Burying the Lede
May. 16th, 2007 10:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mallorys_cameraDear Mom, Max wrote.
Not really much new here; I went through
a little bit of a movie phase last weekend: saw "Abre
Los Ojos" again, and still liked it; saw Volver again
and still did not like it; saw "Garden State" again
and liked it much more than the first time I saw it;
saw "Beautiful Girls" for the first time and though I
know it was a bad movie, it really hit the spot. The
weather has been amazing, and rhubarb and lettuce are
beginning to grow in the garden. We had rhubarb pies
this evening in fact. Well, I at least have one
collegiate option now: I was accepted to Stanford
University. Well, I should get to sleep soon for dairy tomorrow.
Love,
To be perfectly honest, I'd been a little bit anxious about this since everybody knows Beautiful Girls is a very good movie. I mean, granted, my idea of paradise is to be hooked up to a perpetual IV morphine drip while Lifetime, Television For Women is beamed into my brain via satellite electrode but Timothy Hutton as a dissolute wannabe pedophile? Princess Leia's mother as Lolita? I ask you: what's not to love?
BEEP!
Stanford!
Okay. I can breath easy now.
Deep Springs, that strange eclectic cowboy college in the desert, beloved of The New Yorker, Vanity Fair and The Christian Science Monitor, is a two-year program. Max graduates next month. The big question, of course, is what comes next?
Max sees himself as a scientist. A neurobiologist to be exact. He's a brilliant and capable young man – of course I'm biased, I'm Mom: what did you expect? – so no question, he could do neurobiology. But I honestly don't think that's where his real talents lie. I think his real gift is… governance.
That sounds odd, I know. Most people are drawn to government either because they're power-mad or courting mega-graft.
Anyway, Deep Springs offers a perfectly wonderful liberal arts curriculum but is woefully inadequate in terms of science basics. Plus in addition to studying Kant and Hegel and Bertold Brecht, the boys are running around herding cattle on horseback, butchering pigs, setting up solar power grids and searching for the perfect cheesecake recipe.
Max applied to Cambridge University in Biology.
"Why, this Deep Springs is a vocational college!" sneered one of the – does Cambridge have dons? I know Oxford has dons. Let's just say sneered the stuffy, effete, intellectual who interviewed Max when he flew to Britain last fall. "Why would you ever think that we would accept someone from a vocational school?"
Cambridge University rejected Max.
Then UC Berkeley and UC San Diego rejected Max! And this was somewhat surprising because both universities had accepted Max straight out of high school. I think it was because he hadn't taken the basic science curriculum – the Biology/Chemistry/Physics 1A-1B-1C sequence. Deep Springs didn't offer it! And UC has become such an undergraduate factory that it really doesn't want to fuck around with anyone who's spent time off the conveyor belt.
The UC's were Max's safety net schools. The schools he'd applied to in case he didn't get in some place he wanted to go. So he was starting to feel uneasy.
Then Yale rejected him.
Honestly, the concept of not having school as an option next year doesn't feel half as upsetting as just the simple (and I guess unexpected in some cases) element of rejection. That's obviously pretty vain, and probably seems a little weird, Max wrote me.
I understand perfectly about the vanity thing, I wrote back. It always feels better to be the one making the conscious choice. Everything is good though. Everything is good. You have many, many options, and if it comes down to that – which it probably won't – a year to travel, or work, or do whatever the hell you want to with is an excellent thing.
But Stanford! The best possible fit for Max. The best.
I'm thrilled.
Not really much new here; I went through
a little bit of a movie phase last weekend: saw "Abre
Los Ojos" again, and still liked it; saw Volver again
and still did not like it; saw "Garden State" again
and liked it much more than the first time I saw it;
saw "Beautiful Girls" for the first time and though I
know it was a bad movie, it really hit the spot. The
weather has been amazing, and rhubarb and lettuce are
beginning to grow in the garden. We had rhubarb pies
this evening in fact. Well, I at least have one
collegiate option now: I was accepted to Stanford
University. Well, I should get to sleep soon for dairy tomorrow.
Love,
To be perfectly honest, I'd been a little bit anxious about this since everybody knows Beautiful Girls is a very good movie. I mean, granted, my idea of paradise is to be hooked up to a perpetual IV morphine drip while Lifetime, Television For Women is beamed into my brain via satellite electrode but Timothy Hutton as a dissolute wannabe pedophile? Princess Leia's mother as Lolita? I ask you: what's not to love?
