College can be an experience full of discovery, new beginnings, and lasting friendships. But it can also be a place full of strange questions, wild rhetoric, awkward acquaintances, and well-meaning (though at times, cringe-worthy) institutional indoctrination. Educators and parents alike attempt to shape the minds of young, growing pupils before they are sent out into the cold, cold world. Colleges can be places of higher learning as well as a place where some get high while learning, and judging by some of these questions (it appears this isn’t only the case for students).
Ever see a question on a test or an essay prompt that has you scratching your head? Ever wonder, did I really just read that? That’s probably what these students thought after reading the top 10 weirdest university questions on the web…
10. Tufts University Wants To Know If It’s Easy Being Green
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You can say that Tufts University is playing into the game of identity politics with this question. The university posed an application essay prompt for their students, using Sesame Street‘s Kermit the Frog as the basis for the question, particularly the famed frog’s skin color.
The essay prompt said, “Kermit the Frog famously lamented, ‘It’s not easy being green.’ Do you agree?”
Well, do you agree? Green is a color associated with wealth, envy, balance, spring, rebirth, and more.
9. John Hopkins University Asks Applicants To Go Full-Blown MacGyver
MacGyver is a TV show popularized in the mid ’80s and early ’90s, and revived in 2016. The series revolves around a secret agent named Angus “Mac” MacGyver who has an impeccable knack for problem-solving; figuring a way to resolve complex issues with an array of common household items.
John Hopkins University asks students in an application essay to think in a way similar to MacGyver in order to solve a problem. The essay prompt said, “Using a piece of wire, a Hopkins car window sticker, an egg carton, and any inexpensive hardware store item, create something that would solve a problem. Tell us about your creation, but don’t worry; we won’t require proof that it works!”
8. Cambridge University Gets Cheesy
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And yet, you probably thought the only cheesy person here was the author. But I assure you, there are others like me, some even get to ask questions at Cambridge University.
One interview question from Cambridge University asks vet science students, “Is the moon made out of cheese?”
In the film, A Grand Day Out With Wallace & Gromit, both main characters travel to the moon to eat some delicious cheese. But Wallace is just munching on moon rocks. Definitely not something to spread on a cracker.
7. University of Chicago Is Searching For Waldo Too
Who hasn’t gone through a Where’s Waldo? book or two as a child? I must have a bunch of those books hidden somewhere, probably collecting dust in the closet like many of my other cherished childhood memories. I may go looking for those books one day and will be probably be itching with dust mites afterwards.
Now, it appears as if the University of Chicago is looking for Waldo as well. In one essay prompt question, they ask students, “So where is Waldo, really?”
You can really go anywhere with that question. Literally.
6. Cambridge University’s Question Involves A Huge (Ridiculous ) Leap
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Usually when you hear a college asking their students to take a huge leap, the assumption is that they’re posing a metaphorical question. For example, a student’s transition to the workforce may be a “huge leap” from the classroom.
Cambridge University poses an interview question for their engineering students, asking what would happen if they literally took the largest leap possible into a dark abyss. The questions asks, “What would happen if you drilled through the Earth all the way to the other side and then jumped into the hole?”
This is an even bigger leap than the one in the stock photo above. By far.
5. Oxford University Asks Students, What Would Happen If The Only Recorded History We Have Involves Sports And Nothing Else?
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Imagine if the records of the past was a clear slate except when it comes to sports. All the rest has been erased or not recorded for whatever reason. Is that what happens when fake news takes control of the world and the only thing you can trust is sports stats? Sounds like something from an Alex Jones Infowars video…
Oxford University posed the question, “Imagine we had no records about the past at all, except everything to do with sports – how much of the past could we find out about?”
If we only had info relating to sports history than the four food groups would likely be arranged according to a football game: potato chips, beer, dip, and hot wings.
4. St. Mary’s College of Maryland Asks Incoming Students To Send In An Audition Tape
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Imagine if being accepted into college was like getting a role on MTV’s The Real World or The Jersey Shore (now The Floribama Shore). Well, St. Mary’s College of Maryland asked students to send in a tape to audition for a spot for the incoming semester.
The description for the assignment read, “St. Mary’s College is casting for the incoming class. Send us your audition tape via the Web or DVD. Please provide us with the site for posting. Selection of this option will stand as your college essay. Consider your audience.”
What type of audition tape would you send? Would you show an exaggerated, wild personality like an MTV audition tape and troll the people watching? Or would you make a tape appropriate for the college experience (whatever that means)?
3. Cambridge University Asks Law Students About A Breakfast-Related Divorce
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Would you divorce your wife/husband over some annoying habit they had at the dinner table? Could it be the way they ate? Or what they ate?
Cambridge University queries law students with a hypothetical scenario, asking, “If a wife had expressed distaste for it previously, would her husband’s habit of putting marmalade in his egg at breakfast be grounds for divorce?”
What would it take for you to leave your significant other? Marmalade in an egg? Probably not.
2. Cambridge University Asks Students To Ponder If They Were A Grapefruit And Whether They’d Want Seeds Or Not
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Seriously, what is there to gain by asking their students if what type of grapefruit they’d like to be? How does that question help them grow as a person? Colleges these days…
Cambridge University asked medical students, “If I were a grapefruit, would I rather be seedless or non-seedless?”
Does it even matter? You’re a grapefruit. What can you do if you’re a grapefruit? Well, at least if you have seeds you can possibly sprout a grapefruit tree, creating many, many fruity offsprings.
1. Michigan State University Asks Students Some Very NSFW Questions (Sexually Explicit)
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Now, it’s time for our number one weirdest university question! Well, really it’s more like seven questions combined into one wacky segment. Michigan State University recently sent out a survey to their students that have raised some serious eyebrows, among other things.
Campus Reform released a snippet of the survey offered to the students from Michigan State University. How ridiculous are these questions? Well, one had a yes or no question on whether or not that student has gagged on a penis or vis versa. I sh*t you not.
Here’s a look at the screenshot from Campus Reform:
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Other questions ask whether or not you had ejaculated on someone’s face or vis versa. More questions involve whether the student had “danced/stripped” in front of others for entertainment or whether they had kissed someone of the same “sex/gender” in order to entertain an audience.
The duration of this survey is roughly a half hour.
“When I found out about the survey sent out at MSU I was laughing because I thought it was a joke,” said MSU Student Chrissy Clark who took the survey. “I first saw it on barstool MSU, which is an Instagram that parodies college students. I thought that it might be an extra credit opportunity for a student research assistant but it was a serious survey sent out to students to understand sexual assault issues on campus.”
Wow. Just wow. What else will they be asking these students?