Max Goldberg finds out what it's like to have leverage for once in the ruthless world of college admissions

By Max Goldberg
Gargoyle senior editor
Posted Friday, April 28, 2006, The OG, features

I have been bombarded with roast beef sandwiches, pieces of candy, catered lunches, and other assorted free stuff ever since I was accepted to college.

I applied to nine schools and only failed to get into Harvard and Yale. I now look back on what was a disappointing time and feel relieved that I didn't even have the choice to go to an East Coast Ivy League school. After some SAT-style Process of Elimination, it all came down to Northwestern University in Evanston, Washington University in St. Louis, and Pomona College in Claremont, Calif.

I visited all three schools in early April in order to make my college decision. At each, I was presented with a gastronomic wonderland of free food, including all-you-can-eat bite-size candy bars at Wash U, a catered lunch at Northwestern, and most extravagant of all, a tableful of expensive chocolates and cheesecakes at Pomona. I estimated that at least a $20 bill was lying in my gullet after eating only three pieces of chocolate and two pieces of cheesecake.

All of this special treatment (not to mention free meals at campus dining halls) was both overwhelming and confusing. It was strange to me that any world-class university with an endowment greater than anything I will ever see in my life was catering to me.

It wasn't that I didn't understand their reasoning. I knew they wanted prospective students to come to their schools, but it still felt awkward to be treated so well, especially after the cutthroat process of admissions.

The best part about all of this is that none of the free goodies actually mattered in my decision, which I based off of my general feel for the campus, and off of what I would be able to do after I got my bachelor's degree. I decided to go to Northwestern University because it gave me a structured curriculum in journalism while still allowing me to take courses outside of communications.

I'm not going to tell admissions directors to stop giving away free stuff, because I'm much too cheap to say anything like that. I would, however, advise that they come up with a decent pitch for their schools rather than just chuck roast beef and cheesecake at prospective students.