“That won’t be necessary,” Alicia said. “I’ll be taking over the essays now because, once again, I have to do everything.” She ended the call and tossed the phone across the king-size bed. If Brooke wasn’t going to write her damn essays, then it was time to take matters into her own hands. Alicia opened her laptop and scrolled through the college folder in her email. During an executive retreat she’d attended in Sun Valley last year, a colleague had been complaining about the college admissions process over dinner. His daughter had become so stressed that he’d hired an English professor from a highly selective college to interview her and write her essays. Alicia had been taken aback by this brazen admission. At the time, she couldn’t imagine stooping so low, but she had nevertheless emailed her colleague the next day for the professor’s contact information and filed it away—in case of emergency. Apparently, it was time to break the glass. She clicked on the professor’s email address and started to type.
3
Kelly
Kelly Vernon sat fuming in her car outside the College Bound Tutoring Center as she waited for her kids—Calculus II for Krissie, her senior; AP Chemistry for Katherine, her sophomore; and English for Kaleb, her seventh grader. She’d purposely chosen her exercise clothes this morning so she could spend this hour after school walking the trail behind the tutoring center. Between driving, sitting in volunteer meetings, and stress eating, Kelly was painfully aware that her butt was growing larger by the day. But the call from Ms. Barstow, Elliott Bay Academy’s powerful director of college counseling, just before school pickup scuttled her plans in more ways than one. Upon learning from Ms. Barstow that Stanford would only be accepting one more EBA student this year, suddenly Kelly’s fat ass was the least of her grievances. There was no mistaking the tenor of the call: Ms. Barstow was clearly signaling Krissie should step aside in the Stanford competition. But to make way for whom? Winnie Pressley? Brooke Stone? Yeah, right. There was no fucking way Kelly was going to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory after she’d sacrificed so much to support Krissie, which involved planning every goddamn EBA meeting, potluck, coffee, and party over the past six years. How dare they not support Krissie’s application after all the time and energy Kelly had donated to the benefit of literally everyone at EBA?
Obviously, there was no time for a walk now. Instead, she dug in to the protein snacks she’d brought along for the kids and flicked through all her social media feeds (and logged in to check Krissie’s too), looking for any clue as to who else might be applying—the critical question Ms. Barstow had refused to answer in their call. Failing to turn up any new nuggets, Kelly brushed aside the empty wrappers on her lap and opened the Notes app on her phone, in which she’d been recording her findings about each of the one hundred students in the EBA senior class for the past year. She tracked legacies (parents were only too proud to brag about that), college visits (kids made it so easy with those location filters), who was taking which AP classes, test scores, class rank, who attended which on-campus college sessions (it wasn’t spying if the PTA office was just across the hall), and updates on sports recruiting websites. She also estimated parental net worth based on home values (thank you, Zillow) and Securities and Exchange Commission stock sale filings to determine who might be in a position to make large donations to “facilitate admission” (as opposed to outright bribery) and had identified the few lucky bastards on financial aid who might get to go to college for free.
Kelly also recorded the detailed maneuverings of the EBA moms who, like her, had few other options except to throw their precious resources at building their kids’ college résumés and pray they were enough. There was the mom who’d started a nonprofit to teach kids to knit in Kathmandu and named her daughter president. There was the mom who’d sent her son kicking and screaming to Oxford last summer to take a crash course in Latin and Greek mythology to augment his classics cred. There was the mom who’d stalked a Harvard biology professor for internship opportunities for her budding scientist every summer since seventh grade. But Kelly really had to hand it to the enterprising mom who’d turned her daughter into an Instagram influencer with more than six hundred thousand followers and the ability to command upward of $5,000 per post, which would probably pay for a hundred years of college.
