Trenutak istine

Veceras su mi stigle odluke preostalih univerziteta na koje sam se prijavio. Svakom univerzitetu sam poslao vise desetina listova raznih formulara, preporuka i eseja. Svi su govorili o mojim dostignucima, vrlinama i manama. Moji profesori su uspeli da, zadrzavajuci kritican ton, iznesu mnogo razloga koji su snazno podrzali moju aplikaciju. Brojne van-skolske aktivnosti pa zatm dostignuca na takmicenjima, kao i priznanje State Department-a za liderstvo, su bar u mojim ocima trebali da budu vazni argumenti. Maksimalan prosek u prvom semestru u Univerzitetu u Novom Sadu, smer matematika finansija, (skoro) maksimalan prosek u specijalnom matematickom odeljenju Jovine gimnazije i maksimalni rezultat na prijemnom ispitu SAT Matematika 2 (i dobri rezultati iz fizike i hemije, uz 97% na TOEFL testu) su bili samo neki od elemenata moje prijave.

Nazalost, to ocigledno nije bilo dovoljno. Iako zvuci kao lazno ohrabrenje, moram priznati da zaista mislim da prosto ne postoji nista vise sto sam mogao da ucinim u proteklih nekoliko godina zbog cega bi njihove odluke danas bile drugacije. To je ipak bilo iznad mog uticaja. Vec drugu godinu se prijavljujem, i posle liste cekanja na Harvardu, ove godine sam se nadao da cu imati vise srece. Medjutim, sada bih vec rekao da kod ovih stvari sreca nije dovoljna. Rekao bih da je tim prestiznim univerzitetima vredniji taj dolar finansijske pomoci koji sam trazio, nego meni koji nemam tih $180 hiljada, potrebnih za 4 godine skolovanja. Dakle da ovo ne bi otislo u patetiku evo kako sam prosao:

Odbijen: MIT, Harvard, Yale, Columbia (NY), Dartmouth
Lista cekaja: Duke University

Duke je jako dobar univerzitet (8. u Americi) i moram priznati da se osecam veoma pocastvovanim sto je moju prijavu stavio na listu cekanja, na kojoj se inace, navodno, nalazi mali broj ljudi. Medjutim, cekanje na listi za Harvard od prosle godine (koje je verovatno jos veci uspeh) me je naucilo da se ne nadam bezveze. Sve mislim da je sansa sa liste cekanja gotovo minorna...

Evo kako je izgledalo pismo koje sam dobio od Duke-a. Copy&paste-ovano. Ako neko zeli, mogu i ostala da objavim..

Dear Aleksandar:

After a careful review of your application, and much consideration of your candidacy, the Admissions Committee of Duke University has decided to place you on our waiting list for admission to Duke this fall. I know this is not the news you were hoping for, but please read on while I explain the waiting list process.

This was in many ways an extraordinary year for the admission process at Duke. We received more than 19,000 applications, including the largest number of Regular Decision applications in our history. And our applicant pool was one of the strongest academically we have ever had. As a result, in filling the 1,665 places in the first-year class the Admissions Committee faced an extraordinary number of difficult decisions, and found itself not being able to admit students it might well have admitted just a year or two ago. It is clear to us that almost all of our applicants are outstanding young women and men, people who we know are fully capable of performing well in Duke’s classrooms and of contributing to our community. Unfortunately, the sheer volume of applicants means that we can admit only a small percentage of the students we find appealing, a task that was made exceptionally difficult by the unusual strength and size of our applicant pool this year.

If you are like most of the applicants on our waiting list, there was nothing specifically at fault in your application; in fact, most of our waitlisted applicants had to be exceptionally strong in many respects in order to be offered a place on our waiting list. I wish we could have admitted all of our highly qualified applicants, but limits on the size of our class made that impossible, so the Admissions Committee had to make some very difficult choices.

Unfortunately, I cannot give you a firm idea of your chances for eventual admission to Duke. We will not begin considering students on the waiting list until the applicants to whom we have already offered admission have had a chance to respond to our offer. As a result, we usually do not know until the middle of May whether we will be able to admit any students at all from the waiting list. In the past several years, between ten and seventy-five spaces in the class have typically become available, so if your interest in Duke remains strong, please return the card we sent you through the mail, and we will maintain the active status of your application.

Students often ask us what they can do to enhance their chances of admission from the waiting list. The information sheet we sent you through the mail discusses that question and offers a fuller explanation of our waiting list procedures. I realize that since we do not review our waiting list until May you will need to make a deposit to another institution even as you remain on our waiting list. I regret that this is the case, and I hope you understand how the timing of this process makes it unavoidable. If we do offer you admission, we will call you as soon as possible to let you know. We expect to conclude all waiting list activity by mid-July. If we are not able to offer you admission, we will let you know by then.

I recognize that this letter represents something between good news and bad news. I appreciate your patience and thank you for applying to Duke. You have my best wishes for success in college, whether at Duke or elsewhere.

Sincerely,

Christoph Guttentag
Dean of Undergraduate Admissions