Small Admissions Page 20

  “We need exceptionally strong writers and thinkers at this school,” Janice went on, “and I’m not convinced this girl can do either.”

  “Of course I agree,” said Ms. Banter, “that students will struggle in my classes if they don’t have well-developed writing skills, but having said that, I think Annie’s admissible.”

  “I would argue that she’s more than admissible,” Henry said. “Her grades are outstanding. We simply can’t determine the exact degree to which any parents have helped out on application essays.”

  “Helped out?” Kate said. “I bet her mom wrote ninety-five percent of it.” She suddenly got elbowed in the arm by Maureen.

  “What?”

  “She’s getting in anyway,” Maureen whispered. “Don’t bother.”

  “Annie got nines on her math ISEEs,” Tim said through a mouthful of popcorn, “so let’s not forget about that. I vote definitely yes.”

  “Well, nines don’t mean all that much given the amount of test-prep kids get these days,” Janice said.

  “Yes,” Henry said diplomatically. “Annie may have had a tutor, I don’t know. But the fact is she writes well, her math scores are very high, and her teachers love her, and, let’s not forget, she’s a full-paying student.”

  “Fine,” Janice said. “I’m just raising questions before we leap to make a decision. Kate certainly didn’t like her.”

  “Me?” Kate asked.

  “I read your interview comments,” Janice said. “You had serious reservations.”

  “Oh,” Kate said, “but that was mostly on a personal level. It’s not like she’s applying to be my best friend.”

  “So we should ignore your notes?” Janice asked.

  Kate looked at Henry and felt her face flush. “No, but I think the high level of her math skills and her reputation as a student are more important than my impression of her horrendous personality. She’ll be able to succeed here academically.”

  “Thank you,” Henry said. “Well put.”

  The discussion continued for several more minutes, and Maureen started sighing louder and louder.

  “So,” Henry said finally, “can we vote on her and move on, please? I’m afraid we’re going to be here all night.”

  Annie was admitted, and while Kate was disappointed, she wasn’t surprised. She leaned over to Maureen and said, “Guess we’ll have to get all the doorways widened to accommodate her head size.”

  Maureen took her glasses off and gave Kate an approving nod. “Good girl,” Maureen said. “Now you’re catching on.”

  It took twenty-two minutes, but they were finally ready to move on to the second applicant. The second of four hundred applicants.

  “Excuse me,” the history teacher said, her first contribution to the meeting. “Can we take a restroom break?”

  “Wow,” Maureen mumbled. “Already?”

  “Good idea,” Janice said. “I’ve gotta make a quick call,” and she left the room.

  Henry put his pen down on the table and looked up at the ceiling with his eyes closed tight. Tim went back to the food table to refill his bowls of chips. He brought two cans of Sprite back with him. Maureen shook her head and made the face she always made when she was thoroughly disgusted with everyone around her.

  “Hey, Maureen,” Kate told her, “you’re making that mad face.”

  “Yeah? You will be too by ten o’clock,” she said.

  The evening wore on, and eventually they made their way to the Bs.

  Dillon Blake.

  Bad scores, bad grades, bad recs. Just astonishingly bad. Kate felt sorry about it, but Dillon was an obvious no. After Henry quickly presented his notes, it looked as though it would be settled right away. Henry called for the vote.

  “Not so fast,” Janice said. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

  “No,” Henry answered flatly.

  “Silvia Blake went here,” she said. “Did you call the development office to ask what they think?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Because we always check with development.”

  “Not this time,” Henry said.

  “Why not?” Janice asked.

  “This is a clear-cut rejection. This boy would fail out of here within a week.”

  “Well,” Janice said, “I think we should discuss him first, instead of just writing him off. I read Kate’s write-up, and she said, and I quote, ‘maybe structure is exactly what a boy like this needs.’ ”

  Kate looked up to see that everyone was staring at her. “Yes, but the thing is I interviewed him way back in October,” Kate explained, “before his grades and scores came. As it turns out, structure is probably the last thing this boy needs.”