All this cyberstalking was time-consuming, but Kelly firmly believed it was the school’s fault for promoting a culture of secrecy. At last fall’s junior year college kickoff meeting, Ms. Barstow had made clear that the school’s “community values” required parents to refrain from talking to other parents about their students’ college lists because of some nonsense about how the students were deserving of their privacy. Kelly had been gobsmacked by this—how were you not supposed to talk about the only thing on everyone’s mind? She had thought it might be a joke, but Elliott Bay Academy never joked about anything. In the wake of Ms. Barstow’s edict, the main goal of every interaction between increasingly edgy and elusive moms became trying to ascertain where other kids were applying without giving away any of those same details about their own kids. The “Big Brother” effect didn’t actually shut down the college gossip mill; it merely forced the whole enterprise underground.
Kelly’s phone chimed.
Diana Taylor: Just heard Robin Riley shouting from the rooftops that Alexis got a likely letter from Harvard.
Kelly: No big surprise there, but still, athletes. So annoying. Taking all the spots.
Diana: Tenley said Greer went to the Whitman admissions presentation today. Think Augusta knows? Is it possible Greer might not get into Vanderbilt?
Kelly: Augusta said Vanderbilt told all legacy families not to count on getting in early. Must be hedging their bets.
Diana: Well, Vandy IS the new Yale, right?
Kelly: Have you heard of anyone applying early to Stanford? Besides Brooke Stone, of course.
Diana: Nope. But I did hear Graham told his mom he wants to go to UCLA or UVA.
Graham was a strong student who took AP math and science classes and had scored a 33 on his ACT (according to his ex-girlfriend, a junior, who was only too happy to spill the beans after he dumped her). What a relief to know he was not in the Stanford mix.
Kelly: That’s nuts! Why wouldn’t he aim for Ivy Plus with his GPA and test scores? But at least he’s not going for Brown or Stanford!
Diana: True…GTG!
Kelly reflected for a moment on how much her friendship with Diana had evolved over the past year. Last spring, with a straight face, Diana had delivered to Kelly what was obviously a stock college deflection line: “We just happened to find ourselves in the middle of Rhode Island, so we thought we might as well check out Brown.” But Kelly had known the truth. Tenley had already let it slip to Krissie that her mom had taken her on a forced march to twelve East Coast schools over spring break, and Brown had been Tenley’s favorite by far. Kelly had been relieved she didn’t have to worry about Tenley applying to Stanford, especially since Diana’s husband, Michael, was a successful venture capitalist who could write a large check to the school of Tenley’s choice. Once it was clear there was no direct competition between their girls, Kelly and Diana had happily joined forces as college gossip coconspirators.
With her phone still in hand and no one there to bear witness, Kelly pulled up the website she craved daily, like a digital Xanax: Stanford Undergraduate Admissions. Yup—the early admission deadline was still November 1, the same as it was yesterday…and all the days before. Twenty-one days to go. But only fifteen minutes before the kids finished up. Kelly gathered up all traces of her illicit snacking and brushed away the crumbs as she hoisted herself out of the car and walked across the street to Subway. Another family dinner to be eaten in the car on their way to the next round of extracurricular activities: fencing practice for Kaleb and an oboe lesson for Katherine while Krissie got started on her homework.
* * *
“Wow, honey, you really went all
out tonight,” Kevin Vernon teased his wife as he stood at the kitchen island and unwrapped the meatball marinara sandwich she’d brought home for him. “How was your day?”
Kelly uncorked the bottle of “Two Buck Chuck” from Trader Joe’s they’d started the night before and poured them each a generous glass. “Well, Ms. Barstow called. I haven’t told Krissie yet,” she said, taking a large gulp of wine, “but apparently Stanford is only taking one more student this year because of all the athletes who’ve already committed.”
“Wow, really?” Kevin said between bites. “Does Barstow think Krissie still has a chance?”
Kelly rolled her eyes. “Obviously she was a terrific candidate before this breaking news or Ms. Barstow wouldn’t have approved her plan to apply in the first place. But surprise, surprise, today she suddenly changed her tune.”
“Other than Brooke Stone, who else is applying?” Kevin asked as he crumpled up his sandwich wrapper.
