Comment Re:"Talented C students" (Score 0) 389
Straight A student here... high GPA, AP classes, gifted program, etc. I went to Maryland by choice. The school really only matters if you're there for an exceptionally good program (which I was --- UMCP was and is consistently one of the top journalism schools). Otherwise, the level of education that you get is based on the effort that you put into it. Crap in = crap out. Or, as the Math dept's Dr. Gulick put it when I was initiated into phi beta kappa, 'the best students are the best students anywhere.' It doesn't matter whether you went to an ivy league or a state school.
On the topic of creativity, writing is one of the more creative disciplines, in which one can earn a degree. That said, I don't know of a good way to quantify something that by it's nature defies quantification. Aside from sending in clips of my stories from my high school newspaper --- which someone could subjectively evaluate --- I don't know of anything else that I could have done to demonstrate my creativity/writing ability during the general admissions process. I DID have to do that to be accepted to the journalism program though.
On the topic of creativity, writing is one of the more creative disciplines, in which one can earn a degree. That said, I don't know of a good way to quantify something that by it's nature defies quantification. Aside from sending in clips of my stories from my high school newspaper --- which someone could subjectively evaluate --- I don't know of anything else that I could have done to demonstrate my creativity/writing ability during the general admissions process. I DID have to do that to be accepted to the journalism program though.
