Academic Satire

little tiffany

Tiffany Grexa, a Bryn Mawr College assistant director of admissions, interviewed J for admission in the lobby of a Marriott after having conducted a presentation and interviews at a local prep school where a high probability existed not only of affluent parents but of daughters who would be future donors to BM. It was not without accident that the dean of admissions at Bryn Mawr College at the time, Jennifer Rickard, also served as the dean of financial aid. Rickard clearly understood that the words “enrollment” and “endowment” were synonymous.  No accident either that little Tiffany, renamed Grexa Lewis by marriage, works now as a fund raiser for Haverford College just down the mainline from BM.

This was J’s first college interview, which made J extremely nervous, especially given that the interview was with an admissions rep who did nothing to make J feel at ease, but that wasn’t the point of the meeting. Grexa, given her youth, needed to stick to the script and ask penetrating questions such as: “What recent book have you read that changed your life?” What else would J do with a book but read it, and what seventeen year old would know if she’d read a book that changed her life when she had not lived it yet? But that didn’t matter. The question, of course, was a trap, one a well programmed gatekeeper like little Tiffany knew how to use. She did not, of course, have any intention of allowing a young woman with a mother who was a dental hygienist (one who had been admitted to Swarthmore, but how could little Tiffany know that) into a school like Bryn Mawr. The admissions guidelines forbade it. The examples given on the BM website of bad recruits and good recruits were quite clear on that point.

The bad recruit was a shy young woman with superb grades in high school whose father printed music for a living. That young woman was rated “adequate,” admissions euphemese of course, but Bryn Mawr admissions people never, ever speak any language other than euphemese and never give any reason for rejecting an applicant and never use the word “reject.” Never.

Of course J was not given early admission to BM, which clearly indicated that she would not receive regular admissions, and yet BM insisted on the charade that somehow a chance remained that J would be admitted. She wasn’t and she was crushed.  When the rejection letter arrived, J went to her room and didn’t come out for hours. She cried and cried and nothing her parents could do or say would salve her wounded soul (yes, a bit dramatic, but J was decimated). It was the first time she’d been rejected by someone she loved and BM was the love of her life. She ended (and still does) all her emails with that EB White quote about Bryn Mawr College women, and like any other abused and rejected lover, she brooked no criticism of BM or its admission personnel. She would rationalize their behavior as any co-dependent would in spite of the large and obvious psychic bruises she suffered.

The pain was only compounded when J went east with her father the next spring to visit the schools where she’d been admitted. At the end of a long day in Philly, J insisted and pleaded with her father that they stop by Bryn Mawr just to see the place, just once. He was angry that she could not find solace in being admitted to so many other fine schools and forget the Bryn Mawr College rejection, but he relinquished.  He knew she belonged at Bryn Mawr College.

J had a vocabulary of 138 words at an age when most kids had five. When she was three, J went to her mother and asked why she was “a mean mommy.” When “mean mommy” asked for an expanation, J answered: “You won’t teach me to read.” Mean mommy taught J how to read and headed J straight into trouble at school for the first time. Actually daycare where one of the women walked up to J’s father one day and asked if everything were okay at home. Puzzled, he said, yes, things were okay. The woman said, “She can read” as if a four-year-old reading to other children were a clear indication of a dysfunctional family.

Clearly J would never quality for Bryn Mawr College.  J was tested in kindergarten and tagged as talented and gifted. After that, it was one moronic teacher after another (but for one who recognized that J would never find her peers until she reached college).  After the sixth grade, homeschooling with course work from the University of Nebraska, which finally gave J the freedom to work at her own pace but for one other small problem. By the seventh grade, she’d already gone through the three integrated math books provided by the local high school and trigonometry. To earn a diploma from Nebraska, J had to retake algrebra, and she had better things to do than repeat subjects she’d already mastered, things such as study for the SAT. Even though taking the exam with a bad cold, her scores on the PSAT placed her in the 99th percentile. Her scores on the SATs placed her in the 95th percentile. But still some colleges and universities insisted on either a diploma or a GED. Consider this paraphrase from the American Council of Education 2007 report on those who completed the GED that year.  A test score of 700 placed a GED test taker among the top one percent of high school graduates academically.  700 out of a possible 800.