“Last week, I heard from the mom of a girl Winnie Pressley tutors that Stanford’s still her top choice. But that was before this news. With Stanford only taking one more kid, I can’t imagine Maren doing anything to upset Alicia. If I were Alicia, I’d fire Maren in a heartbeat if I thought Winnie was going to try to take my kid’s spot after I so generously funded her education all these years. I certainly wouldn’t pay for her college too. And I know for a fact Maren works at least three other jobs besides Alicia’s—catering, party planning for Diana Taylor, and dog care—so I don’t know how she thinks she’d pay for Stanford on her own, even with a generous financial grant.” Kelly poured the rest of the wine into her glass and dropped the empty bottle in the recycling bin.
“Yeah, even the plane flights back and forth are expensive,” Kevin agreed.
“But if Winnie’s still applying, it’s definitely a little worrisome. She is first in the class, even if she’s just barely ahead of Krissie, and she’s taken all AP classes and is editor-in-chief of the paper. But then again, as far as I’ve been able to figure, Winnie has no special hooks.” Cheered by this, she took a sip of wine before continuing. “I mean, just look at her. She’s a white, blue-eyed blond girl, so not exactly part of an underrepresented minority group. And there’s no way she could be a first-generation student—I have no idea where Maren went to college, but Alicia would never hire an assistant without at least a college degree. And Winnie hasn’t done any of the college-level STEM work Krissie has. Also, let’s not forget, Krissie is a double legacy at Stanford.” Kelly swirled her wineglass.
“Not that her double legacy is going to do her much good,” Kevin said as he hunted in the pantry for something to supplement his sandwich.
Kelly almost laughed aloud at how naive they’d been, thinking their double legacy at Stanford would carry the day for their kids. But at their twenty-fifth reunion, Kelly and Kevin had eagerly attended a meet and greet hosted by the director of admissions, only to learn that legacy status was far from a guarantee of admission (unless of course it was accompanied by a very generous donation). OK, they hadn’t said that last part, but it wasn’t difficult to read between the lines.
Ms. Barstow had all but confirmed this conclusion during their first college counseling meeting early in Krissie’s junior year. Even with the double legacy status and Krissie’s outstanding grades and test scores (and applying early to her top choice as all EBA students were advised to do, a strategy most public school students weren’t adequately counseled on), she’d informed Kelly that Krissie would need another hook if she wanted a reasonable chance of not being rejected by Stanford. And by reasonable, Ms. Barstow estimated a 91 percent chance of rejection instead of the much-publicized 96. The EBA college counselors always quoted rates of rejection rather than rates of acceptance in what seemed to Kelly to be a naked effort to bludgeon any inflated parental expectations around college.
Ms. Barstow had then gone through the list of the most meaningful hooks at elite colleges, including recruited athlete, first-generation college student, man in humanities, woman in STEM, and of course the development priority (à la Brooke Stone). “You know, Kelly, I wonder if Krissie wouldn’t be better served using her early admission opportunity for a more attainable school,” Ms. Barstow had finally suggested.
But Ms. Barstow had severely underestimated Kelly. She had promptly calculated that woman in STEM was Krissie’s best, and probably only, available option short of a sex change operation. Initially, Kevin had mocked Kelly’s campaign to turn their daughter into a woman in STEM, but he hadn’t interfered with her extensive efforts, which had included convincing Krissie to switch into AP math and science classes, bribing her with a new iPhone to take a computer science class at the local community college to make her stand out above all the poor schmucks settling for EBA’s high school–level version, securing an internship at Alicia Stone’s company, and creating a day camp last summer so Krissie could teach coding to the young girls of the neighborhood. That had turned out to be glorified babysitting, but no one reading Krissie’s activities résumé would ever know.
Kelly cut a hunk of cheese and balanced it on a cracker. “I hope being a woman in STEM is enough to go up against Brooke Stone and their high net worth.” She shoved the whole thing in her mouth.
“Kudos to you for manufacturing a science and engineering hook for a girl who loves history and hates math.” Kevin raised his glass.
“Yeah, but it only matters if it trumps the other applicants’ hooks. It’s not just Krissie against some hypothetical kids around the country anymore. Now it’s Krissie against Winnie and Brooke specifically—and any other EBA kids who might be applying.”
“I’ll talk to Steve Masterson and see if he’ll write Krissie a letter of recommendation. I wanted to avoid that, but it sounds like we need to pull out all the stops.”
