200 Characters
in
In the med school application for the University of Maryland, it asks the applicant the following:
Please describe and explain below any academic problems which you might have had while in college and/or graduate or professional school. Please include withdrawals, incompletes, poor grades, etc.
Not entirely an unreasonable question, until you read the guidelines and find out the application requires your answer to be less than two hundred characters, including spaces.
This got me thinking, what can you actually say in just two hundred characters?
Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet”:
Romeo’s family hates Juliet’s, but they met at a party and fell in love. Juliet’s brother kills Romeo’s friend, and Romeo kills her brother. Then Romeo and Juliet both kill themselves. It’s unfortunate.
The history of rock band, The Doors (credit to Dennis Leary):
They’re drunk. They’re not famous. They’re drunk. They’re famous. They’re drunk. They’re dead.
The Original Star Wars Trilogy:
Death Star plans. Boom. Luke learns Force. Revenge boom. A Muppet teaches Force. Han is frozen. Vader is Luke’s father. Han is unfrozen. Vader is redeemed then dies. Boom. Teddy bear dance sequence.
But the ridiculousness of this two hundred character rule doesn’t only apply to summarizing famous stories and band histories. What if other things in our real lives had a limit of just two hundred characters?
An anniversary toast:
“To Jeanie, my lovely wife. Each day I spend with you is the happiest day of my life. I love you, and I wouldn’t be the man I am today if it weren’t for you and your sister.”
Unfortunately because of that character limitation, Jeanie assumes her husband has been sleeping with her sister, and this anniversary they were celebrating quickly becomes their last. Now if only more characters were allowed, the husband could have continued to his next sentence in which he would have reminded Jeanie that her sister is a nutritionist and put him on the diet that made him lose all that extra weight.
A child’s Christmas list for Santa Claus:
“Dear Santa. I have been very good this year. I did all my homework and I helped my little sister when she was being made fun of by those mean kids on the bus. I don’t want anything for Christmas”
That poor kid! Because of the character limit, there’s no way for Santa to know that the full sentence was actually “I don’t want anything for Christmas except an incredibly awesome present that will make all my friends jealous.”
I think I’ve pounded my point into the ground well enough, so I’d like to directly address that application question that got this all started. As someone very close to me pointed out, “If they want a real answer, then they should obviously give you enough room to answer it.”
So if they don’t want a real answer, then I think they’re after one of two things.
Response #1:
All 4 of my undrgrad yrs wer @ Columbia College in Chi & I nvr w/drew, hd an Incomplete or gt a grade lwr thn C.
Response #2:
Your school is the greatest thing ever and it would be the highlight of my entire life to be accepted. I plan to name my first child Mary after you, regardless of whether it’s a boy or girl.
This is dedicated to all those colleges, employers and anyone else who create and require applications. Because I need you guys to do me a personal favor. Don’t put such a ridiculous character limitation on your work. Because all it does is
Editor’s Note: The rest of this article has been omitted due to exceeding the Brown Spot’s word limit.
