The everyday blog of Richard Bartle.
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11:50am on Wednesday, 7th March, 2007:
Anecdote
It's interview day today.
Today, prospective students visit the university, and we interview them for about 15 minutes each. I don't actually have to do any interviews, as that counts as administration and, strictly speaking, as a part-time member of the teaching staff, it's not part of my job. However, I like the whole new student thing, having met my wife when we both showed round new students as undergraduates, so I do participate.
I usually give the students I interview my business card, so they can contact me if they have any further questions. Last week, one of them did.
OK, so suppose you're an applicant who is changing the A-level subjects you're studying. You're in your second year, so you're already over half-way through: why are you changing? This would be a bad sign, then... Also, since your university applications presupposed you were doing the A-levels you said you were, you were given an offer conditional on those A-levels. Now, though, you want to drop some A-levels in favour of one-year AS-levels. Now, you need to persuade your chosen universities to extend their offer to accept your not-so-challenging new qualifications. What do you do?
Well what you don't do is write them an email that has a first sentence like this:
I applied to attend Colchester University starting next school year and i was offered a place after i visited the university and an interview with yourself.
First of all, if you really want to impress a university, you should try to get its name right.
Secondly, even primary school children can get their heads round the fact that it's I, not i. That first I is the only one out of twelve in the entire email that's capitalised — sixteen if you include id, im and ive. This isn't dyslexia — even profoundly dyslexic people can spell I. This is just not caring.
I have to say, though, the second paragraph's due to unforscene circumstances made me smile a little.
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Copyright © 2007 Richard Bartle (richard@mud.co.uk).