a bloodbath

a woman i know called it a bloodbath. she was referring to the denial of admission to her daughter by her favourite universities.

she's in at two or three good, but not stellar universities. harvard, yale, princeton, and columbia denied her outright; penn first wait-listed her, then wrote yesterday with a "no, but and we wish you the best in the pusuit of your scholarly interests," or something to that effect.

these 18-year-olds take it hard, for they had pinned their hopes on harvard. yale, etc. that's a formula for disaster. today. in the u.s., one shouldn't expect to be admitted to any particular university, esp one of the HYPS as they are known (harvard, yale, princeton, and stanford).

f, the student, was brooding all yesterday. i had helped her with ap calculus. h, her mother, talks to me all the time. (she's pakistani.) i told her that f is already in at two good universities, that she'd recover soon from yesterday's denials, and that she'd be happy at the one in the northeast. i also told her that if sheldon glashov - nobel laureate, physicist, the standard model - is a faculty member there, it must be a very good university.

finally, i suggested that h can hasten f's recovery if she and her husband took f out for dessert and coffee that night. i also recommended highly the chocolate cajeta (caHetha in spanish) cake that's available at a mexican restaurant here. more on that divine cake another time, perhaps.

WillyNilly wrote:a woman i know called it a bloodbath. she was referring to the denial of admission to her daughter by her favourite universities.

she's in at two or three good, but not stellar universities. harvard, yale, princeton, and columbia denied her outright; penn first wait-listed her, then wrote yesterday with a "no, but and we wish you the best in the pusuit of your scholarly interests," or something to that effect.

these 18-year-olds take it hard, for they had pinned their hopes on harvard. yale, etc. that's a formula for disaster. today. in the u.s., one shouldn't expect to be admitted to any particular university, esp one of the HYPS as they are known (harvard, yale, princeton, and stanford).

f, the student, was brooding all yesterday. i had helped her with ap calculus. h, her mother, talks to me all the time. (she's pakistani.) i told her that f is already in at two good universities, that she'd recover soon from yesterday's denials, and that she'd be happy at the one in the northeast. i also told her that if sheldon glashov - nobel laureate, physicist, the standard model - is a faculty member there, it must be a very good university.

finally, i suggested that h can hasten f's recovery if she and her husband took f out for dessert and coffee that night. i also recommended highly the chocolate cajeta (caHetha in spanish) cake that's available at a mexican restaurant here. more on that divine cake another time, perhaps.

Nice write up.