J’s scores on four of the five GED tests were perfect. She earned 3960 out of 4000 possible points on the 2007 GED, or 99 percent of the points available. She placed in the top one tenth of one percent of high school graduates in the United States according to the American Council on Education. That’s the 99.9th percentile. Of those who passed in J’s state, an estimated six had scores in the range J earned. “Estimated” because the state department of education did not keep statistics on the number of students who placed higher than the 99th percentile.

Now, of course, perceptive college admissions officials like little 24-year-old Tiffany did not need this data. One faux interview was enough, which was also enough for Rickard and other members of the admissions committee who “regretted” not being able to find a place for J at Bryn Mawr College. It was just so obvious that J was not qualified to attend Bryn Mawr College. They just knew she did not measure up to the profile of the ideal candidate given to interviewers, the profile of a young woman who had organized a pollution study for a stream in her hometown, miraculouly finding the funding from corporate donors for the project. The profile did not explain where the money came from or if the ideal candidate had help from her parents who had corporate connections. Not necessary if the word “corporate” were used in the sentence. The only other candidate to exceed qualifications of a corporate candidate was a referral from the old girl network of prep schools and Bryn Mawr College alumna. It’s not what you know . . .

picayune peaches

But Rickard and her ilk, including the equally perceptive Peaches Valdes, associate director of admissions, did not understand the sheer will power of J. She had never been told to study in her life. From the moment she demanded to be taught to read, she lead her parents through her education, had graduated from the music conversatory ahead of schedule with four honors recitals to her credit. She had completed the Swim America program ahead of schedule at age eleven. On the ice, she had persisted when one coach, a callow young woman who equaled Grexa in maturity and judgment, stated that J simply could not learn to jump. J not only learned to jump, she moved up to senior level in figure skating, and earned 38 competition medals.

In later summer of 2007, when J arrived at Villanova, J scored off the top of the scale in her German placement exam. She earned a 3.97 GPA her first semester, she was recommended as a candidate for the Rhodes, the Fulbright, for the honors program, and labeled the brightest student he’d ever taught at Villanova by an English professor who’d earned his doctorate from Bryn Mawr College. A continent away from home, unable to go home on weekends, J overcame being jammed into a cement cell in a loud dorm with two other freshpeople, overcame homesickness, overcame one roommate who left after a week, overcame another roommate who acted like a seventh grader, mastered life in the big city, and refused to accept Bryn Mawr College’s decision that she was a second class citizen because Bryn Mawr College was plainly and simply wrong.

Of course, Bryn Mawr College admissions would not admit it was wrong, and could not, at the same time, deny J application for transfer–the policy was in writing and public. BM admissions people could, of course, make J feel as ugly as possible to let her know that her chances of admission were between nil and none. They could and would simply reject her again and again and again without explanation; and therein lies the sheer brilliance of Bryn Mawr College admission practices. How is it possible for a student initially rejected for first year admission to apply for transfer when she is never told why she was rejected? How can she ever know how to improve (if needed) her application if all she’s told is that her application is “under review” again and again and then told again and again and again that the admissions committee “deeply regrets” they had to reject her again and again and again with the same form letter?

