Authors: Jean Hanff Korelitz
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 here.
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 climbed 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.