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the sixth

I walked purposefully into the university-style classroom and headed for one of the stadium seats facing the immaculate dry-erase board. Then I noticed that three front-and-center spots were already occupied by students with open laptops at the ready.

I'd forgotten that I was the teacher here. Oops.

Could it also be so easy to forget what it was like to be sixteen or seventeen, at the top of one's class, with stellar standardized test scores and a transcript maxed out on athletic, academic, and philanthropic activities?

Apparently so. Otherwise my students wouldn't annoy me so goddamn much.

“If you didn't take the new SAT, how do we know how smart you are on the 2400 scale?” asked Will. Number one in his class. Captain of the forensics team. Champion hurdler. AIDS activist. Wants Harvard.

“Were you a National Merit Scholar?” asked Geoff. Has already earned twelve college credits. Scholastic Poetry Award winner. Founded school's archery team. Taught English in Kenya. Wants Harvard.

“Why didn't you go to Harvard?” asked Maddie. Intel science talent search semifinalist. Classically trained pianist. Varsity tennis player. Volunteers at a homeless shelter. Wants . . . you guessed it . . . Harvard.

These kiddies need to unclench.

And this is coming from someone who has been grinding her teeth down to the nubby nerve endings for years. The only students enrolled in ACCEPT! are those who, at least back in my day, would've been the only ones who didn't need it. And yet they—or more likely their parents—are convinced that none of it is enough. Their paranoia is contagious, which is why “college preparedness training” is one of the fastest-growing sectors in education.

“Colleges rely on standardized tests to help them weed through twenty thousand applications,” said Will. “If you're not at the top, you get tossed.”

“There are eleven in my class who have GPAs over 4.0,” said Maddie. “I need something that will help me stand out in a district where everyone has something that makes them stand out.”

“Students who wouldn't have gone to college twenty-five years ago do now,” said Geoff. “Which puts the Ivy League at an even greater premium.”

Christ. The kiddies almost had me convinced that Columbia would retroactively revoke my acceptance. I never thought I would be thankful for coming from a high school where most students went to community college or not at all. All my get-into-college stress came from within. If I had gotten external pressure from my fellow classmates, my noggin would have imploded in a quick but powerful puff of brain cells and smoke. Pffffffft!

When I think back to that time, I was certain, just like these kiddies (even though they are only four, maybe five years younger than I am, they are still children) are certain, that my college choice would have an irrevocable effect on THE REST OF MY LIFE. And so, nearly every decision I made was with one question in mind: Will this look good on my college application? And once I made my tortured decision to apply to Columbia, it was Columbia or nothing. Success or failure. Live or die. It was all very dramatic and important in the way that all things are dramatic and important when you're in high school and never will be again. And now that I'm entering my last year of college in a homeless, boyfriendless, clueless (as to what I want to do after graduation) state, I think it's safe to argue that I might have been better off if I'd had my heart set on somewhere else. Or at the very least, equally bad off.

But these kiddies need to relax because they've already got it made. They were born into a fancy-schmancy suburban advantage in what is already the most privileged place on the planet. The gift of hereditary meritocracy practically guarantees that whether they excel in life has less to do with what they do than what life they were born into. For that advantage alone, they will always lead very charmed lives.

This reminds me of one of many arguments I had with Kieran, this one about the concept