B-School Making Us All Politicians

There is community service work that I have done for several years that I didn't include in my apps because I typed it out in rough drafts of essays and it just seemed ridiculous on paper. Without getting into exactly what the volunteer work is, let me just give an example, let's say someone wrote:

"For the past three years I've been going to a burn-ward of a local hospital and reading stories to children who have been in terrible accidents that have left them disfigured. It's been very rewarding for me, I love making these children smile and forget their troubles."

Isn't it kind of f-d up to be doing something nice like that, and then using it as currency to gain entrance into f-ng business school?!

I'm not trying to pretend I'm Mr. Ethical (I'm clearly not) and I'm not judging anyone who lists their community service activities. If I was in some leadership position at the local United Way, of course I would have put that on my applications, because that kind of makes sense, it's a position where you are leading or demonstrating some sort of skills. But the nature of my volunteer work is not so..I don't know what the word is..maybe "corporate" or "bureaucratic," it's something that I don't want to put down on paper and say, "Look, here's proof that I care about other people and I care about getting involved." I'm willing to go to an interview and "toot my horn" when it comes to talking about my analytical skills or how I love working in teams and really get along well with people blah blah blah, but I don't want to take something that is personal totally done out of good-will or altruism and commodify it to stack up on the scale next to my GMAT score.

Anybody remember the 2004 DNC when John Kerry brought all those Swift Boat soldiers up on stage, the guys who he was in Vietnam with? He parades them up there and the message is loud and clear: I'm a war hero, I'm brave, right guys? Remember when I saved your lives back in Nam, that was awesome. Well look, it's payback time, try and make me look good, tell everyone I'm a hero.

I've really felt like a politician the last several months. From the super-stiff conversations that I've had in admissions office waiting rooms (you know, sitting around waiting for the class to start, hanging out with other visiting students, "Hi, are you visiting a class too?" "No, I'm interviewing." "Oh wonderful, best of luck") to my essays where I describe how interesting I am and how incredibly excited I am about joining this school that I didn't know existed three months prior. "I believe that I will be a valuable addition to [fill in the blank]. Whether I'm kissing [fill in name of prominent professor]'s @ss in class, or scoring the winning [goal, home run, basket] in the annual [whatever stupid game the school holds each spring] I will be a a great fit."

But the worst part is the community service part. I guess what p*sses me off is that I know so many i-banker jackasses that have conversations like, "Dude, is that Brooks Brothers? Lame. You should get a job in Private Equity so you can afford nice clothes." And these dipsh*ts scrape together whatever token community service they can, then blow it up and glamourize it in their essays. I mean do ad-coms really not see through this?

Okay, not to get totally cynical, but just kind of letting off some steam here. I hate the selling-out that you have to do to get into school. But I realize that it has to kind of be that way.