Steve had been a friend of Kevin’s at Stanford, and he was now in the enviable position of Stanford trustee. He was also Kevin’s biggest client, and Kelly knew he didn’t want to lean on the relationship, but she was relieved Kevin understood they were now operating under extraordinary conditions. “I think you should definitely ask Steve,” Kelly said, cutting off another slab of cheese. “But I also think we should hire a private consultant to review Krissie’s essays. And maybe add another weekly tutoring session. Winnie’s GPA is only one one-hundredth of a point higher than Krissie’s. Her first-quarter grades might be what puts her over the top.”
“Kel, no. Look, I want Krissie to get into Stanford every bit as much as you do, but we are absolutely stretched to the limit right now. I mean, we’re already paying $100,000 a year in tuition for the three of them.” The vein in his forehead started to throb. “We definitely can’t afford any more tutoring. And why would we pay someone else to read her essays? For what we pay in tuition, they should be writing her essays for her.”
Kelly stared into her wineglass and sighed. The m-word. Everything always came back to money. Kevin was a partner at a Big Four accounting firm, but everyone knew that even a big-time CPA no longer came close to the top of the food chain in Seattle. Today’s masters of the universe worked in tech and finance. If only she’d stuck it out a few more years at the start-up where she’d been working when Krissie was born. They wouldn’t be Alicia Stone wealthy, but if she’d waited for her options to fully vest, they definitely wouldn’t be having conversations like this one. Those people were no smarter than Kevin and Kelly, but they were certainly a whole lot wealthier. It filled Kelly with a toxic stew of envy and regret whenever she encountered these arrogant idiots who had made tens of millions of dollars just by being in the right place at the right time. Meanwhile, she and Kevin still had to put Katherine and Kaleb through EBA and all of them through college and pay the mortgage, ever-increasing credit card bills, and healthcare premiums as well as figure out how to squirrel away something for their retirement.
Against Seattle elite society norms, Kelly had been driving the s
ame Volvo SUV for the past eight years, they’d dropped their swim club membership, and they’d embraced hiking and camping in the Pacific Northwest as their preferred vacations to afford private school tuition for three kids. They’d calculated that the sacrifices would be worth it in the end. In an increasingly competitive and inequitable world, graduating from EBA, earning a degree from Stanford, and gaining access to these exclusive networks would give their kids an edge and maybe a shot at hitting it big or at least earning a decent-enough living that they might be able to send their own kids to private school.
What Kelly had failed to comprehend when they’d first decided on EBA was that sending your kids to a competitive private school in Seattle meant mixing with the elite of the elite. While ostensibly a leader of this prestigious community, Kelly often had the sense she was on the outside looking in. Her children enjoyed invitations to over-the-top parties Kelly could never dream of reciprocating. She’d developed quasi friendships with some of the uber-wealthy moms like Diana Taylor and Alicia Stone through their kids or volunteering, but these never turned into meaningful relationships (although Kelly consoled herself with the knowledge that her kids benefited indirectly from the obscene financial support these women and their husbands provided to EBA). But Kelly simply didn’t have the pay-to-play kind of money for girls’ nights out at the hottest new restaurants, spontaneous shopping trips to New York on someone’s private jet, or a palatial home where she could host the next cocktail party.
Waiting in line at school pickup provided constant reminders that she didn’t quite measure up. Even if she could have afforded weekly blowouts and color touch-ups every five weeks like the other moms, her limp dishwater-blond hair would still refuse to cooperate. She admired the skill of the other moms with makeup but ended up looking like a clown when she tried to mimic them, so instead she clung to “natural” as her signature look. And her “vintage” Volvo stood out in the parade of new top-of-the-line luxury hybrid SUVs. She had taken pride in her one Kate Spade bag, even if it was six years old and woefully out of date, until Diana Taylor had shown off her purse collection while giving a tour of her stunning lakefront home during a volunteer coffee last year. One peek at Diana’s gigantic purse closet, and all Kelly could think was that those bags alone could probably fund college for all her kids.
Girls with Bright Futures Page 4
