It’s my last day of this first round of college tours. I feel educated. I know the difference between a “Reach” school (one that, if you got into it, would be a miracle), a “Target” school (this is the one you really want to go to, but the chances are not always and ever in your favor) and a “Safety” school (now this one? This is the school you will get into). I know the difference between scholarships and financial aid. I know what Holistic Admissions is: where the prospective school looks at all the data plus the additive bonus of the students’s supplements in order to determine where the student is worthy of being at the school. For a prospective student, dividing the schools into these categories is a practice; a student needs to weigh their metrics (transcript plus standardized test scores) alongside their essay (the one with the killer opening line, the one true pitch) and their extracurriculars.You can hear the collective gulp of the students who don’t measure up to the four pillars of hope. And the schools do the soft sell, assuring the room full of people that they like a student who’s accelerated their GPA, or that they appreciate a student who’s had to do after-school home care or how a student’s need for financial aid is not a factor in determining acceptance.. There are teams at every school devoted to territories, domestically and internationally, that assess the pillars of each applicant. TEAMS. Some schools are so accustomed to having one thousand visitors a day that they’ve got the Information Session down to a science, almost to the minute. The admissions process is big business; it’s selling the brand of the school, and it’s the selling of the mythology that surrounds the school. The latter comes in the data: 60,000 students apply, 14 % are admitted, 6% are legacy. The tour guides have specific talking points, they’re personable, they’re full of achievement. I’ve even liked some of them. And so now, on my final day of this first round of school tours, the rose-tinted glasses are off. As a parent for a prospective student, I am much more wizened to the ins and outs of this process, and I am truly educated, in this one particular aspect: I feel much more equipped going into the applications process, knowing what the odds are. And that’s a huge relief.
Kara Walker’s next move.
Sarah Silverman: “We have to be brave.”
Our new series, BARB Turning Pages, launches today featuring Bonnie Nadzam!
I am so looking forward to seeing Beatrix At Dinner, starring Selma Hayek.
More about women in horror film industry.
When people with money donate money to girls in need.
When covering missing girls, black and white.
Mom stuff.
Yeast Infections, the bane of my menstrual existence. Well those and clotty periods.
The Sex and The City vibrator. Okay, jk, it’s not the bastion of SATC; the Rabbit Pearl was simply the one that got all the buzz when Charlotte took it on.
Melissa McCarthy, Easter Bunny Spicy. Also, that Harry Styles ballad on the SNL was on point. As was the whole episode.
And now have a laugh with Carol Leifer.
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