Peaches allowed J to schedule an interview after J arrived at Villanova. Not versed in the snide methods of bureaucratic duplicitiy, J actually thought she was meeting with Peaches to discuss how to improve her application for admission, to learn where she had not quite measured up to BM standards. In short, in spite of her father’s warnings, off J went from her Nova dorm to meet with Peaches and back she came feeling much the same way she felt after her interview with Tiffany. Humiliated. J called in confusion and explained to her father what had happened in the meeting with Peaches, and her father immediately realized that J had been blindsided by Peaches, who had turned on J within two minutes of her arrival. When J started to ask questions, Peaches turned the tables immediately and started firing questions back at J, admissions interview questions, and when the meeting ended a few agonizing minutes later, Peaches smiled and told J “that took care of the interview,” meaning the interview for her transfer application. It was not a meeting, it was an insult, the verbal equivalent of a school yard slap in the face, a put down to let someone know they were not wanted and would never be allowed to enter a clique.

J recovered and again defended her abusers by again explaining that they were just doing their job. Again. And J, even as she studied constantly her first semester at Nova to earn a GPA worthy of BM transfer, found time, made time, to write and revise her transfer application essays. Each essay went through 15-20 revisions with feedback from numerous people, including Stephanie, a former BM student (now an attorney) who had worked in the admissions office. J also collected letters supporting her application from top professors at Nova and from a Princeton don. All, of course, to no avail.

Rejected again, tears again, self-loathing again, but the worst of it was not knowing why, and not knowing why meant she had to keep trying. She had to. She loved Bryn Mawr College more than anything in her life other than ice skating. She crashed a dining hall at Bryn Mawr College two weeks after she arrived at Nova. She studied in Bryn Mawr College libraries. She found friends at Bryn Mawr College and was invited to witness the step sing and other traditions that J loved. She chose to write about Marianne Moore for one of her lit papers at Nova. She turned down the honors opportunity at Nova in lieu of cross registration at Bryn Mawr College, where she completed a linguistic course and a graduate level sociology course, both with top grades. She skated as a member of the Liberty Bells, the syncrho skating team comprised of students from Nova, Bryn Mawr, and Penn.

An aside: J was the top skater on the team due to training with top coaches, including a three-time Olympic medalist, in Vancouver, Canada, Colorado Springs, and at the Philadelphia Skating Club.

And on and on. And again rejected. And again the tears and self-loathing. Nothing can provoke such intensity of emotion than being spurned by someone you love without hesitation, without doubt, without question, and with the absolute certainty of knowing that match would work but for the (alleged by her father) unmatched stupidity of the BM admissions people. So again why?

Brilliant. Make the student feel so humliated that she will simply stop trying to gain admission. Build a stonewall as thick and impenetrable as the façade at the Bryn Mawr College admission building, as the corrupt muscle that beats beneath the sordid sternum of Jennifer Rickard, dean of admissions and financial aid. J stopped by Jenny’s office after she received the second rejection letter in the summer of 2008 and asked for a meeting with Rickard to get an explanation for the rejection. Rickard’s secretary made the appointment and then, when J was on her way back to her apartment, the secretary called to cancel the appointment, telling J that Rickard had said “all decisions were final.” Rickard, unlike Peaches and little Tiffany, did not deign to go through the motions of a sham meeting with J. Peaches followed her leader months later when J was resubmitting her final application for transfer. Peaches once again scheduled a meeting with J ostensibly to discuss her transfer quest, but cancelled the meeting by telling J that her schedule was full. And again J was rejected, but just for the hell of it J also applied that last time to Smith, Mount Holyoke, and Barnard.

Of course J was admitted to Smith, was admitted to Mount Holyoke, and admitted to Barnard. During the summer of shock following admission to three of the five sisters, J happened to run into Sanford Schram, who had taught the advanced social policy seminar J attended at Bryn Mawr College during spring semester of 2009. She’d asked for a letter from him for her last transfer application, and he obliged without hesitation, as did the Swarthmore professor who taught the linguistics class J attended at Bryn Mawr. Professor Schram asked if she’d heard from any school, meaning had she heard from Bryn Mawr. J told Professor Schram that she’d been rejected by Bryn Mawr and admitted by Smith, Mount Holyoke, and Barnard. And Smith had offered to pay all of her tuition. Professor Schram responded with genuine puzzlement: “That makes no sense. Smith is a better school.”

