Pick Me! Pick Me!

'Tis the season of school applications. I just ran across my journal entries from a few years back, when my daughter was a high school senior. The entry I'll share with you below was written in March, when application decisions were starting to roll in. This month, my son and I are now preparing his high school applications, a process very much like college for the students hoping to be accepted into the private high schools of the Twin Cities. It's good for me to remember the anticipation and anxiety of the process, as well as the knowledge that in the end, everything seems to fall into place.

My daughter had applied to a number of colleges, from the University of Minnesota, to Loyola/Chicago, to Brown University in Providence, RI, her "stretch" application.

March 30, 2005:
Now I’m four minutes away from seeing M.’s admission decision from Brown. She's on her way to Ireland for an early graduation gift so she gave me permission to check the decision notice. I peeked at 4:30 pm but the site only said to return according to the dates shown on the main admission page. The University of Wisconsin-Madison this year fielded over 21,000 applicants but had room only for 5,600 students. I wonder what Brown’s numbers are?

1 more minute. I wonder how many students are waiting, like me, to click open the decision. Rather than waiting for the “fat” envelope to come in the mail, rushing home each day to pull the mail out of the mailbox, they wait next to their computers, in coffeeshops, at home in the study, in their rooms using their WI-FI connections. The time is exact. No guessing when the letter will come. No blaming the weather or the post office if the letter doesn’t arrive when they think it will.

But what if Brown’s server backlogs? Shuts down. How many will have heart palpitations and sweaty palms? What’s wrong? they’ll think. Why isn’t this working? I knew this wouldn’t work? Ugh, I didn’t get in. How many already know, either through connections through sports (if they were recruited isn’t it all a formality?)? How many will be expecting an easy “yes” to go along with their 6 or 7 other yesses, from prestigous places like Yale, and Stanford, and NYU? How many, like my daughter, did not ace her ACT? Or failed Physics? How many had to tell their own school counselor about Brown, a counselor who said she had never written a letter of recommendation to "that college"?

How many will be awkwardly sad, not the kind of breakdown sad but the kind that hits them silently and hard and they won’t know what to do with themselves because they didn’t realize how much they really wanted to get in?

Four minutes after. I should check. I’ve liked thinking about her at Brown. And then I worry, instantly worry over my own fantasies: What if she makes it in? How the hell are we going to pay $44,000/year? How will she survive in such a hyper-competitive and high-level academic environment? Who will take her under their wing? Who will snub her and make her feel bad? Who will she fall in love with? How little will I see her? How will she feel about her dad as she grows in competence and awareness and savvy? Or me?

Enough. Check. Now. I clicked on the link. No action. It won’t let me move on. It really is overloaded. What if the system breaks down, recomposes, and sends out all the wrong decisions? What would that do? If a freshman class was admitted strictly by lottery, who would survive? Would it really matter, in the long run? Wouldn’t most of those students survive and thrive anyway? Aren't most of these applicants poised to succeed? Isn’t it a self-selecting group?

Check again. Nope. There’s that feeling. Aww.

“The Brown Board of Admission has completed its evaluation of more than 18,000 applications to the Class of 2010, and it is with real regret that I must inform you that your application has been denied.

The great majority of the young men and women who applied to Brown this year are very clearly capable of satisfactory academic performance and of making significant contributions to the college community in other ways. With nearly thirteen candidates for every available space, the Board's task in selecting the members of the Class of 2010 has been extremely difficult.“

It was a long shot. She gave it her best shot. The best she had. I don’t want to spoil her mood on this trip now. I’ll wait. It’s hard to hear no. It’s hard to feel that my daughter isn’t going to get the same amazing experience that those attending Ivy League schools will get. They get it. What do you do when you want the very best for your child and you can’t get it for them? Oh! I could have spent more time with her on her essay! We rushed it all. We sent weak recommendation letters from public school teachers who didn’t really say much at all about her that was unique and witty and splendid.

Well, there you go. It’s in. We can move on, at least. Now, the others are there for the choosing. Pick one. Pick one soon.