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2021 Application

Welcome to the Blount (pronounced blənt) Scholars Program Online Application. Although this will easily be the most fun you will have in connection with your college search, you may want to give the application the once over before starting. This will enable you to save your responses in advance in a word processing program, which is always a good idea with web submissions. Not trying to get all in your business, or anything. Just making an observation....
Once you've finished, you must remember to hit the "Submit My Completed Application" button at the end to finalize things. Partial applications will not be saved.
Ok, so the application has three sections:
- Section One - Pedestrian but nonetheless necessary biographical data--name, contact information, GPA & test scores, etc.
- Section Two - In which we try to get to know the person behind the myth. This might include: querying you about your preferences, passions, prejudices, and peeves; asking you to inhabit hypothetical scenarios or imaginary worlds; having you write a little poem; requiring you to translate a prose passage from Iriquois into Urdu.
  
  Ok, the thing about the translation was a gag. We do ask you to solve some differential equations, though.
  Ok, the differential equations bit was a gag too. Loosen up, will you?
- Section Three - Wherein we wax curious about how Blount might fulfill your educational quest and how you see yourself fitting into the program.
Now get busy. And remember: if you're not having fun doing this application, you're living wrong.
Section One
Just the facts.
Name*
First Last
Email*
Enter Email Confirm Email
UA email*
Enter Email Confirm Email
Permanent Address*
Street Address City State / Province / Region ZIP Country
Phone*
CWID (if issued)
Areas of Current Academic Interest*
GPA*
Current High School*
SAT EBRW (if taken)
SAT Math (if taken)
ACT Composite (if taken)
Reference's Name (Please select someone who knows you in an academic capacity. N.B.: we are not soliciting a letter of recommendation, simply the contact information of a reference in the event we feel we need additional information.)*
First Last
Reference's Position/Title*
Reference's Email
Enter Email Confirm Email
Residence in the Blount Living/Learning Center during the first year is required. Please indicate your assent below.*
- I understand the Blount residency requirement and am willing--indeed, am eager--to live in the Blount Living/Learning Center.
Section Two
♫ Getting to know you, getting to know all about you...♫
Please run with the following prompts. How long should responses be? Totally up to you--there's no minimum or maximum length.
The Japanese verse form known as Haiku traditionally uses linked images to connect an experience of nature to the human condition. Although the form has evolved historically, one common haiku configuration consists of 17 on (aka morae, which for the purposes of English translation are often loosely rendered as syllables) arranged in three lines. The lines contain 5, 7, and 5 syllables respectively. Below is an example. Replace it with a haiku of your own. Note: The concept of nature here is capacious—applicants from the Bronx may well have a different sense of nature than applicants from Boise. Then, too, the word “nature” has other meanings than simply “the woods”.*
I dislike make-up Except when it is on clowns Then I'm glad it's there.
Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard P. Feynman once remarked, “Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.” What motivations beyond practical results do you think fuel scientific inquiry more generally?*
When he made his first appearance in 1954, Kool-Aid Man (originally named Pitcher Man) was received as a benign and upbeat, if slightly quirky, exponent of the powdered soft drink product after which he was ultimately named. In the decades since, ever-evolving cultural norms as well as developments in behavioral categorization have caused a shift in perception, producing a somewhat more problematic image. Explosively breaking through walls, fences, and ceilings amidst groups of terrified children, Kool-Aid Man emerges as a guy with anger management problems. Imagine a brief dramatic exchange between Kool-Aid Man and his therapist, the sagacious, salty, and debonair Mr. Peanut, as they try to work through KAM's issues.*
A number of modern social theorists have maintained that there is not a singular "American" experience, but rather that a variety of different demographic variables--from socio-economic class to race and ethnicity to sexual orientation and gender identity to age to where you live to....(you get the idea)--condition how you experience America. From your perspective, how is the America you live in the same, different, or some of both with respect to the America that is portrayed in popular TV shows, in movies, or even on the news? International students are at liberty to substitute their home country in this rumination on national identity.*
In his autobiography, The Confessions, Jean-Jacques Rousseau remarks: “I recollect nothing of learning to read, I only remember what effect the first considerable exercise of it produced on my mind; and from that moment I date an uninterrupted knowledge of myself.” Does Rousseau's attempt to establish a relation between reading and self-knowledge make sense to you? If so, explain how you think this relation works.*
Take a blank piece of paper (8.5 x 11) and make your mark upon it, so to speak. You may write, tear, draw, color, fold--anything you like except a photo collage (which doesn't rule out either photography or collages). When you're done, scan it and upload. Alternately, of course, you can create a digital file from the outset and just upload it. It must be in one of the following formats, though: .jpg, .jpeg, .gif, .png, .pdf, .doc, .docx, .txt.*
Accepted file types: jpg, jpeg, gif, png, pdf, doc, docx, txt.
Are you a smoker?*
- Yes
- No
Gentle applicant, you shouldn't smoke. It's unhealthy. And besides, the dorm, indeed the whole UA campus, is a non-smoking area. Promise you'll give it up. (Note: agreeing or refusing to give up smoking will not affect your admissions decision.)*
- I promise to quit smoking.
- Negative. I'm not promising. It's none of your business and I resent the institutional paternalism that has produced this question.
Excellent. Don't start. It's not good for you.
Section Three
The Fit
How did you first learn of the Blount Scholars Program?*
What aspect(s) of the Blount Program induced you to apply?*
Far from operating on a merchant/consumer model, The Blount Scholars Program is a partnership between faculty and students. Blounters, as students in the program are called, are legendarily intrepid in helping to shape their academic and social lives. Which of the Blount groups below could you imagine yourself participating in?
- Executive Committee (student governance)
- Ambassadors (student recruitment)
- Mentors (new student orientation and transition to UA)
- Social Committee (Fun--note capital "F")
- Media Committee (print publications, website, social media)
- Blount Instruments (music, aka the food of love)
- Poetry Collective ("the art of substantiating shadows")
- Trivium et Quadrivium (trivia team)
- Blount Cineastes (film group--turtleneck sweater required)
- Roll Tile (mah jongg club)
- The Blount Truth (literary magazine)
- Check Please! (chess club)
- BFF's (Blount Fibre Fiends: fiber arts collective)
Now name an activity that isn't in the list above that you could imagine initiating.*
What did we miss? If there are additional documents (tax returns, dental X-rays, talley sheet from that time you bowled 285, etc.) that you would like to include in your application, please upload them here. (Optional)
Drop files here or

Accepted file types: jpg, gif, png, pdf, mov, doc, docx, txt.
reCAPTCHA
Almost done! Although your information is saved on our server as you enter it, you must check the reCAPTCHA box above and hit the submit button below to complete your application. Otherwise, you will have to fill out the entire application again.

“But how can a program committed to diversity and social justice discriminate against robots?”, you ask? Actually, we don't. The reCAPTCHA is just for the bad robots: corporate spyware, denial of service attacks by competitor universities, foreign governments trying to tamper with Blount's application process. But benign, curious robots that are clever enough to pass the Turing test are welcome in the program.

How good would a bot have to be in order to fool us, i.e., to be as good as one of our applicants?

Insanely good.
Comments
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