Tuesday, April 06, 2004
 

Some recruitment highlights:

*One of the people who stayed with me was nice, but a total spazz. Accordingly, she dropped to all fours in the middle of a conversation and crawled about six feet from her chair to my TV, where she proceeded to view my DVD collection. She then crawled back.
*The other person who stayed with me (insert lots of swearing here) informed me that she was really just visiting this school "to rule it out." Gee, nice thing to say to someone who's actually attending it, huh?
*She later looked at me and said that she'd wanted to get her hair cut short like mine, but she wanted hers to "look decent for her senior photo." Words failed me. Besides which, she had very generic, blah hair herself. At least I have, as my dear dear stylist puts it, "a style."
*At the party, she was speaking to someone who hated her within the first few minutes of speaking to her (surveying others who came into contact with her revealed that this was a theme). She said that, like [she was preppy to the nth degree], she might go out to a bar with people afterwards, but, like, her pants were dry-clean only and she totally didn't want to have to take them in. She then laughed and added that she'd worn them like a hundred times without dry-cleaning them, anyway. To which the someone-- to whom I've declared my undying love-- replied: "So it's better that they smell like your butt?"
*Moving on to another student. Don't mention your academic honors every other sentence. Do not inform people that your undergrad program is harder than the graduate program you're visiting-- especially if said undergrad program is well-known for being not-so-spiffy and if you've never even sat in on a graduate class. You don't know what you're getting into, so be humble.
*If your host dumps you at the party, that means she hates you. If no one else talks to you, that means everyone else hates you, too. Consider another program.
*People, don't marry persons who look like they could be your sibling. That's just creepy.

There are more stories, mostly along these same lines, unless I get into JM's prospective, who mostly talked about her girl/boyfriend, who she simply called "the K." And talked about him/her incessantly. As in for hours on end, literally. For all of those of you out there who are considering visiting graduate schools, constant talk about your politics [ed. note: no one that I know of had a problem with her politics. We did, however, have a problem with hearing about them-- or, heck, any single theme, except maybe TV-- for hours on end] and your significant other is not the way to go. Particularly with faculty members. Talk about the program and the city you're visiting, and you'll have made a good impression, and everyone will be happy.

Another note to all visiting prospective: Try not to alienate your future classmates, 'k? As in, don't tell them you're visiting the school to eliminate it; don't make snide remarks about their hair; don't tell someone you've just met in literally the past 30 seconds about your sex drive. None of this makes you any friends, and it'll be alllll over the gossip line before you've even set foot on your plane back home.

Elvisette philosophized at 9:44 AM