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Life has been raging on. School seems to continually grow more and more frustrating, the teachers more and more irate, and the senior-itis making the whole situation more and more intolerable.
My main compliant of the last two weeks lies again with my weasel-like college counselor. As of late I have been working very closely with [...]
In past blogs I have complained of the injustices brought by the red tape of the application and
enrollment processes at colleges, namely Columbia. In this article I’m turning my sights onto the same
bureaucratic nightmare that is found at community colleges.
The workload this year has been surprisingly light. As horrible as I may make it out to be, in
comparison to other years, it is light. Every now and again, I find myself having a couple of hours that I
would rather not waste sitting in front of the television. So I’m going to fill them with more musical
activities. Namely, I am joining the jazz ensemble and the top 40 band at two of my local community
colleges. I figured I could gain experience (playing with ensembles, something I lack horribly) and
credits. Then the credits that I had earned would transfer to Columbia when I get accepted (fingers
crossed). This seems easy enough. I am taking two classes; one at Schoolcraft Community College
(http://www.schoolcraft.edu) and one at Washtenaw Community College (http://www.wccnet.edu).
While one would think if your money was green that community colleges would be happy to have you,
this is not the case. I found that applying to both of them was a bureaucratic nightmare involving many
trips to my college advisors office (who as you know by now is not my favorite person) and many trips
to the admissions and enrollment office at the respective colleges.
My enrollment process started at Schoolcraft college. In addition to having to fill out all of the normal
paperwork I had to get my high school administrator (who is one in the same with the weasel man
known as my college advisor) to sign off on me taking classes, and I had to wait in line for about an
hour to be able to talk to a college counselor who also had to sign off on me taking classes there.
Fortunately the counselor I ran into was also a bass player and was very sympathetic to my needs, and I
was quickly accepted. Washtenaw on the other hand is still pending. In addition to wanting parental
consent, they also want consent from my high school administrator, proof of age, my transcripts, for me
to attend two orientations (one online and one in person and my ACT or SAT scores. As I mentioned
before I only took the ACT in October. By the time my scores are mailed it will probably be to late to
enroll for the class. So option number two is to go in and take their ridiculous standardized test (the
COMPASS test I believe it is called) and waste another two to three hours of my life. All this for me to
be a part of a band! I don’t even need to be smart, I just need to play good. But I’m sure (as my
administrator/college advisor/weasel man friend tells me) it is a great life lesson in dealing with
administrative red tape. I suppose this kind of thing never ends. I was just surprised how wary both of
these institutions were about taking a high school student.
As far as my situation with Columbia goes; there has been absolutely no changes. It is really start to
drive me up the wall. About a week ago I finally received a conformation letter that they got my
application but that was about it. I don’t do well with delayed gratification. In the meantime though I
am continuing to investigate scholarships, housing, and tuition costs. Just to be a full time student there
costs about eighteen thousand dollars, which one the scale of college’s is not bad, but still a little nerve
racking. Especially when I factor in the cost of housing, gas prices and food. But I supposed I am still
putting the cart before the horse. Only two more weeks to wait, and I’ll know for sure the situation.
Until then…
Maintain,
Nic
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