Ivy League, Schmivy League
And other childish things I want to say about my kid not getting in.
Like all the other parents of approximately 3.26 million high school seniors in America, I have been riding a roller coaster the last five days. But I’m feeling it a little deeper than expected because my teen decided to graduate a year early and go on his gap year. He was in Nepal when he hit “send” on his applications to colleges and in Switzerland when he got the last of the incoming results last Thursday. Poor kid didn’t get into Brown or Dartmouth because, ummmm…it was nearly impossible even with extra-curriculars and volunteering out the wazoo, a near-perfect resume (just shy of building an app or finding a cure for cancer), a 4.5 gpa and a 1530 on his SAT. But he DID get into a handful of amazing places and now, from afar, he has to decide the where’s and what’s that suit him best. None of this is surprising, but what did surprise me was my reaction to it all. I felt like I failed him somehow. And I couldn’t put my finger on why.
We had done everything “right” in NYC, from choosing the “feeder” preschool into a “feeder” K-8, and when we, and he, got “fed up” with the “feeders” we moved him to a high-performance high school where his candle burned so bright it burned right out.
Hopes and dreams are funny that way…those unmet expectations that slip through the hands of possibility. I had a LOT of hopes and dreams for Colton. Apparently, I was hanging my hat on the fact that he was the one who was going to go “ivy”. He was the type A poster child for all the shit that I never was and I wanted nothing more for him than to be more than me. We had done everything “right” in NYC, from choosing the “feeder” preschool into a “feeder” K-8, and when we, and he, got “fed up” with the “feeders” we moved him to a high-performance high school where his candle burned so bright it burned right out.
So, it was his decision to graduate early and study Buddhism halfway across the world and climb mountains in Africa and get fluently French in Paris and see the pyramids in Egypt. Those were his hopes and dreams even if I feel helpless as a mother because I can’t protect him or guide him or…save him? But let’s be clear, this kid has it good with a capital “G”. Even though he worked for 6 months to pay for a lot of it, his father was able to supplement the big stuff that wouldn’t have been an option otherwise. So why was I crying in the middle of Nordstrom when he texted me that he was rejected?
And then it dawned on me: I was processing old shit from my own senior year in high school when the hands of possibility were wide open and overflowing with opportunity...until they abruptly shut with a clap of thunder that would stupefy the likes of Thor himself.
Money was always a point of contention in my house. My mom worked her ass off at the airport while my dad worked filling orders for an office supply company. For a two-income household, even if lower middle class, it would make sense that we should have been able to buy a new car once in a while or take real vacations instead of flying stand-by because my mom worked for the airlines. But we didn’t. Every week it was the same fight that started with my mom asking, “Where’s the money Dan?” My father seemed to get lost in the Bermuda Triangle of money every payday and he truly did not know where the money was. Ever. Finances hit a boiling point when my father had to confess to pretending to go to work for a year but in reality, he lost his job and was too ashamed to say anything. We don’t know what he did during the day…every day…for an entire year, but we did know that we had no money. That’s when my mom opened her own bank account and started keeping track of her own shit.
By the time my senior year came along, this is what I had to offer my college admissions portfolio: I was a terrible test-taker and didn’t even know there were classes to practice for the ACT or SAT (got a whopping 980), I had an A average (with the exception of science classes where I got B’s) was on the dance squad, won awards for singing competitions, played the leads in the musicals, and only been suspended once for writing “Fuck” and drawing smiley faces in white shoe polish on the back of the bus seats. If I wasn’t in rehearsal for something, you could find me taking orders at the Dairy Queen drive-thru window on nights and weekends makin’ that bank to buy my sweet, sweet ’82 Honda Prelude with her rack and pinion steering and electric sunroof. Fyi, my vandalism record was expunged due to the crime taking place in 8th grade.
But I had my sights high on Juilliard and low on Missouri state schools and after getting a big fat rejection from Juilliard, it seemed my only other choice was Truman State University. They gave me a performance scholarship and I had some other merit-based scholarships so, basically the decision was made for me. Getting a degree at all meant that I would be fulfilling my daughterly duty of forging a better life for myself than my parents did and there ain’t no shame in that game.
But then, graduation day came. On a day where every student was tossing their caps in the air and celebrating their achievements with parents who filled-out their FAFSA forms and found whatever money they needed to make up the cost differences, mine told me that they hadn’t filled it out and that the money that was supposed to help put me through college was gone. After I picked my cap and my jaw up off the floor my mom said, “Ask your dad what happened.”
