Admission

by Jean Hanff Korelitz

  Jeremiah is a very nice young man, and I can’t help but believe that we failed him here. I wish I had known what to say to him or how to help him, but I just came up short again and again. If the teachers at his new school were able to do something with him, then I’m very pleased. As for college, I’m a bit at a loss about what to tell you. Perhaps college will bring something out of him that high school could not. Can he do the work at a place like Princeton? Well, he’s smart enough, obviously. But WILL he do the work? I just don’t know. I wish only the best for him and I would love to see him succeed.

  Portia, tapping her pen, read the recommendation through again, trying to spin it. This was, to say the least, an unusual letter for a Princeton applicant. Princeton applicants were typically the pride of their schools, the one in a decade for grievously overburdened counselors at massive public schools, or just the fine young men and women that private schools with long Princeton connections existed to produce. Every now and then, of course, as in the case of the morally deficient Sean Aronson, there might be a whiff of ambivalence rising from a letter of reference, a sotto voce implication that, while this was certainly a swell kid, the admissions officer reading this letter might be encouraged to look elsewhere on the list of applicants from this particular school. And though she had many times encountered students whose guidance counselors believed them to be underachievers, she could never recall a gap as big as this one. “Johnny could have been valedictorian if he had not devoted so much training time to track.” “Lori might have ranked much higher if she were not so fully committed to her church activities.” But Jeremiah had not thrived in high school at all, and without the excuse of extracurricular passions. He had been too busy reading. He had not cared to succeed.

  She was a little surprised to find herself as engaged as she was. On the face of it, this application was not a difficult call. Was it fair, after all, to take a place from a kid who had worked his heart out—more accurately, to take it from roughly nine kids who had worked their hearts out—and give it to a kid who hadn’t even tried to toe the line? Jeremiah, for all his potential, had not looked up from his books long enough to seek guidance that was his for the asking. There were abundant opportunities for smart kids, after all, even smart kids who happened to be poor and had parents who did not like to travel. A little research, a little initiative, and he might have found his way to CTY or one of the other academic programs with scholarships at the ready. He might have corresponded with the authors of some of the books he’d read, at least one of whom might have extended himself or herself to such a brilliant young person. Jeremiah had not availed himself of community college courses, as so many Princeton applicants did, nor had he made any effort to move himself out of a learning environment that had so obviously been inadequate to his needs. The picture he presented was immensely frustrating. But she couldn’t, somehow, quell her own intrigued attention to him.

  That wasn’t about John Halsey, she hoped. John Halsey, whom she had almost successfully barricaded behind a wall of other thoughts. He had forgotten her, of course. Though they had not exchanged addresses, phone numbers, he obviously knew where to reach her, and he had not reached her. Perhaps she had told him not to. Perhaps she had implied, somehow, that she was in a loving, committed relationship, that the night they had passed together, asleep and awake, was something aberrant and solely carnal, and she did not wish to be reminded of it. Had she actually said that? Had she felt it? There had been times, since Christmas, when she had wiggled loose one tiny stone in the barricade and let herself peer through: Pleasure and affection were on the other side. She was always surprised to find them there. That thing had actually happened, but it wasn’t happening still. It wasn’t happening now. Now she had to propel herself out of bed in the morning and into her own frigid room and into clothing that was not so obviously the clothing she had worn the day before and slept in, and then she had to make her way here, to the office, where she needed to be normal in action, normal in tone, friendly to colleagues, receptive to Clarence, graciously obscure to callers (“I know I shouldn’t be calling, but I just wanted you to know that my daughter just got the lead in her school play!”), and above all fast and efficient through the application in front of her, and the next one, and the one after that, and the hundreds to come, all around her in the office and more waiting downstairs. All of this took everything.

  Behind Jeremiah’s incriminating Keene Central documentation, his Quest material offered an oasis of text. No grades from Quest, of course, but paragraphs and paragraphs from the teachers who had begun with him only in September, praising his brilliance, his breathtaking leaps of inference and association. He was a scholar, an aesthete, a sublime intellectual. Also deeply compassionate, profoundly creative, a still forming mind that could take off in a number of directions at any time, finding ultimate expression in philosophy, history, literature, linguistics. He also painted beautifully, apparently. Portia sighed. She was steadying herself.

  John Halsey’s letter finished the folder:

  To the Admissions Committee,

  I have been a teacher for sixteen years, working in such disparate settings as a highly competitive New England prep school, a mission school in Africa, an inner city school in Boston and, now, at this new and progressive school in New Hampshire which is only just graduating its first class. I can safely say that I have never had a student who poses the challenges that Jeremiah does, nor a student so enthralling to teach, so promising, and so in need of what a great university can offer him.