Stanford!
Okay. I can breath easy now.
Deep Springs, that strange eclectic cowboy college in the desert, beloved of The New Yorker, Vanity Fair and The Christian Science Monitor, is a two-year program. Max graduates next month. The big question, of course, is what comes next?
Max sees himself as a scientist. A neurobiologist to be exact. He's a brilliant and capable young man – of course I'm biased, I'm Mom: what did you expect? – so no question, he could do neurobiology. But I honestly don't think that's where his real talents lie. I think his real gift is… governance.
That sounds odd, I know. Most people are drawn to government either because they're power-mad or courting mega-graft.
Anyway, Deep Springs offers a perfectly wonderful liberal arts curriculum but is woefully inadequate in terms of science basics. Plus in addition to studying Kant and Hegel and Bertold Brecht, the boys are running around herding cattle on horseback, butchering pigs, setting up solar power grids and searching for the perfect cheesecake recipe.
Max applied to Cambridge University in Biology.
"Why, this Deep Springs is a vocational college!" sneered one of the – does Cambridge have dons? I know Oxford has dons. Let's just say sneered the stuffy, effete, intellectual who interviewed Max when he flew to Britain last fall. "Why would you ever think that we would accept someone from a vocational school?"
Cambridge University rejected Max.
Then UC Berkeley and UC San Diego rejected Max! And this was somewhat surprising because both universities had accepted Max straight out of high school. I think it was because he hadn't taken the basic science curriculum – the Biology/Chemistry/Physics 1A-1B-1C sequence. Deep Springs didn't offer it! And UC has become such an undergraduate factory that it really doesn't want to fuck around with anyone who's spent time off the conveyor belt.
The UC's were Max's safety net schools. The schools he'd applied to in case he didn't get in some place he wanted to go. So he was starting to feel uneasy.
Then Yale rejected him.
Honestly, the concept of not having school as an option next year doesn't feel half as upsetting as just the simple (and I guess unexpected in some cases) element of rejection. That's obviously pretty vain, and probably seems a little weird, Max wrote me.
I understand perfectly about the vanity thing, I wrote back. It always feels better to be the one making the conscious choice. Everything is good though. Everything is good. You have many, many options, and if it comes down to that – which it probably won't – a year to travel, or work, or do whatever the hell you want to with is an excellent thing.
But Stanford! The best possible fit for Max. The best.
I'm thrilled.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-05-16 05:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-19 04:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-19 04:59 pm (UTC)Yayyyyy!
Date: 2007-05-16 05:53 pm (UTC)Re: Yayyyyy!
Date: 2007-05-19 04:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-16 06:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-19 04:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-16 06:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-19 04:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-16 07:58 pm (UTC)Stanford is a great choice, and he won't have any stuffy closeted Cambridge Dons to worry about.
Neurobiology....that's a mouthful. He better be prepared for some very rigorous courses. I did the chemistry thing, and now I'm a lifeguard.
Harvard, Dartmouth and Georgetown rejected my kid, but he did get into Yale. I can't imagine not getting accepted to Georgetown and getting into Yale.
Beautiful Girls is one of my favorite movies of all time. In fact, since you reminded me, I think I'll pop it into my DVD player tonight.
Congrats to your kid.
Aloha,
Jeff
no subject
Date: 2007-05-19 04:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-19 07:04 pm (UTC)I'm glad I didn't go there as an undergrad, as I never would have met my wife......there is a purpose for every thing, I guess.
Now, for the first time in 100+ years, there is no member of my family that goes to Northwestern.
I'm sure that Max will find Stanford to be a good fit. Hell, I would have liked it if my kid would have expressed an interest in going out there to school. At least going to visit him in a California school would be better than going up to New England. I privately dread going up to New Haven to visit my son, as I find that part of the globe to be a very dreary place.
Aloha,
Jeff
no subject
Date: 2007-05-16 09:50 pm (UTC)(stanford was my late friend's undergrad alma mater, and he loved it there. he had a gubt. intention, too)
scientists have to have political skills, no doubt, to navigate funding and research.
to max and his promising future!
no subject
Date: 2007-05-19 04:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-17 01:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-19 04:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-19 05:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-17 01:11 pm (UTC)that's a pretty classic delivery of the news. "Oh, BTW..."
no subject
Date: 2007-05-19 04:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-17 03:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-19 04:42 pm (UTC)