never tell me the odds

So I had my interview at Seattle U this afternoon and it was... alright. I hope I made a decent good impression, but given my lack of spoken eloquence... riiight.

Anyways, it was a group interview with 5 other grad school candidates (4 girls and 1 other guy), conducted by 2 people - the head of the school of education and an additional professor. They asked lots of the usual questions, though the topics were of course, all related to school education, teaching, and this country's education system. The interviewees were of course expected to carry on a spirited discussion while the interviewers took notes... a lot of notes.

All the prospective students seemed a little unnerved by it all, myself included, but I did my best to appear to be prototypical, calm-as-a-monk-contemplating-the-unfathomable-universe that of course all Asian men are assumed to be. Everybody had a different set of backgrounds - one girl spent a year in Holland; another girl led park ranger-esque nature tours & day camps; another girl graduated with a degree in psych; and another girl... I'm not sure what she did or is doing, but it's probably something. The other guy there was a fellow UDub grad who currently coaches basketball and track.

Prior to the interview, we all sat in silence, staring at a framed drawing of a double-decker school bus drawn by a 7-year old Vietnamese kid (last name Nguyen). I studied it absent mindedly incase it was going to be used as a test of my powers of observation (1 driver, smiling; 18 passengers, 9 top, 9 bottom; two wheels which had 5 spokes each; and all the people riding top-side are colored blue or white). Ha.

By the time the interview was over, everyone felt some relief until the interviewers broke the news that School of Education had received a staggering over 250 applications for their program... but only 50 applicants would be admitted to next fall's program. You might figure that gives me a 1 in 5 chance of getting into the school, but it's actually even tougher - the group of 50 will be divided into two groups, those interested in primary education (pre-k, elementary, jr. high) and those interested in secondary education (high school).

For the math geniuses, that means the real odds for me are roughly 1 in 10 since I'm interested in primary education. So... I have about a 10% chance of getting in. Ouch.

It's out of my hands now, though. Unless I'm asked for another interview, I should hear their decision in April...
posted by G at 8:01 PM   |

in?scrip?tion (n-skrip-shun)n.
1. The act or an instance of inscribing.
2. Something, such as the wording on a coin, medal, monument, or seal, that is inscribed.
3. A short, signed message in a book or on a photograph given as a gift.
4. The usually informal dedication of an artistic work.
5. Jeremiah 31:33