Admission by Jean Hanff Korelitz

This is my first year covering New England. Princeton seems to really like Best
     Western. They always book us here. I don’t know,” she said with a sigh, “maybe Mr. Best Western is an alum. Maybe there’s
     a special Tiger rate.”
    “Ooh.” John smiled. “It’s all so… corrupt. Just what we’ve always suspected about Ivy League admissions.”
    The mood between them shifted on a dime. “But I didn’t mean that,” she said tightly. “The process isn’t at all corrupt. It
     may be complex, but not corrupt.”
    “I wasn’t being serious.”
    “No, really. I know people think there are all these secret codes, or handshake deals in the back room, or we keep a well-thumbed
     copy of the
Social Register
in the office, but that isn’t what we’re about. You have no idea how absurd the situation is. Eighteen thousand applications
     last year! And the vast majority of them are great—well-prepared academically, interesting kids with plans for the future
     and talents they could bring to the community. It’s just an incredibly difficult job.”
    “Portia,” he said, a palpable edge of dismay in his voice, “I didn’t mean to suggest anything.”
    “But everyone thinks we’re just throwing the names up in the air and admitting the ones who land inside the circle, or we’re
     sadists who love to stick it to kids all over the world. I’ve been doing this for sixteen years, and I have to tell you, I’ve
     never worked with a single person who enjoyed rejecting applicants. If you ask any admissions officer what they like about
     their job, they talk about saying yes, not saying no.”
    “Well,” he said, still trying to break the mood, “they’d hardly admit to enjoying saying no.”
    “If that were true, it’s something I’d see,” she said crossly. “Believe me, at the tenth hour of the fifth day of the third
     week of committee meetings, when people are desperate to get to that last application and make that last decision, there’s
     still no joy in saying no. We’re in it because we want to say yes to these kids. They astound us. They have amazing minds
     and amazing dreams. The rest of it, the saying no, that’s just what we have to do so we can get to say yes. It’s the worst
     part of our job. It’s the
job
part of our job.”
    “Okay!” He put up his hands.
    “I’m just sick of all the attitude. Nobody wants to talk to
you
. Whoever you are. They couldn’t care less where you come from and what matters to you. All they see is the job title, and
     all they care about is what you can do for them. Like my first boss at Dartmouth told me when I was hired, he said, ‘When
     people find out you’re an admissions officer, they’ll suddenly become very, very interested in what you do. But they won’t
     give a shit about you.’”
    “That must be hard,” John said carefully. He had sat forward on his chair and was resting his chin in his hands. He, too,
     seemed to have abandoned his meal.
    “There are only two ways people talk to you. Mostly it’s this awful pleading, you know, ‘I know the most fantastic kid… ’ or,
     ‘I
have
the most fantastic kid.… ’ You’re constantly being bombarded, and all you can do is grin and nod and say you hope this wonderful
     kid will apply, which you
do
hope. I mean, what do they expect you’ll say? ‘He sounds fantastic! He’s in!’”
    “Portia,” John said, “we should change the subject.”
    “But the other reaction,” she went on, bulldozing past him, “is much, much worse. Because if, sometime in the recent or misty
     past, Princeton University has actually rejected some wondrous young person near and dear to them, then you are no friend,
     and basic good manners are not called for. Because if this brilliant child, so gifted, so sweet, so in love with learning
     for its own sake, has been deemed, by you,
unworthy
to attend Princeton, then that can only mean that you and your equally corrupt peers have allowed some lesser