Moral Philosophy for the Win~

Just had my Dartmouth interview.

As expected, am now hopelessly in love with Dartmouth and very much want to go there instead of all the other schools. (I think I need a name for this. The Shifting Love Syndrome? At this rate my top college will be the one that interviews me last.)

Although, upon retrospect, when I judge by interviewers alone Dartmouth and Duke have so far pwnt Harvard and MIT in terms of friendliness & general charisma. I had very enjoyable conversations with them. MIT I remember as average, though I have to factor in the fact that it was my very first interview which probably coloured my perceptions of it; Harvard was. just. obnoxious. Sorry, not the Korean lady (although her breast-feeding her kid while interviewing was, I think, somewhat unprofessional), but that pre-interview sheet? And her questions; they were all geared towards achievements and the like. She even asked me, "What precisely would you like me to emphasize in my report?" So institutionalized. SATs all over again. Blah.

As a person who judges places very much on people, I think this is relevant. The only drawback is that Dartmouth is in Hanover (middle of nowhere!) and I am very much in love with Boston/Cambridge, but when it comes to purely people vs. place, I always find people win out. Still, this will probably hinge on more research. And the fact that my grades are way off the scattergram, but hey, screw scattergrams.

So, my interviewer was a man named Scott Safadi. He had sunglasses hanging off his shirt and a frizzy hairdo.

SAFADI: Oh yes, I think it's great to keep your choices open! In fact, I switched majors within a quarter of entering the school.
ME: What did you start with?
SAFADI: Genetics.
ME: What did you switch to?
SAFADI: Moral philosophy!

hahahhaa what a funny guy. Philosophy people are always fun. My group of friends in Cambridge had a criss-cross between Philosophy and Politics/International Relations (and of course Creative Writing) and we were always having funny random criss-cross debates like, for example, whether or not to be patriotic to your nation. (Which came down to another large debate about the definition of nation and an even larger debate about the definition of patriotism and the end realization that everybody agreed on the same concepts abstractly and disagreed only in semantics.)

So we had more talks, some involving philosophy, and I think the thing about this guy that really hit home was that he shared my life philosophy! i.e. have fun BE HAPPY yayyyyyyyyyyyyyy.

Duke's interviewer gave off the same vibe as well. Not quite as explicitly (she didn't spend her major figuring that out, after all), but def. moreso than Harv/MIT. How do I put it? They seemed like happier people, on average. Of course, Keropi's MIT parents also seem like very happy people, which proves that you shouldn't make value judgments on such a small sampling size, but who knows.

Here's a kicker.

ME: I'm a huge frisbee fan.
SAFADI: Oh yeah! Dartmouth frisbee is awesome. You've heard what they've been up to lately?
ME: Up to...?
SAFADI: So, in Dartmouth there's this big, green bus.
ME: OK...
SAFADI: Known as the Big Green Bus.
ME: haha. very funny.
SAFADI: That runs entirely on vegetable oil.
ME: ooooh.
SAFADI: And went touring the country (on vegetable oil) and teaching people how to be more green.
ME: that is so cool! but what does this have to do with frisbee?
SAFADI: This bus was created by the frisbee team!
ME: OMG THESE PEOPLE ARE SO AWESOME ME WANT JOIN

So apparently it is called nothing more than the Big Green Bus and I don't know if frisbee people are still involved in it now but they definitely started it and I just think that's kind of hilarious.

Is frisbee the best reason with which to choose a school? No. But it is, on my list, a big fat plus.

Now I just need to do some further research and sober myself up so I can look at Dartmouth objectively.

In other news, Pton did not receive my letter of rec for some reason and I have yet to drive to post office tmr for speedy resend. D: Ah well.

edit: Dammit I haven't had any coffee for far too long. That one latte I drank during my interview is making me all twitchy and... coffee-ed. gah.