  I literally stumbled across Jeremiah less than a year ago, at a yard sale where he was reading his way through an encyclopedia. Even with my broad experience of teenagers, I had never seen one like him before. Our first conversation lasted about twelve hours, during which we touched upon subjects as diverse as math, poetry, aesthetics, philosophy, biology, building styles, soil content, early medical discoveries, Flemish painters and New Hampshire state politics. I will never forget it. I also discovered that he was failing eleventh grade, and had very nearly failed tenth grade. I was, to say the least, stunned.

  I don’t fault Jeremiah’s high school. It’s a big and unwieldy institution, and they do what they can to keep marginal students in school. I don’t think they were unreasonable in hoping that a student of Jeremiah’s abilities would make some effort of his own to excel within the framework of the school, but for reasons that are probably too complex to find their way into a letter of this type (I’m thinking about a difficult family situation and its part in forming Jeremiah’s character) he just wasn’t able to do so. He wanted to learn, but he resisted the structure and requirements he met with in high school.

  There is good news, however. In just the few months he has spent with us at Quest, we have begun to see a real flowering in Jeremiah’s scholarship. Without question, he is capable of performing academically at the highest levels. With faculty to engage with him and fellow students who can challenge and influence his ideas, his work has begun to show focus and immense depth. When I think of Jeremiah at a place like Princeton, I am elated, not just at the notion of what the university can do for him but for what he can bring to the right classroom environment. This is a remarkable, special, brilliant young man who is just coming into his own.

  I am aware of the difficulties this application must pose—the transcript from Keene Central in particular. I know that Princeton applicants do not usually present transcripts full of D’s and C’s. I know that Princeton applicants are busy young people, with full schedules of sports and volunteer work and musical performances, whereas Jeremiah has not undertaken any extracurricular activities at all. I can certainly understand why you might be skeptical about someone with his credentials, from a brand-new school that has never sent an applicant to Princeton, let alone a matriculated student. But if my experience as a teacher means anything, and I hope it will, please understand that this is the single most extraordinary student I have ever encountered. There is such potential he
re.

  Yours sincerely,

  John R. Halsey, Humanities Teacher and Student Adviser

  Ordinarily, she knew, she would have been skimming by this point in the application. After the blank extracurricular record, after the miserable transcript, she would have been turning the last pages quickly, making the briefest note on the guidance counselor’s letter (“GC notes very smart kid not motivated to achieve in HS, v. frustrating student”) and the references from Quest (“Sr yr tr says brilliant, self-directed, wide interests”). It was strange, she thought, how she could hear his voice in that letter—clear and sharp, striking just the right mix of reasoning and dignified supplication, gamely dodging the obstacles he knew were there. There was passion here, but held in firm check by the rules, which he clearly understood. Was he speaking to her? Did he understand the system well enough to know that she would be the one reading his letter? He had been very correct, she saw. There was no note of familiarity, certainly no outright imposition on what had passed between them, not even a reference to the fact that the applicant had met a Princeton admissions officer a few months earlier. What he’d written was thoroughly aboveboard and beyond reproach. She wanted to call him.

  Surely there was some reason to call him. Surely. Some verifiable question or fact to check. The phone number was temptingly at the bottom of the sheet, so innocently there in its black on white. She might lie and say that his scores had not arrived? No, that might cause unpardonable distress. Or ask how his senior year was going? A thoroughly reasonable query for a student with a problematic record. But he would know why she was really calling.

  She looked through the application one more time, more at a loss than before. The applicant was detached, unmotivated, uncooperative. The applicant was brilliant, a passionate learner. The applicant cared about nothing. The applicant cared about everything. The applicant had been thoroughly uninvolved in his school. The applicant had been thoroughly involved with his own education. He was a strange boy. He was a strange but fascinating boy who would both benefit and benefit from Princeton.

  If the application had come first to anyone else, she knew, it would probably run aground at this point. Corinne would take one look at those grades and the SSR, make a brief summary note, and check “Unlikely,” the 800 verbal and AP scores aside. She would discount the raves from a brand-new school with no track record, distrusting the opinions of teachers who declined to grade and test their students. She might not even be impressed by Jeremiah’s obvious appetite for learning, considering it too undisciplined to translate to a challenging university curriculum that did require that deadlines be met and exams be taken.

  But it had not come to Corinne. It had come to her.

  She went back to the academic rating at the top of the reader’s card, which she had left blank before. She was even more at a loss now. By any rational standard, Jeremiah was the very picture of a NonAc 5, but saying as much would seriously handicap him going forward. She decided once again not to choose a number. Instead, she wrote: “Complex picture—see summary.” Then she turned the page over.

  The summary was the most important entry on the reader’s card. It was the closing argument, in which the weightiest evidence was reprised and the recommendation given. It was the place she could be openly thrilled at having found such an amazing young person to bring to Princeton, this scholar who was going to make his or her professors delighted to be teaching here, this kid whose roommates were destined to feel as if they’d won the lottery. In the applications that wowed her, the summary was the place she couldn’t wait to arrive, after filling the card with the disciplined, impersonal reporting of activities and references, after the sober evaluation of the essays. This, finally, was the place where she could drop her veneer of professionalism and write, “I love this kid.” But for most of the applications she read, it was also the place she had to write, again and again and again, that this wonderful applicant, this hardworking student, gifted musician, committed humanitarian, and talented athlete, fit comfortably in the applicant pool but, alas, did not stand out, or where she wondered aloud if the girl or boy in question had truly challenged themselves or was a strong enough writer to succeed at Princeton.

