OMGJeremy

Reader Submission Corner: Guide To British College Acceptance

Submitted by Den

So, you are in your final year of sixth form/college/senior high. You’re thinking to yourself, “hmm, the last few years were the biggest pain my ass since I got raped by that ex-con.” You’re good/moderate in your studies, and want to make it medium to big, and cannot face real life just yet. In short, you’re wanting to go to university. Right now, across the pond to our Yankee friends, we’re enjoying a government that’s a mix between a communist provider state and a capitalist make it on your own country. The big G helps you out, but a company you pay for, set up by the government arranges where you study. This beats having to give handjobs to all the alumni in the university you want to go to.

The first and foremost thing you have to do is write a personal statement, where you try to make up as much semi-believable stuff you have supposedly done in the past (eg. Came 7th in the school 1600 meter race) that will make the university think you’re actually worth something. My personal favorite is lying about sports achievements when you’re applying for a course as a lawyer or doctor. But don’t make it too far-fetched (eg. I was crowned Ms Crack Whore 3 years running). Mentioning things like “I read computer magazines” when you apply for a computer course is not recommended, unless the only other thing you have to write to do with the course is “I use my internets to download porn!”

Also, avoid claiming to trap Asian families in your computer.

You pick 6 courses at 1-6 universities. This is done while you study for your final year, causing distress of time management between jerking off, playing games and loitering. As every student knows, the course is irrelevant. The relevant things about a university is the female to male ratio, even though you won’t get laid, the sophistication or unsophistication (whichever floats your boat) of the frat houses/societies and the hotness of the chicks found in the prospectus who you won’t meet in real life. A serious tip is to have a varied scale of requirements (eg : course that demands AAA, and a backup that only asks for EEE) this way, you can go to a posh university, complete with free monocle, or an establishment where the dean cannot read the essays you hand in, and chairs that break if someone heavier than 7 stones sit on them.

Your tutoring cast

If you’re smart, you randomly selected 6 universities that ask for minimal grades that you only require a pass to get in to (eg : EEE, at London Metropolitan). At this stage, if you fucked up, you’re doomed. No one wants to spend 4 years doing ancient history if you don’t know Alexander the Great from Julius Caesar ( hint : Alex is Italian, and Jules is Greek). If all your neurons weren’t wasted from getting the crap pummeled out of you, you were smart enough to do a course on one of your hobbies (EG : computer games design) and that you had a chance to succeed in. A year in industry also helps. Pick a course that seems to be an underdog (eg : all the other courses in that university demands AAA, yet yours asks for DDD. This means you’re either going to the crappiest course, or one which is new/unpopular); this lets the university whore itself to you, rather than the other way round.

When you have applied, our fancy British system lets us know as soon as the universities say “What the hell?”, and let you know that you are in no way welcome to study “Regal canines history” at Cambridge, but welcome to study “Erotic Media” at Universitica Generica. The university also taunts you by saying “Ha-ha! You can be here, but you gotta fulfill these conditions!” This is also when, if you didn’t apply for it, MIT, Princeton, Oxford and Cambridge giggle at your expense by offering impossible options for the course you want (eg : while you are doing 3 subjects, MIT asks for an Albanian passport, with AAAAA in 5 courses, excluding the ones you study. And promise that if you meet the requirements, you get a $50,000 grant).

This is simply not cricket. Or posh

Let’s suppose you actually didn’t make an ass out of yourself, and now have 6 universities that actually want you to go there. Now what? Well, you first do the most stupid dance since your father was at a 70s disco last Saturday. You then go through your prospectuses that you picked up waaay back, when your parents weren’t planning on how to convert your bedroom to a S&M zone for when you will be “studying” (read : getting drunk far away). Weigh up the pros and cons about each university and their courses in this manner :

• Less you study, the more time to party. Gooood
• Cheaper student booze means you get drunk for less money. Goooooood
• Less hours per week studying. Good
• Girl to boy ratio high. Goood, but doesn’t effect you
• Frat houses. Drunk-tastic. May cause arrest
• Distance from city center : Large = bad. Small = good.
• Size of dorm : large = Good. Small = bad
• Shared dorm = bad… hell if your dorm partner is gay, and wants to be your partner partner
• Mixed sex shared dorm best.thing.ever….. unless your roomie is a fat girl.

Of course, in the “civilised” UK, we don’t get frat houses. We get “societies”, eg clubs. Look for good clubs, such as :

• Gamer society
• Snowboard society
• Wet t shirt society (not good in San Fransisco/blue oyster/gayland)
• Orgy society
• Porn appreciation society
• Drunk society
• “Free drugs” society

Of course, for every yin, there is a yang, so bad societies include :

• Statistics society
• Tiddlywinks society
• Nudist society (good if its made up entirely of hot chicks and you)
• Racist society
• Nazi party society

Look for places that embrace your rare and unusual hobby, eg tooth flossing.

THE EXCITEMENT!

Open days are things common on the island across the pond, where we go and look at universities trying to wash us over with eye candy. When you are on an open day, some things are best kept to between your current friends such as “I wonder where the girls changing rooms are” and “Dean Richard? More like Dean Dick!” Don’t try to make Family Guy references at semi-appropriate timings trying to get on with your future friends when you are in a hall and the head of the university is there, unless you wanted to tease them with your master intellect that can fit on the head of a pin. Do not brag about your blog or minor related activity a chimp can do. Saying you experiment with medium in an art universities’ open day is like saying you can count when applying for a 7 year course on maths. Do not say you play computer games for a computer science course. Just because it has computer in it does not mean that, as you are the one that helps your parents look at their hotmail, you will go far on the course.

So, in your mom… ok, conclusion: when you apply to university be careful about where you go, because it might be a pain in the ass if it’s some place you don’t like going to, for example, the countryside. With the animals, fresh air, and no one around apart from your university peers for MILES! OH GOD! HELP ME OUT! I taked me some tranquilikilile to calm myself down. Heehee, MS Word is WhIt3!! When you choosed your subject, make it cool for you. You’ll be spending lots of time on it. I’ll see you next time, on tips on ononon something or other.