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by Katy Mulvaney0 views·Updated May 8, 2020
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  1. I'm gonna try and go through our last practice question
  2. quickly because to be honest, admissions officers don't love this
  3. one, but it tends to still end upon forms again.
  4. I hear that.
  5. I don't even know why this question is on there,
  6. and it's always the shortest answer.
  7. So what are we even doing here?
  8. But there are some things they can trip you up
  9. about this answer.
  10. And I think I do know what this is getting
  11. at with this question.
  12. What is your favorite book is really getting at is
  13. do you let do you take in new information?
  14. Are you willing to be educated in our world?
  15. That is becoming an increasingly valuable commodity, someone who is
  16. willing to listen to expert professors and let those opinions
  17. change them.
  18. Someone who thinks about what they read beyond the moment
  19. they were tested on it, someone who cares enough to
  20. find interesting reading about things that interest in to go
  21. out and find more reading on things that interest them.
  22. People who are engaged with their education essentially because that's
  23. the point of college.
  24. And if you're not in the habit of doing it,
  25. yeah, what you planning to do in the next four
  26. years, huh?
  27. Then been well, what you planning to do the next
  28. four years, huh?
  29. So coupled a couple.
  30. Don's here.
  31. Don't say a fancy book you haven't actually read unless
  32. your favorite book really is Anna Karenina.
  33. And you can talk about it as well as Tolstoy
  34. in general.
  35. Don't claim it's Anna Karina.
  36. Okay, if you loved the Greta Gerwig little women but
  37. you haven't read Louisa May Alcott's book in a while
  38. might not be the best idea, because Gerwig makes a
  39. lot of really smart changes to the flow characters and
  40. politics of that book.
  41. If it's something a long time ago, make sure you
  42. still remember it clearly.
  43. Yes. Don't pick something that you can't talk about intelligently.
  44. A lot of former English majors go into admissions off.
  45. Ah, lot of admissions officers air former English majors.
  46. They very well may know that person.
  47. They may very well know that author, even if you
  48. think that it is obscure, especially if you were from
  49. a small town, because a lot I came out of
  50. a small town and there were a lot of things
  51. that I thought where edgy and unusual, but not so
  52. much when you get into major cities or, frankly, vice
  53. versa. Or you go into another kind of community and
  54. you find that there's a at this book you that
  55. was weird and special is actually a mainstay of that
  56. field, actually a mainstay of the boating community.
  57. You knew all right Onley to find that it's actually
  58. required reading during middle school.
  59. Uh, in fact, only to find it's actually required reading
  60. in the state where the colleges, if that is, in
  61. fact required reading for every high schooler in the state
  62. where you are interviewing with this cop so or that
  63. it's actually required reading in the state where your college
  64. is. So it's kind of the opposite of So we're
  65. having read.
  66. It is kind of the opposite of special.
  67. The other mistake is just because it happens so often,
  68. and it's also really common in essays.
  69. I read this book about a culture I'd never thought
  70. about before Nish opened my eyes to Pete, Not people
  71. are not like me out there.
  72. Look, I'm glad you had that experience.
  73. Everybody should have that experience many times in their lives.
  74. I know it that you think it makes you look
  75. empathetic. I know it thinks you makes it makes you
  76. look engaged with the world in politics.
  77. It doesn't because here's the thing.
  78. A moving book is the easiest path to empathy with
  79. a new culture.
  80. And having found out about it from what might well
  81. have been a very a mandated book is not is
  82. also the opposite of being any isn't is better than
  83. nothing, but it doesn't make you a uniquely well informed
  84. and engaged citizen you don't want to sell.
  85. By all means, you can list books that cover the
  86. plight of the impressed or cover a culture completely divorced
  87. from your own.
  88. But if all you can say is wow people in
  89. Bangladesh life so differently than me after reading it, you
  90. don't sound is engaged and excited about the book as
  91. you seem to think you dio you want to go
  92. beyond just I never knew people were like that.
  93. You need to push for free.
  94. You need to push further.
  95. You need to push further show what it made you.
  96. So they're not just asking you to name a book.
  97. They're asking you why they're asking you to tell them
  98. what it made you think about or do next, which
  99. is the great exception to that.
  100. I know.
  101. Say the book, a book we read as a school
  102. many years ago, which none of you will probably remember
  103. it because I will always right back about ah, young
  104. suburban girl who got a pen pal in Africa and
  105. slowly learned that his life was a horrifying nightmare.
  106. Um, and how she came to help him.
  107. If reading that book inspired you to get involved with
  108. aid to Africa organizations, great.
  109. If it may inspired you to feel really sad about
  110. people in war torn countries.
  111. No, no points, no points, no points for feeling sad
  112. for people, no points for feeling sad for people without
  113. doing anything for them.
  114. Okay, so be careful about naming books that you think
  115. sound impressive, but that sit, but you think sound impressive.
  116. Or that the college misters officer will be well like
  117. I've seen, for example, Jane Austen quotes on walls.
  118. But if you've only seen the movies cheer and you
  119. want to talk about how romantic it ISS, those books
  120. are any day, Auster fan will tell you those books
  121. are sold sarcastic as well and mean even pay Austin's
  122. mean lady.
  123. I would be afraid to meet her real life.
  124. So no, the book you're talking about it's much better
  125. to talk about Rick wardens Magnus Chase Siri's.
  126. Then, if you know it well and it's taught to
  127. things and it inspired you to care about homeless teenagers
  128. like his protagonist are then it is too barely were
  129. then just forced your way through a big, early remembered
  130. recitation of the high literary achievement of The Great Gatsby.
  131. I kind of hate also.
  132. I kind of hate that book.
  133. Come at me, Come at me.
  134. It's poorly written.
  135. Come at me.
  136. It's poorly written.
  137. Any stole whole sections and he was in the habit
  138. of stealing books.
  139. Come at Me.
  140. It's poorly written, and F.
  141. Scott Fitzgerald stole his best book verbatim from his wife's
  142. journal. But all that's to say Be honest, be riel,
  143. bu think about the last thing you read but inspire
  144. you to change something, cause that's your answer.
  145. And, um but congratulations.
  146. You finish the practice questions.