Second Helpings_ A Jessica Darling Novel - Megan McCafferty [20]
My only competition for valedictorian, Len Levy, has made it very clear that if he doesn’t get into Cornell, he will drive up to Ithaca and hurl himself into one of its infamous suicide gorges. I am afraid that he isn’t entirely kidding. Do I even need to mention that there is only one other person at PHS who is smart enough to get into any of these schools? And He has kept his preferences to himself. Or maybe He hasn’t. But He hasn’t shared them with me.
Number of Schools Left: 18
Step 7: Eliminate any women-only schools.
I WANT TO HAVE SEX. Is that so wrong? I’m not ready to give up and take a four-year lesbian vacation. (Note: I didn’t get into the specifics with Paul Parlipiano on this one, lest he think I’m homophobic, which I’m not.)
Number of Schools Left: 14
Step 8: Eliminate any school conveniently located for unannounced parental visits.
Duh.
Number of Schools Left: 11
Step 9: Eliminate any school where I’d be the dumbest first-year student. This is probably the most surprising eliminator, so I’ll explain.
For my first three years of high school, I was obsessed with getting into Harvard or Yale. Then I toured both campuses last spring and discovered I was the only prospective freshman who hadn’t won an Academic Decathalon or developed opto-electronic semiconductor heterostructures in my downtime, you know, for kicks. I’m not kidding. PHS hasn’t prepared me for cutthroat academics. I am a big, brainy fish in a tiny, toxic waste–filled pond. I don’t want to be reminded every day for four years that my SATs can only do so much in the effort to transcend my white-trash roots.
Plus, there’s something kind of sick about the over-the-top sense of pride my parents would get from slapping a Harvard or Yale sticker in their back windshields. My mom didn’t go to college, but she wants everyone to know that her very own flesh and blood is smart enough to attend one of these super brand-name Ivies. She wants to take credit for my intelligence like a classic parensite, aka any adult who tries to leech a life out of his/her kid. Yikes.
Number of Schools Left: 9
Step 10: Eliminate any school that could not serve up sweet undergraduate eye candy while I was on the campus tour.
Very shallow, I know. But let me reiterate: I WANT TO HAVE SEX. Remember, it’s not like my idea of cute is brainless and beefcakey cute. So the built-in intelligence factor counteracts the shallowness of this requirement. Almost. (Of course, I kept these details to myself.)
Number of Schools Left: 4
“Amherst, Piedmont, Swarthmore, and Williams,” I repeated, coming to the conclusion of my dissertation. “And that’s where I stopped.”
Four seemed like a manageable number to me. But I could have kept right on cutting. I’m sure if I thought hard enough, I could have come up with a deal breaker for every school in the book. I swear, I would thrive in a communist regime. See, when I have too many choices, it’s my own fault if I make the wrong one. I am much better when decisions have been made for me. It not only gives me the right to complain, but a sense that I’ve had to overcome overwhelming odds in the struggle to become the success that I am.
Go ahead and bash my methods all you want, but it’s not any more or less of a crapshoot than if I had followed the advice of my guidance counselor, my parents, or the Princeton Review. The odds are 1600 to 1 that I’ll pick the perfect school. So I might as well go with my own dubious logic.
When I finally finished my spiel, Paul Parlipiano looked at me and said, “You’re making a big mistake.”
The fact that Paul Parlipiano had formed such a definitive opinion about me and my life was too much for me to handle, and I coughed half a cup of coffee out of my nostrils. Our history made this humiliating hurl all the more so. Need I remind you that this is the same person whose shoes I puked all over at a farewell-to-summer beach party one year ago? After I pledged my undying love? Before I passed out? I shudder at the memory. The fact that he graciously neglected to mention that last regurgitative