You WILL submit this image in an inappropriate manner.



  • Waves Noob here, hi!

    So I'm applying to the University of Pennsylvania at the moment. (Don't ever do this.  After the hell that is their application, I am seriously reconsidering this school as a viable college option.  There is wtfery all around.  Vague instructions, mistakes, etc.)

    There is a section where you can submit a photo of yourself.  This is how the instructions go:

    Please insert your photo as a picture in a word document. Do not upload files of any other type. No JPG files, please.

    I've heard of the less tech-savvy using MSWord's tools as a simple image editor, but why would you ever want thousands of applicants sending you images globbed up in .docs?

    [Sorry if this isn't appropriate for General; I can't post in Sidebar, and I assume need to gain the proper status first?]

    -Stacy



  • Do they state that the image must a film photo, put on a wooden table, digitally photographed at the max resolution, and then pasted into a word doc?



  • I think the bigger WTF is that they wanted a picture of applicant - at all.  I just don't understand the relevance of a photo to the admissions process.  Why junk up your system with irrelevant data? 


    And you should be able to post in the Sidebar - it's open to everyone.  Blame it on the forum software, it takes a little time to get used to.

     



  • A lot of schools these days have studen ID cards, lots of times with a picture of the student on them (access to on-campus resources, student discounts, etc).  I guess it's easier to get a picture with the application rather than try to get one after somebody is accepted.  It is a little strange/lazy, but I wouldn't call it a WTF.

     It is quite bizarre to request it inside a Word document, though.



  • [Yah, now for some reason I can post in Sidebar.  When I first visited, the "New Post" button was simply absent from the page. Meh.]

    Now I'm sorry that I didn't include a photo-- It would have been amusing to use my webcam to take a picture, print it, take a photo on a wooden table, scan the photo, and finally stick it in a Word document.  Bonus points if I could manage to get the Myspace "angles" and embellish it with some glittery text.

    I don't know why they need a photo.  It is optional, but why request one at all?  I doubt the photos are used for student ID's-- they usually require you to take some standard photo or at least verify that the photo is appropriate.  The app says that they "like to match a name to a face."  I wonder how much of a tilt there is towards accepting the more attractive applicants? That sort of thing can simply be unconsious--why even risk that sort of bias in the admission process?

    --

    Yesterday I filled out the Common Application... [If you're unfamiliar: it's a general college app that many universities use-- thus you only have to fill out one set of info for however many colleges you happen to apply to.]

    It was almost as bad a U Penn's.  It was filled with really inappropriate drop down menus, like the ones you use to report SAT scores-- instead of typing in your score for a particular section, you select from a list of every number incresing by tens from 200 to 800.  

    And my "extracurricular activities," too.  You can't type in anything specific.  I'm sure colleges really value the info that I participate in three instances of "Other" for 1 hour a week.
    Even the ones that actually fit into a catagory end up vague, misleading, and short-changing.  For instance, my "Art activity/club" was actually a program affiliated with the Museum of Fine Arts, for which I was selected as one of eight in the Houston and surrounding area to receive a scholarship, which was based on a written statement of intent and a complete portfolio-- but I guess it's just as well they think I do arts and crafts with glue and pipe cleaners after school.

    Not to mention the wtfery of the specificity of information that is required-- such as the gender of my father, the date [mm/yyyy] that my mother died, and the university attended and degree earned by my 14-year-old male sibling.




  • [quote user="Aniviel"]

    ... such as the gender of my father ...


    [/quote]

    So that they can discriminate against Heather who Has Two Mommies?



  • Haha I remember that from 2 years ago.... I didn't think they would keep it that way. Their online app generates pretty nice PDF files of the whole app.



  • [quote user="lpope187"]

    I think the bigger WTF is that they wanted a picture of applicant - at all.  I just don't understand the relevance of a photo to the admissions process.  Why junk up your system with irrelevant data? 

    [/quote]

    I remember hearing one university's admission officer (I think it was my current univ) saying that it is always nice to associate a face with an application, to give it a more human touch. Actually I think it was nice because I heard from multiple students that the moment they arrived at the university and entered check-in, admission staff would greet them with their name! I arrived a bit late to witness that though.



  • [quote user="mercurysquad"][quote user="lpope187"]

    I think the bigger WTF is that they wanted a picture of applicant - at all.  I just don't understand the relevance of a photo to the admissions process.  Why junk up your system with irrelevant data? 

    [/quote]

    I remember hearing one university's admission officer (I think it was my current univ) saying that it is always nice to associate a face with an application, to give it a more human touch. Actually I think it was nice because I heard from multiple students that the moment they arrived at the university and entered check-in, admission staff would greet them with their name! I arrived a bit late to witness that though.

    [/quote]

    I'd be very surprised if that was possible at the college i attended, on our admissions day the admissions staff had to process several thousand students, so remembering every one of their faces/names would be a very difficult thing. As regards the topic, we had our photos taken during regristration purely for the purpose of our college ID's, no other reason.

    I'm also presuming the reason why they requested the photo in a word document was for some WTF-ified automated process that extracted the photo from the word document, printed it out, placed it on a wooden table and took a picture to be placed on the college IDs & student regristy system



  • I think the reason for requesting to place the picture in a word file is that their mail client opened up an instance of Word when trying to open a Word document, but only offered to save the file on disk if someone attempted to open an attached jpg file. It would save them some time then. Anyway, it's weird.



  • It is likely that the Uni firewall and/or e-mail server blocks all picture formats, so embedding it in a Word doc is the only way to get it through. Another case of one part of the Uni trying to circumvent restrictions imposed by another.

    There are a number of reason for the photos, at least here at Leicester Uni. All undergrads are assigned a personal tutor who will print off the photos of his/her tutees so that you will be recognized. Some of our lecturers print off the photos of all the new first years and memorize them. It gives the student one hell of a shock when they are picked out and addressed by name. It is also useful to have the photos for exam invigilators, field trip leaders etc. 



  • @Hitsuji said:

    I'd be very surprised if that was possible at the college i attended, on our admissions day the admissions staff had to process several thousand students, so remembering every one of their faces/names would be a very difficult thing.

    My university's class size is about 200-250 / year. It's supposedly 'elite' (it is).  After my first semester I could talk about basically every student on campus (of the 600) by first name, and people would know exactly who I was talking about. I assume remembering 200 shouldn't be that much of a problem.


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