Applications, applications, applic....

Unlike most of you, I am not a voracious reader. However, that changes each winter out of sheer necessity. As Leslie wrote about in her latest blog, I am getting close to the end of reading season, which means I've almost read 1000 or so applications. To give you an idea of what that means in a person's life, here's an outline of a typical day for me anytime from January through March:

1. Wake up, walk dog
2. Eat cereal, think about applications
3. Take shower, wonder if I remembered to push read applications through to "Ready for Committee" folder
4. Drive to work while listening to NPR that mysteriously begins to sound like someone narrating a personal essay
5. Get to work, read applications or call counselor about application or call student about application or review applications I'm about to present in committee or spend all day in committee discussing and making decisions about applications (or write blog about reading applications)
6. Go to lunch. Eat food
7. Back to work, repeat step 5
8. Drive home, attempt not to drive into that big double-decker passenger application that is somehow driving on the highway
9. Eat dinner while telling wife about my day, which entails...well, you know
10. Sleep, dream about reading applications

*Note, for weekend days, simply remove "drive to work" and committee parts

I wish I was joking about the last item there, but I literally do go to sleep and have dreams where a personal essay or gpa calculation somehow manages to sneak into the mix.

It sounds stressful and perhaps horrible, and while indeed it can sometimes feel overwhelming, I want to stress that overall it's really not that bad. Why? Because I finally am able to get to know more about all those students I met earlier in the year. I get to see that not only were they cool in person, but they've done some really cool things with their lives (which never ceases to amaze me, because most of them have been around for only 17 years or so!). I also get to have my hope for the future reaffirmed a bit, because just when the news has almost gotten to me and convinced me we're all screwed, I remember that I just read about 1000 students who are coming up and are on the fast track to bringing super-awesomeness to the world. That's right, I said super-awesomeness.

And so I read on.