This time, I was the one saying, “Where’s the money Dan?!!!!!!” Seems that Dan had cashed-in the savings account that was opened when I was born in preparation for this very day. Who knows when or where it went, but it was gone and he decided to drop this truth bomb on my graduation day. But wait! I remembered that I had money in an account from when I broke my teeth in a gymnastics class when I was in third grade and the judge ordered the dance school to pay us $10K for damages! What about that?! That was in my name not his! He took that too…because he was the beneficiary and I wasn’t yet eighteen. The Bermuda Triangle of money strikes again.
My mom was so pissed she uninvited him from my graduation party. Then he blamed me for letting her do that. The whole thing was a mess. But somehow, some way, through a work-study program and my mom being superhuman, we got through it. Miraculously, I even went on to get a master’s from Boston University. Not bad for a north county girl destined for teen-pregnancy and a meth habit.
I could have let the fate of my dad’s money issues be to just say “fuck it” and move to New York City straight out of high school, but I didn’t have the balls at 18. Which brings me back to my breakdown in the middle of Nordstrom. Colton had balls (literally but also metaphorically) and he wasn’t crying, so why was I crying? Why??
Ahhhhhh…I was crying because I was let down. Not by him, but by my dad, all those years ago. I delusionally decided that my kid was never going to have to worry about money like we did and the way to ensure that would be for him to go to an Ivy League school where poverty would never be able to touch him. I decided that this was a golden ticket out of the Bermuda Triangle of money.
Wesley, my youngest son, was standing in front of the three-way mirror trying on clothes when I looked up from my phone with tears running down my face and he said, “Do these pants look that bad?”, which turned my ugly cry into a joyous laugh-cry and I said, “No, your brother didn’t get into Dartmouth.” His response was, “That’s a douchebag school anyway.” Then we both started laughing and the salesperson thought we were wack jobs. And there it was: the release.
The truth is, my kids’ father is not my father. They have had it good and, fingers crossed, will continue to have it good compared to most people in the actual world, ie not the NYC competitive elite bubble of bullshit. And even if the whole world blew up, I know they are going to be just fun no matter what happens. (I caught that “fun” was a typo but “fine” seemed boring, so I left it.)
Colton took the road less traveled. He went against the advice of what his high school counselor said he should do and did what his heart was telling him he had to do. As long as he keeps doing that, I know he’s going to thrive no matter where he ends up. “Douchebag school” or not.
In Laughter,
LStL
p.s. We finally found out where the money went: slot machines.
p.p.s. I am recommending this great post recently written by Rob Henderson on his experience at Yale. Like I said, ivy league, schmivy league.
Also! Episode #2, What's Your Prison Plan on the Laughing Matters Podcast is now available to all! Check it out if you haven’t yet. You’re never gonna guess what my plan is ;-)
Good for you! And Colton. The emphasis on "where did you go to school" (especially in the US) is insane. Also, I think we did about the same on the SATs. It's been 46 years since I took 'em and I still remember how poorly I did! I knew I'd be lucky to get credit just for signing my name on the math exam. By the way, I loved Dartmouth and wanted to go there because the campus was so pretty (that's what was important to me; the aesthetic) but I knew I'd never get in because of those math SATs. I wound up at Syracuse because it was only an hour from home (easy to get to) and I could major in journalism or music, or both. I thought it was a loser school because they accepted me. But I blossomed there: I got involved with the school newspaper, I made lifelong friends, and I did really well, and 42 years after graduation my J-school friends and I (who have all had very satisfying careers everywhere from IBM to the New York Times to Capitol Hill) are still thriving. (And, most surprisingly to me, I wound up getting an Ivy League degree—an MFA at Cornell!) You bloom where you're planted. Decades from now what will be most important to Colton won't necessarily where he went, but what he did there, what he learned and, most crucially, the friends he made. But I'm guessing you've already told him that.
Finally got around to reading this one. Colton is going to be just fine. Proud of that kid for taking initiative on his own and following his heart instead of the norm. Although my dad didn't gamble or drink, I had a similar upbringing. Never knew where the money went and never had much of it. Just enough to have a home, a car and be in debt for most of my childhood with no real money for anything else. One pair of shoes per year of school if we were lucky and thankfully got a scholarship to study acting in NY. Instead of taking the easy road out going to Windsor University as an English major, drama minor which would have been almost a free ride (following a Basketball and Volleyball partial scholarship)... I took a leap of faith and moved to NYC on my nineteen birthday and the rest as they say...
Kudos to Colton man... kudos to you for being a great mom and to both of your kids for not relying on the comfort of dad's money but striving to do something more than just follow the "path."