THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, April 12, 1996 TAG: 9604120057
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E11 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JENNIFER DZIURA, TEENOLOGY COLUMNIST
LENGTH: Medium: 66 lines
FOR COLLEGE-BOUND high school seniors, April is when the postal service becomes the herald of academic kismet delivering acceptances or rejections from institutes of higher learning.
The arrival of these letters leaves Harvey, our archetypal senior, plunking himself down on a patch of damp grass beneath his mailbox and staring at the hallowed envelopes. If he is unable to open them just yet, he applies the thick/thin test.
The theory is that fat envelopes indicate acceptance, and thin ones indicate academic damnation. An envelope requiring more than 32-cents in postage is cause for celebration.
This, of course, assumes that a college admissions board, no matter how sadistic, couldn't possibly reject someone for six pages. After all, most breakup letters aren't even that long.
But say Harvey is a real jerk. He filled out his MIT application in yellow crayon and wrote his essay about how MIT had to accept him because his father teaches there and plays chess with Stephen Hawking on legal holidays.
MIT wants to get even. They send a six-page letter. Harvey applies the thick/thin test. He gets excited, something like an electron absorbing energy. The test, however, fails. The six-page rejection first lists reasons why Harvey wasn't accepted to MIT. ``You quit the Young Engineers Club in 10th grade, and your SAT scores prompted a spate of hysterical laughter amongst the entire committee,'' they write.
The next four pages consist of profiles of people who did get in.
``Christina,'' page two reads, ``has a 4.0 and a perfect SAT score. She is the president of four clubs, won the Westinghouse competition two years running and founded a soup kitchen for the homeless in her own garage. We would much rather have Christina at our college than you.''
The final page suggests career alternatives. ``We're sorry about not admitting you,'' the committee writes. ``We suggest that you have your No. 2 pencil sharpened and ready so that you can jot down the number during one of those Sally Struthers commercials.''
The moral here is to forget about predicting and just open the darn letter. But once you and Harvey have done that, you have yet another worry: paying for it all.
This is a bit of a pebble in the works every year, but more so in 1996 because in January our elected officials decided to regress and throw fiscal temper tantrums. By this, I am referring to the federal shutdown.
When the government shut down, the Department of Education shut down. When the Department of Education shut down, the people who were supposed to process Harvey's Free Application for Federal Student Aid went home to watch reruns of ``Seinfeld'' and make international coffees. Therefore, Harvey may not be told how much aid he qualifies for until late April. Unfortunately, he will most likely be expected to make his college choice by the first of May.
Now insert this into your brain: Harvey didn't vote in 1992. Neither did the vast majority of college-bound high school seniors. Yet they are the ones getting pelted by the proverbial pebbles of the president and Congress.
So that's the rundown on this month of academic kismet. And if the Postal Service doesn't bring quite what you wanted, don't take it out of the mailbox. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Jennifer Dziura
by CNB