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math dance girl does the bar graph for her college application videoA lot of universities explicitly forbid video applications, but that policy seems to be changing as the YouTube generation hits college age. Four schools now encourage students to pull an Elle Woods from Legally Blonde and send in videos instead of essays and they're already getting some prime material.

According to Newsweek, 5-10% of the applications at the four schools -- Tufts, George Mason, William and Mary and St. Mary's College of Maryland -- included videos this year. Getting into college isn't the only reward for making a video application, though. Some of the most interesting submissions have gone viral on YouTube, racking up six-digit view counts.

Amelia Downs' "Math Dances" video has scored 100,000 views since she posted it in September. The Tufts applicant shows you how to do the funky moves that are cool with the kids these days, including The Line Graph, The Box and Whisker Plot, and The SIN and COS Graph.

Whether she gets in or not -- hey Tufts, this is a no-brainer -- I hope Amelia posts a follow up video called "Math Dances 2: Electric Boogaloo". She also seems to know her LOLcats: check out those big white captions in the classic Impact font. Nice!


No video collection is complete without a ukelele tune and this one is delivered by talented St. Mary's applicant Lydie Bavoil. She says she's "auditioning for the part of freshman who busts into spontaneous ukelele riffs." The video just shows the song lyrics, though, so we have no idea what the ukelele-busting future freshman looks like. If you thought you could use this video application scheme to pick the cute ones, Admissions Guys, think again. You'll just have to judge on things like "musical talent" and "ideas."


Before video college applications, you could get away with sending in the kind of heartfelt writing that you'd never consider letting your friends read. But now that your application is preserved on YouTube for years to come, reciting an original poem about the state of society may not be the best way to go. It does take serious guts, though. I'd like to award an "A" for effort to Adam Bangser and give him points for confident delivery. I'll also wager 10 dollars that he goes on to great success at Tufts as That Guy Who Pontificates at Parties.