My best friend asked me to write a peer evaluation for her for Davidson. It is obviously in rough form right now, and there are definitely some things that I need to flush out, but I was just wondering if you guys thought that it was overly conversational and/or informal. I want to give Davidson a picture of W as a whole person so I am trying to focus more on her personal strengths and faults instead of her academic ones that I assume they will be able to glean from her teacher recommendations and transcript. Also, is it too long?
1. How long and well have you known the applicant?
I have known W, the applicant, since August of 2010 when we became roommates. We became, and are to this day, best friends in the most cliché, classic, and wonderful way. We lived together our junior year, and our "emotional marriage" has continued this year as the school regulation that Residential Life Assistant can't live together has forced us to become next-door neighbors. Honestly, though, I still feel as though W is my roommate, we have the kind of codependency that I don't think that others even know they are missing. We still spend hours together, now we just have two rooms instead of one. Some days I'll come back from class and W will be sleeping in my bed, I think that my roommate finds in slightly perturbing, but she understands: with me, W is part of the package. Through my status in W's life as roommate, emotional wife, and best friend, and classmate I have had the opportunity to observe W almost nonstop for a year and a half. I know what W is like at 6:30 in the morning before the SAT, right after she failed a test, when she was named swim team captain, the night before our unfinished research proposal was due, and almost every mundane, forgettable, but wonderful, moment in between. I know what will make her laugh, what will make her angry, and, I'm sure most importantly from your prospective, how long it takes her to get dressed in the morning (7 minutes). I think that it is safe to say that I know W Wolff as well as anyone in the world, and I hope, in the next few pages, that I can somehow get you, the harried Davidson admissions officer, to know and love W even a hundredth as much as I do.
2. Are you applying to Davidson College?
I am not applying to Davidson because I was accepted Early Decision to Amherst College, but I was planning to before I was accepted to Amherst.
3. Are you familiar with Davidson College?
I am fairly familiar with Davidson, I did some research online when deciding if I wanted to add it to my list and visited over the summer.
4. What do you see as the applicant's strengths? Please give specific examples when possible.
W is unabashedly herself. She "does W" all day every day, she knows who she is and isn't afraid it to share it with the world. This may sound cliché, or kind of weird, but W is sparkly. Not is some sort of weird, literal, Twilgihtesque way, but in more of an abstract, intangible way. Talking to W makes you feel better about yourself. As you talk to her you laugh because she is incredibly funny, and her happiness and acceptance of herself as a whole and flawed person is infectious. Around W you want to be yourself, or at least try to figure out whoever "yourself" is, because it just looks fun. She is confident in herself, and her abilities. W is an excellent swimmer, she qualified for states last year and did well, and this year she was named captain of the team. If you ask her, she will tell you that she is good, not in a cocky or obnoxious way, because it's true. She doesn't beat around the bush, fish for compliments, or shy away from recognizing her talents, but, almost more important than her recognition of her abilities, is her frank assessment and acknowledgement of things that she struggles with. This fall, W, like many in our generation, realized that she was totally addicted to Facebook and that her obsession was hurting her already shaky hold on time management. So she deactivated it. As others posted statuses saying "AHHH I waste so much time on facebook I'll never do my college apps!" W was dealing with her obsession head on and, in her words, "I found all of this time I didn't even knew I had." W knows, and is confident in the things she excels at, and acknowledges and takes steps to improve things she struggles with. She is confident in who she is without resisting change where she sees room for improvement. W is also incredibly compassionate. She cares deeply about her friends, and, though she doesn't always know how to say it, she always finds ways to show it. Recently, one of our close friends told W that his parents are getting a divorce. He obviously didn't want to talk about it, but he was going through something and W saw that he needed support. They day after he told her, she spent hours putting together a package filled with mementos of their friendship, NOT SURE WHAT THESE ARE HELP ME OUT AHMED and sent them to him by express mail so he got them the next day. It was thoughtful, personal, above and beyond the duties of a friend, and utterly characteristic of W.
5. What do you consider to be the applicant's weaknesses? Again, it would be helpful to give specific examples by referring to activities or projects in which a weakness has emerged.
W worries about things, a lot. I like to think of her mini panic attacks and anxieties as charming and quirky, but, in reality, they are a problem that she is going to have to work through. Last year, she took a chemistry test, and in the hours after the test, she convinced herself that the highest possible grade that she could receive would be a 27.5. She was hysterical and inconsolable so I didn't press her on how she had calculated this absurdly exact, almost certainly inaccurate number. No amount of "It'll be okay's" and "Remember Dr. Williams gives partial credit" could calm her down because she was really having a panic attack and ended up needing to have a long talk with the school counselor. Though here worries rarely flare to this level, W is constantly anxious. She has the ability to convince herself that she has burned down her house and make plans about what her family will do without a home if she thinks she might have left the oven on at her house. She also doesn't really know how to express her more complex emotions, and never wants to "talk about it" so sometimes they can flare up.
7. We welcome any additional statement you wish to make about the applicant.
I'm my feverish research into the college admissions process, I read somewhere, that in the midst of the 100s of applications that you, the admissions officer, read, not surprisingly, applicants begin to run together, so I thought that I'd tell you a few things about W that probably didn't make it into her application because they may not be strictly relevant in accessing her potential academic success at your fine institution. But, to insure that she isn't a dreaded cliché, here are a few things that I think you should know about W:
W is She likes watching movie trailers and talking through ridiculous movies when she is the only one in the theater. She is a two-time middle school Odyssey of the Mind world champion. She is excellent at both Scrabble and Bananagrams (if you've never played Bananagrams, go to your local toy store right now and buy it). She adores public transportation and can't abide the mall. Her room at home is themed - hot pink and zebra. She submitted her Stanford application saying that she has 42 followers on twitter, and has since dropped to 41 and feels guilty. She sets all of her clocks 24 minutes fast, a habit that I found exasperating as a roommate but now have the luxury to regard as charming. She was born in Hawaii, and for a long time fostered the desire to return there and open a bakery, when asked she couldn't articulate why. She is currently ranked 4875th in the world in the game of FruitSlice and as of this moment holds the record in our friend group (2180) by 21 points. She fell deeply in love with Topher from the semi obscure Joss Whedon show Dollhouse and went through postpartum depression when the show came to an end after two seasons. She won't let anyone sit on her bed. She likes to refer to her hometown of Asheville North Carolina as "Ashevegas." W is a funny, smart, caring, flawed, dynamic, beautiful person who enriches the lives of everyone she touches with her laughter, confidence, and intellectual grace. I cannot think of anyone who I would recommend more highly to join Davidson's community.
