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Next year I'm going to be applying to colleges.
Most high school seniors get a haircut before they get their picture taken and before their college interview. I always check on my hair before going out for an event, but even so many people can't really take me seriously since I have reached shoulder length about a month and a half ago -- they say that it looks unprofessional. Ironic part is that I have a better high school transcript than the people that complain about my hair length.
Will that form a prejudice on the person that is going to be interviewing me? The main colleges that I am eyeing are the Ivies, and I need pretty much all the help that I can get to get in.
Since I am an Asian male, I have a harder time getting into the school that I want. But do colleges try to preserve the ratio of 2-3 percent long haired men at campuses (affirmative action)? I am pretty sure that the percentage of longhairs applying to those schools is significantly less than the 2-3 percent national average.
And apart from seminaries and BYU, are there any colleges to avoid?
I wouldn't worry about the matter too much. If the rest of your academic credentials (grades, honors, extracurricular activities, etc.) are good enough to get in to a school, I don't think the length of your hair is going to be a deal-breaker. I (a white male) was accepted at Cornell for undergrad with "medium-length" hair, and I was accepted at Princeton for graduate school with hair several inches below my shoulders, so I can personally attest that it is possible for long-haired guys to get into Ivies!
Also, from my experience at least, academia generally tends to be more longhair-friendly than, say, your typical employer. After all, institutions of higher learning do value independent thinkers. The people you mention who say that your hair looks unprofessional yet have poorer transcripts than you are not likely to be the sort of people conducting admissions interviews at Ivy League universities!
If the length of your hair does end up being an issue, I think it would be due to the individual prejudices of the person interviewing you or reviewing your application, which would be basically impossible to foresee. I would say that as long as you make yourself look neat and professional, and you sound competent, prepared, and intelligent during your interview, you should be fine. If you're particularly concerned about being taken seriously with long hair, I would spend some time thinking about what to say if the interviewer asks you about it. Being ready with an eloquent explanation of why your long hair is important or significant to you may end up enhancing the strength of your application rather than detracting from it.
Do think what you'd say, but try to keep what you say short. Something as short as, "I've tried various looks, and this one is what works best on me." Then change the subject back to what the interview is supposed to be about. You have limited time, and you really don't want it to be about your hair. Ideally, you will have talked about your hair so little, they won't even remember it, but they'll remember your other qualities which they want.
There are times when you want to put forth a strong advocacy position for longhairedness, and you will want to come on strong then. But this is not one of those times. The goal here is to advocate that you will be a good student for them to accept. Part of that position is that hair should not be a big deal, and to a large extent, how big a deal you make them think it is will be judged by how much you talk about it.
So be confident, be firm, be matter-of-fact but not confrontational, be pleasant, and be brief. If they remember anything about this short part of the interview, you want it to be that demeanor of yours, not your hair. Above all, you don't want them to come out of there remembering you were "obsessed" about it. Obsession is seen as "passion" when they agree with its direction, but it is seen as "nuttiness" when they do not. The more words you throw at them on the subject, the more obsessed about it they will perceive you to be.
Good luck!
Bill
Those are very good points, and I think the bottom line is "don't worry about it." Again based on my personal experience, I can't recall a single time during the course of applying for undergrad or graduate school where anyone brought up my hair at all, so I didn't have the chance to come across as nutty! (Well, at least not with regard to my hair...)
I've never heard of having to pass an interview to be accepted into college, but I never applied to a prestigious one, so I'm not very familiar with the way things work at the Ivy League schools. I can tell you that in most environments where you need to appear professional, the best way for a long-haired guy to do this is to wear his hair in a neat, low ponytail secured with a thin hair band that matches the colour of the hair. If your hair isn't long enough to make a ponytail, the next best thing is to wear it loose and parted exactly down the middle of your head, as most people think centre parts look more masculine than side parts or fringe.
In the days when I applied, nobody sent a photo, so they didn't see my hair until the interview stage, and in the mid 1970s long hair was very common.
I would say, if asked, that long hair is an important part of my heritage and leave it at that. Your good results will speak louder.
That's the thing, I guess I'm the same age and nearly everyone had at least mid length hair back then. It would never have occurred to any of us to have got a haircut for college interviews. All the colleges I applied to did do interviews, and I didn't apply to Oxford or Cambridge, which would loosely be equivalent to the Ivy League.
Of course, bte and I are both from the UK, even though I now live in the US, so we had no high school graduation, and hence no pressure to get a haircut for a ceremony where our pictures would be taken. That pressure did come at college graduation for me, but I didn't have much trimmed off then.
That said, even now I think college is the last place where anyone will think your hair is relevant. They will be looking at what's underneath it, i.e. your brain, not literally looking at it of course(!), but at least indirectly.
I should add that I have a son who is in college in the US, and they don't care what length his hair is, but then nobody cared about that when he was in high school either, and his hair is as long as mine, albeit he doesn't have a beard.
I would think that if your grades are good, it won't make a difference. If your going to have long hair, you have to decide how important your hair is to you.
Darrin