  Usually she tried not to overthink her entries, but now she paused, wanting to be clear in the limited space, and persuasive, which required precise language. That language did not come quickly, but it did come at last.

  “Jeremiah,” wrote Portia, “is a highly unusual applicant, and requires very careful consideration. A self-proclaimed autodidact, he has essentially been a homeschooled student in a school setting, and minus an instructor. His grades are terrible—by his own admission, he has not applied himself to the school curriculum, but then again, the school he attended 9–11 did not recognize or accommodate his needs. The school he has attended since Sept. is making better progress with him. This is a brilliant student who scored 8 AP 5’s without taking any AP classes. Wide range of interests, persuasive writer, no ECAs at all. I believe that this student would thrive at Princeton and adapt to its demands, and I strongly recommend admission.”

  At the bottom of the second page, she had to check a recommendation for the second reader, and again this most influential action posed a quandary. Checking “Unlikely” usually meant the end of any possibility of admission. Checking “Only if room” essentially accomplished the same thing, but with more regret. Neither of these was an option, as far as she was concerned. What remained were “High Priority—Admit” and “Strong Interest,” the categories from which virtually all successful candidates would emerge.

  “Strong Interest” was a very common recommendation in this incredible applicant pool, the likely designation for thousands and thousands of files currently undergoing first readings. “Strong Interest” applicants were phenomenal students committed to extracurricular passions, great writers, superior mathematicians, budding scientists whose names were already on published papers. But “Strong Interest” wasn’t going to do it for Jeremiah. In this vast category, he would be swimming alongside students who had chewed up their high school curricula and come out begging for more, whose teachers swore they were the most gifted to emerge from their schools in years. That wasn’t Jeremiah.

  “High Priority—Admit,” oddly enough, was slightly more idiosyncratic and hence possibly more forgiving. A Non-Academic 1, for example—a nationally placed debater with middling SATs, a working actor who wasn’t perhaps such a superior student—could be a “High Priority—Admit.” But Jeremiah was not a NonAc 1. Far from it. “High Priority” would require a great outlay of effort on her part in committee. She would have to argue for Jeremiah, perhaps plead for him. Undoubtedly, she would have to win over colleagues who balked at awarding a place to a kid who’d performed so poorly in high school.

  She couldn’t remember ever being so flummoxed by this usually straightforward act. Sometimes, by the end of a folder, she might be divided, unsure, but almost always the very act of summing things up made the appropriate designation clear. Great kid, not competitive: “Only if room.” Driven kid, high achiever, great fit for Princeton: “Strong Interest.” Amazing kid—one of those few applicants she would remember when this was all over, thousands of folders from now, whom she truly cared about and wanted to support: “High Priority—Admit.” And that was going to be Jeremiah, she was sure.

  It was a decision she would have to defend, obviously, but she would do that for him. It was right to do that for him, she thought, checking the box and closing the file.

  Though just how right, she still did not understand.

  That was Monday morning.

  The week passed in folders, late night stops at Hoagie Haven on the frigid walk home to Maple Street, layers of clothing it was too cold to sweat in and therefore, surely, permissible to keep wearing. She had stopped cooking in her own kitchen. She had stopped looking at the mail, which she tossed into an empty box just inside the hallway. The digital number on the answering machine had clim
bed and climbed: 2, 11, 19, 22, little red lines rearranging themselves, until one day she came home and saw the word Full, which at least, and to her relief, did not change. And the house was unrelentingly cold, though she did not think of this as odd, only part of the new normal her life had become.

  Still, there were irritations. The muscles of her legs, for some strange reason, had become tight and sore, as if she spent her brief periods of sleep in some strenuous, somnambulant activity. She woke to the throbbing of her calves and shrill pain in her tendons. The first few blocks of her walk to work made her wince, but then, magically, every single day, she forgot about it until the next morning. And the sinus, of course, which still tormented her and wasn’t getting better but was by now so ordinary that it hardly counted as a malady. And most troubling of all, she had begun to forget things, like the name of the lawyer who had done their house sale and purchase—Mark’s and hers—whom she probably ought to call, for advice if not for the inevitable legal dissolution to come, unless Mark had already called him, which was very disagreeable to think about.

  But she couldn’t call him if she couldn’t remember his name.

  And she wouldn’t have to think about it if she couldn’t remember his name.

  Also her growing sense that she needed to be in touch with Susannah about something, and Caitlin, who had indeed made the extraordinary decision to apply to Dartmouth, as well as UVM, reassuring Portia (to some extent) that she was giving real thought to sticking around.