That title makes it look like this is a post about how I spend all my time on Facebook instead of studying.* In truth, it is a post about how the existence of social media has made applying for scholarships incredibly difficult, for all the wrong reasons. I miss the idea of scholarships being applied for by writing essays about how you learned things, or how you plan to change the world, or how college benefits society, you know, pull-it-out-of-your-butt essays that barely skid under the absurd 500 word limit but sparkle with the brilliance only attained by writers accustomed to cranking out 1400 word chunks on the daily. Now, all you can find are contests where you make a video about how you recycle really well, or make a plan to recycle and follow it, or make a multi-media presentation about copyright law, or write several thousand words about the single most important political issue involved with the 2012 Presidential Election and pray to the Almighty that the judges are on the same end of the political spectrum as yourself. Or, my favorite type of all (dear, faithful 4 blog followers, and random blog stalkers in the Ukraine): the popularity contest. That's right. The existence of Facebook/Twitter/Tumbler/Blogger(uh. yeah.) has made it possible for the following exchange to take place.
Scholarship Coordinator: Gee, thanks, Mr. Money-Haver. It's sure nice of you to offer this large sum of money to college students. What stunt shall we have them perform to compete for it?
Mr. Money-Haver: Let's ask them to write some dumb essay about learning, or how they love the world.
SC: Do you think they'll do it?
MMH: Of course! Kids love that crap! There'll be thousands upon thousands of entries!
SC: Thousands?!?!?!?!?! How ever will we judge them all in a timely manner? This is so difficult!
MMH: Let's narrow the playing field a little, shall we? Pick a top percentage and then judge only those.
SC: How will we ever manage that? That involves some amount of judgement, doesn't it?
MMH: Aw, shucks, you're right! We could always pawn that off onto their peers. Whoever bullies the most people into voting for their work regardless of its quality will obtain the honor of us reading their essay.
SC: Sounds perfect!
So here's a scenario: A quiet kid who was home schooled for a lot of her elementary school career has never really made friends in high school, and doesn't spend much time on Facebook because she doesn't have many friends. She's got the requisite close pals, because quality means more than quantity for her. She's brilliant, completely genius, and if she can scare together enough money for college, she has the potential to go Ivy League and discover cures for cancer, or rebuild Africa's infrastructure, or fix the United States economy. So, she decides to apply for scholarships. Our friends SC and MMH have totally screwed her over, so when one of them gets diagnosed with liver cancer, he's going to be sad, and not even know why.
Now, down the block lives the most charismatic guy around. He's got like 5,000 Facebook friends because he adds everyone whose name he ever learns, and even just some people who are friends with his friends whom he has never met. He went to several different high schools so his base of acquaintanceship is wide. He's nothing too special, goofed off for all of high school and doesn't have the grades to get any merit-based aid from the state school, nor does he qualify for need-based, but his daddy cut him off for crashing the family car. He applies for the same scholarships, but thanks to his charisma and uncanny network of friends, he manages to get enough popularity votes to make it into the final percentage, and is smart enough to beat out the other charismatic individuals. He'll grow up to be a miserable accountant who misses the glory days of high school football, and very few people will care. They'll all have died from cancer.
So, even though this is entirely fruitless...vote for my essay? Please?
http://www.wyzant.com/scholarships/v2/essay51868-New_York-NY.aspx
*Not that I don't do that too...a lot...
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