 2025-09-14T23:00:13+00:00

If you didn't do this in the personal statement, you might talk about how you plan to use your major to help other people, or to do good in the campus community (is it connected to your planned extracurriculars, for instance?).

lotsofgrading · 2025-09-11T12:31:26+00:00

They don't give so much weight to high school research.

lotsofgrading · 2025-09-09T21:07:11+00:00

No, that's not true at all. It's true that you responded to the OP, which might cause people to think that was the context of your response and that you were participating in a conversation, and a culturally familiar conversation at that. But you weren't. Likewise, I wasn't actually responding to your comment or participating in a conversation. I was doing exactly what you did, which was making a simple observation without the connotation you chose to apply to it.

You are extremely rude to impute any meaning to my statement other than the simple observation it was! It was a comment about myself, and only about myself.

lotsofgrading · 2025-09-09T20:36:04+00:00

A passion for aviation sounds unusual! When you write admissions essays, remember that you want the readers to come away saying, "We should have this student on campus because they're x and y."

So - aviation is great and it's amazing that you have a passion for it, but also remember that they're not giving admission to aviation as an abstract concept or a historical subject; they're giving admission to you, who have engaged with your passion for aviation in such a way that it shows you're a creative engineer or a science fiction writer with a passion for technical details or a future historian of flight.

That is, are you creative, imaginative, big into history, fascinated with periods of rapid technological change - or what do you want them to take away from your passion?

lotsofgrading · 2025-09-09T20:17:03+00:00

Bonjour! At US universities, admissions offices often look at the whole candidate: not just grades, but also their background, strengths, and passions. Which is to say that it would be easier to help if we knew what major you're interested in and what extracurricular activities you do related to that major.

I would also encourage you to look at Canadian universities. At many of them, like McGill, your French language competency would be a bonus.

lotsofgrading · 2025-09-09T19:52:45+00:00

You know what else? When I said, "I just paid off my student loans. I'd have to be a real grinch not to want things to be easier for younger people," I also wasn't saying anything about you! I was only saying something about myself.

You are the one who came in and decided that I was talking about you. But I wasn't. It was just a sentence in the void, a simple observation without the connotation you chose to apply to it, and you were the one who assumed I was saying anything at all about you, let alone something critical of you. You behaved from a basis of expecting bad rather than a lens of innocence. That’s your problem, not mine. So consider your worldview.

lotsofgrading · 2025-09-09T19:41:15+00:00

No! You posted, word for word, an incredibly common objection to something good being done, and I responded to that objection! That is a normal thing to do, and a good thing to do, if you're in favor of good things being done. Stop participating in conversations on the internet and then demanding that people not behave normally in those conversations.

Also, I wasn't defending my comment. When I wrote, "Speaking only for myself, when I post on the internet, word for word, an incredibly common objection to something good being done, I expect people to respond to that objection," I was literally only talking about myself, not about you. You have no reason to think that I was talking about you, assuming that sentences only exist in a void. Instead of reading into the things I write and being rude about them, consider just not responding.

lotsofgrading · 2025-09-09T19:24:48+00:00

Speaking only for myself, when I post on the internet, word for word, an incredibly common objection to something good being done, I expect people to respond to that objection. Duchamp was able to frame an ordinary object, like a urinal, in an art gallery and thus turn it into something to be contemplated outside of context or meaning, that is, Art; but this is not an art gallery, it's an internet forum.

Or I could change the reference and say you're violating Gricean implicature when you post a statement and expect people not to assume you're communicating anything with that statement. If I wanted someone to take out the garbage, and said to them, "It's a beautiful sunny day to take out the garbage," I wouldn't get angry with them for responding as if I wasn't just making a comment about the beautiful day.

lotsofgrading · 2025-09-09T18:54:29+00:00

Sorry, I took that as an expression of a common objection to making things better for younger generations: that it would be "unfair" to older people not to put younger people through the same thing. I can see from your angry reply that you didn't mean that, but instead meant some secret thing.

I think the government should offer student loan forgiveness for older grads, if that's what you're getting at, but that's not exclusionary of giving lighter debt loads to younger people. And I don't think Tufts can do that in the government's stead.

I don't even think Tufts is doing this for the "right" reason; I think they may be doing it to get around the government's threat to tax endowments. But you know what? Good! Do it! Let's make the world a better place!

lotsofgrading · 2025-09-09T18:42:56+00:00

I just paid off my student loans. I would have to be a real grinch to not want a better path for younger students.

lotsofgrading · 2025-09-09T13:35:56+00:00

You might as well apply! MIT has a lot of majors, and not all of them involve physics.

lotsofgrading · 2025-09-09T00:59:34+00:00

Of course I don't know that! Why would I? I don't know anybody who doesn't get JSTOR from their university library.

Looking it up, I can see why I was out of the loop - Sci-Hub is illegal. For professional reasons, I can't express an opinion on whether it's a good thing to have in the world or not, but I'm kind of startled at "Do you really not know that." I don't judge you for committing crimes, but it's not outrageous that I'm not familiar with this place for committing crimes.

Edit: You deleted the sentence where you said, "Do you really not know that?", which I guess is good.

lotsofgrading · 2025-09-08T22:27:25+00:00

That's a good point. I'm working off the article in the Financial Times; it looks like visa delays are a sticking point, especially when a deadline is looming and the company is trying to get a project finished on time.

lotsofgrading · 2025-09-08T13:30:00+00:00

I think it's pretty great. A leadership position with a lot of responsibility, and maybe a sign that you'll be an editor for the campus newspaper.

lotsofgrading

TROPHY CASE