  Maureen took Dillon’s file out of the cart and handed it to the teachers to peruse.

  “In any case,” Janice went on, “we should certainly consider wait-listing him so that we don’t anger an alum unnecessarily.”

  “We can’t,” Henry said. “No way.”

  “Why not?”

  “We can’t wait-list a kid who is this many miles outside of the acceptance norm. It makes no sense. We wait-list him, and then reject some other kid who is stronger in every respect? No, there has to be some consistency.”

  “That may be,” Janice said, “but I’m simply bringing to the table the fact that his mom is possibly a generous donor. And we have to tread carefully.”

  “Even if his mom is Melinda Gates,” Dr. Chen said, flipping through the file, “we’re going to have to say no. There’s no way he could keep up with the demands in science.” She passed the file to Tim.

  “I read this one,” Ms. Banter said. “He can’t write a complete sentence.”

  “He can’t add or subtract, either, according to his math teacher,” Henry said.

  “Holy cow,” Tim said. “Check out his grades,” and he handed the file to Coach Stafford.

  “I know that his mom is an alum,” Henry said. “And if she’s a donor, I’ll call her personally to give her the news.”

  “Fine,” Janice said.

  “So it’s settled?” Henry asked. “We can move on?”

  “Wait!” Coach Stafford suddenly said. “He plays soccer!”

  By now it was 8:30. Maureen poked Kate on the shoulder and asked for the chips. Kate passed the bowl, but it was empty. Maureen made the face.

  The committee meetings were tedious at some moments and contentious at others, but mostly they were long. Kate saw very quickly that everyone had an agenda. Henry’s was to give every applicant a fair but efficient review. Coach Stafford’s was to fight to recruit a few athletes. The science teacher was primarily interested in finding kids with an interest in robotics, saying things like, “Can you imagine what this girl would do if we let her loose on our 3-D printer?” Janice’s mission was to please the development office. She would flip to the preliminary application and say greedily, “Oh, goodie, a hedge fund guy!” or “This mother has her own foundation,” and Kate’s favorite, “A Tony winner could easily be persuaded to outfit our theater with cushier seats.” Maureen’s goal was to move things forward to the vote, and when time was wasted, she would get hostile and make sounds under her breath.

  Kate realized on day two what her own agenda was, once they reached the Gs.

  “I interviewed Claudia,” Kate said proudly, “and believe me, we really want this girl.”

  “Claudia,” mumbled Janice, as she scanned through her notes. “Claudia. Claudia. I don’t think I read this file.”

  “I love her,” Kate said, and Maureen kicked her under the table.

  “Okay,” Janice said. “Can you tell us why?”

  “She’s a terrific girl,” Kate told the teachers. “She’s intelligent, and she’s a good citizen. Nice to people and unusually empathetic.” No one said anything. “She’s very smart,” Kate went on, turning to Dr. Chen. “She loves studying biology, such as plant life and human anatomy and things like that. She wants to be a doctor. And she’s so in
teresting to talk to,” Kate went on to Ms. Banter, “about poetry or literature or history or anything. She’s mature, and she’s a model student. Did you see her recommendations? Her teachers love her.”

  “Kate had a very positive impression of her,” Henry said. “Claudia is solid academically, and her teacher did write a very enthusiastic letter.”

  “Do I remember reading something about a cookie party?” Tim asked.

  Kate suddenly felt flushed. “It was a hypothetical scenario,” she said. “I probably didn’t need to include that, but I was trying to give an example of her emotional intelligence.”

  “Does she do sports?” Coach Stafford asked.

  “She’s more into academics.”

  “Huh,” he said and got up to get another Coke.

  “How are her scores?” Janice asked.

  “Not so hot in math,” Tim said. “Middling.”

  “They’re good enough,” Kate said defensively.

  “Fives and sixes? They’re pretty low,” he said.

  “Well, it’s not like she has the resources to prep for months and months like all those other kids.”