rickard the runt

Which left the big question open and still without answer: Why? But Rickard and her ilk need not answer. It did not matter that Rickard told J that all decisions were final at the same time J was also being told by Valdes that application for transfer could be made during any semester during the first two years of college. Valdes had not gotten the memo.  Nor did Richard and Valdes know that J had met with fourteen Bryn Mawr transfer students, one of whom was a transfer from the University of New Hampshire with the sole credential of having attended a very expensive New York prep school. Daughter of donor and future donor. Did not matter because Rickard and Valdes made it up as they went along. Never did they have any intention of considering any application from J other than the first application–assuming they read it. Never did they intend to do anything other than use the transfer admission procedure, if it can be called a procedure, as anything other than a stonewall. J’s humanity was secondary. They had tough financial decisions to make, and they could not be held responsible for their actions or who got hurt as they did their duty as fund raisers for Bryn Mawr College.

Now, verbatim, an exchange between a deep background source for this piece and Jennifer (her friends called her “Jenny”) Rickard with a little help from Peaches Valdes. Every word below you read is direct quotation. Only the source’s name has been changed to protect Jenny and her ilk.

___________________________________

17 June 2009

Ms. Valdes, given that J has been admitted to Smith College, Mount Holyoke, and wait listed at Barnard, I think it’s now safe for you to give a specific reason she was turned down by Bryn Mawr. I’d like to meet with you to hear your explanation. I’ll be in Philly June 29-July 2.

Thank you,

M Thomas Cary

___________________________________

June 18, 2009

Dear Mr. Cary,

Peaches Valdes shared your message with me. I wanted to let you know that there is not one specific reason that led to J’s admission decision. More often than not, the most significant factor in any student’s admission decision is the composition of the applicant pool as a whole. In the case of Smith and Mount Holyoke, they enroll about 4 to 5 times the number of transfer students that we do.

I am sorry that we had to send J disappointing news, but am pleased that she has some fine choices for transfer.

Best,

Jenny Rickard

___________________________________

June 19, 2009

Dean Rickard:

That’s an oblique response. How many specific reasons were there for J’s decision?

The request for a meeting stands.

Thank you,

Thomas M Cary

___________________________________

Dear Mr. Cary

As a matter of policy, we do not discuss the details of individual admission decisions with applicants or their parents. As a result, a meeting to discuss J’s decision is not possible. Although I can appreciate that you may find my answer to your question oblique, the fact is Smith, Mount Holyoke and Bryn Mawr have different transfer applicant pools and different numbers of availabile positions. We make different decisions because of that.

Again, I’m sorry that we sent J disappointing news and wish her all the best.

Sincerely,

Jenny Rickard

___________________________________

Dean Rickard, if the don’t ask, don’t tell admission decision policy exists, then how is a student who is initially rejected ever to know how to improve her application for transfer admission? If that policy exists, then the entire transfer admission process for J was a sham each time she applied for the last two years?

A glaring omission from your emails was even the slightest suggestion that J lacked the academic or social acumen for Bryn Mawr attendance–it would be impossible for you to make that assertion.

Should I then assert that from the very beginning Bryn Mawr predetermined J’s fitness to attend, a position taken by Tiffany Grexa in a faux interview, a position taken by Peaches Valdes in an ambush interview during her first meeting with J, and a position you took last summer when you slammed the door in J’s face by having your secretary call her to cancel a meeting with the imperious pronouncement that “All decisions are final”? Unless applying again for transfer?

Given the inherent contradictions in your responses to date, the rhetorical bottomline, therefore, is projection of power by the Great and Powerful Rickard. When power is projected, logic is not needed even if illogic undermines all remaining vestiges of your credibility and generates the impression that something is being hidden behind the curtain.

Thomas Cary

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In 2009, Rickard was wedged into the newly created position of Chief Enrollment and Communications Officer, and again Bryn Mawr College transcended its legacy of eugenics, antisemitism, and racism.