  “We’ve got other financial aid applicants whose scores are higher, and they presumably didn’t have tutors, either,” Tim said.

  “Did you read her essay? Her ‘perfect day’?” Kate asked.

  “Can I see it?” Ms. Banter asked.

  “It’s this clever take on the prompt, because she didn’t make something up like most of the kids did; her perfect day actually happened. It was a well-written, practically poetic description of a day she spent with her dad.”

  “Who died,” Maureen said suddenly. “Her father died. This girl has been through a lot.”

  That prompted an “Ohhhh” in unison around the table.

  “Well, that’s very sad,” Janice said, “but it doesn’t change the fact that she’s just not that great. Not if she needs the whole thing. Does she?”

  “She qualifies for full tuition,” Henry said.

  “I’m sorry,” Ms. Banter sighed, “but there are so many applicants needing FA who are better.”

  “Better how?” Kate asked, getting worried. “I don’t understand how anyone can be better than Claudia. There’s nothing negative about her.”

  “I think your perception’s a little off on this one,” Janice said. “She’s weak.”

  “She’s actually remarkably strong,” Kate countered. “She’s a very hard worker, and she’s organized, like she has a whole system of color-coding her different classes, and she would never in a million years go to school without her homework done.” Kate noticed that no one was looking at her. Ms. Banter was pretending to read Claudia’s file, Tim was cleaning his glasses on his shirt, and Janice was checking her phone. Kate kept at it, saying, “She’s so excited to do experiments in the science lab. I’m telling you, she would appreciate everything Hudson has to offer, every single day, and she’ll involve herself in school life. I can imagine with her leadership potential, she’ll probably join the student council, and she’ll want to play in the chamber ensemble. Oh, and she wants a school with a uniform. I’m telling you, she’d be fabulous here. We would be so lucky to get a student like this, a girl who wants to be here as much as she does. How can we possibly tell her no?”

  “Let’s vote,” Henry said. “Accept?”

  Kate raised her hand high and looked around the table. “She’s a wonderful girl, so well rounded,” she pleaded. “Really. You’d all love her.”

  Maureen raised her hand, as did Henry, just out of solidarity. And much to her surprise, Dr. Chen raised her hand as well. No one else. It was 5 to 4, against, and Kate realized she was about to cry. Maureen leaned over to say something to her, and Kate prepared herself for a big “I told you so.”

  “Look forward, not back,” Maureen whispered. “I know it hurts, but you’ll have to let this one go.”

  Henry patted her on the shoulder.

  At 11:00 p.m. on day four, they reached the end of the alphabet, and Kate was delirious.

  “I’m going home,” Maureen said. “It’s late, and I gotta get out of these Spanx.”

  Kate dozed on the subway and almost missed her stop. Stepping out onto the platform at Broadway-Lafayette, she took in the overwhelming stench of urine; that woke her up. She walked past a man who was fixing his shoe with packing tape and two women who were wasted, wearing slutty Mardi Gras costumes.

  Once she made it to her building, her stomach made a junk-food growl, and it occurred to her that—as usual—she had no good food in the apartment. Another night of ramen. She got her mail and found a postcard with a picture of a capybara lounging on a raft in a swimming pool.

  She started the long trek up the stairs. Ever since Maureen had told her not to get sick, she’d stopped using banisters, and though she longed to put her hand on the railing and haul herself up, she made her legs do the work instead. She read the postcard as she climbed:

  I am aghast. Your former mentor has somehow found fame and fortune with his ludicrous, hollow best seller. Jordan Greene has written, by all measures, the most trivial embarrassment of a popular treatise I have ever had the displeasure to endure. There is no irony in this “book” which is part self-help, part pseudo-science, part sedative. The stupidity is truly staggering. He has sold his soul for millions in revenue. Self-promotion/whoring of this magnitude is more than a full-time job. (So much for professoring.)

  Do not purchase.

  Disgusted,

  your father

  Just as she got to the fourth-floor landing and took a moment to catch her breath, her neighbor opened his door.

  “Kate? Hi.”

  “No,” she begged, “please don’t give me a hard time! I wasn’t home all day, so if Stella was making noises, there’s just nothing I can do about it.”

  He looked at her like she’d punched him.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I thought . . . Usually when you stop me on the stairs it’s to reprimand me for, well, for existing above you.”

  “I’m sensitive to sound. And you used to be home a lot, if you don’t mind my saying. There was a lot of marching back and forth.”

  “I walk.”

  “I only wanted to tell you that the meowing stopped. Your cat must have gotten used to spending more time on her own.”

  “She’s not really my cat,” Kate told him. “She comes with my sublet; she’s only mine until the real tenant comes back.”

  “Oh,” Jonathan said. “That’s too bad.”

  “I’m sure he’s a better neighbor than I am. He’s studying to be a librarian, so my guess is he probably meets your standards for quiet.”

  “I’m sorry I come across as a curmudgeon.”

  “I think at our age it’s called something else.”

  “Anyway, I got her a toy,” he said, and he handed Kate a plastic fishing pole with feathers tied on the end of a long string. “I thought it looked like fun, but then again I don’t know much about cats.”

  Kate was completely floored. “You bought this for Stella?”

  “I’ll get you one, too, if you want, but yeah, I thought she might like to play a little once you come home at night.”

  “Thank you. Stella thanks you. That’s so nice.”

  “Your job must be really nuts, I guess. You’re never here.”

  “Quieter now?”

  “It’s too quiet in fact,” he said, shrugging. “I feel like I’m the only person in the whole building.”

  “Now I’m too quiet?”

  “How’s the job going?” he asked. Kate didn’t answer right away. She was trying to figure out how he would twist this into something she’d done wrong. “You were a bit worried before you started, as I remember,” he went on. “I didn’t think you needed to be. I mean, you seem, well, you always seem capable. Like a capable person. Even when you were wearing pajamas all the time.”

  “Thank you. It’s going well.”

  “No one died, right?
”

  “Died?”

  “I told you no one would die because it’s a school, not an ER, remember?”

  “Yes,” she said, snapping her fingers, “and you were right about that.”

  “Do you like it there?” he asked, sounding earnest, but Kate was still skeptical.

  “It’s not the best month to ask, actually. I have no life. My sister just had a baby, and I’ve only seen it one time, for, like, five minutes.”

  “It?”

  “Her, sorry. Grace. But things will settle down soon, at least that’s what I hear. And not to freak you out or anything, but I get four weeks off in the summer, and I’m really looking forward to spending some time at home. But I’ll wear socks no matter how hot it gets.”

  “No socks, please. I, well, I miss your footsteps, to be honest.”

  This was a radical departure. Kate wasn’t sure how to respond. “I could stomp around in boots tonight. If that would help,” she said.

  “Or tap-dance maybe?” and he began a clunky dance move ending with “Cha!” It was surprising and awkward, and his face suddenly went red.

  “Well, I can’t top that,” Kate said, turning to leave, “but if I can muster up the energy, I’ll jump rope. Thanks again for the present, Jonathan.”

  “Funny thing,” he said, stopping her. “Do you know we have a friend in common? Chloe.”

  “You know Chloe?”

  “Long story. Sort of. Through various social media connections. People we know who know other people. It’s complicated.”

  “I haven’t seen her in ages.”

  “We had coffee not too long ago,” he said. “She’s a big fan of yours.”

  “We were supposed to get together last week, but I had to cancel.”

  “She’s wrapped up in things, too, I think.”

  Were they dating? Kate wondered. Was he hoping for an endorsement? Now that he’d dropped the whole dorm-master persona, she tried to see him in a new light, and she decided that Chloe would certainly find him attractive. “Maybe we should all do something together sometime,” she suggested, “as soon as I make it through the admissions season.”

  “I’d like that,” he said, hand on his heart.

  “You, me, and Chloe.”