By April 1, the students in AP English are given a new assignment. Write a business letter addressed to the author of a reading made during the year asking for clarification on certain points.
"What about we do this at my home after school?" Paige asks Daisy about the assignment.
"Yes, please, and let me take Albert with me" Daisy pleads with Paige.
"Yes, Daisy has been very helpful for me all year in English. I couldn't always be with her, she's busy with her other friends in other courses, and me for the first half of the year with football, but still..." Albert asks the two girls about this outing.
"Yes! However, Albert, please don't treat it as an attempt to make me cheat" Paige warns Albert about cheating in a romantic sense, even though Albert would more likely be looking at Paige as a supplier of academic cheating.
The trio realizes, while writing the letters at Paige's home, the easy part of writing a business letter is the extremities. The return address, the recipient's, salutation, closing and signature block. What will really matter to them is the body of the letter. Paige is doing it on Jane Eyre, Daisy, on A House of One's Own, and Albert, on To Kill a Mockingbird. All three of them need to review their notes on each book before asking more refined questions and what confuses them about each.
Once all 3 of them have finished writing their letters, they submit these assignments and are then free to check on their emails. Especially important to Albert, since he has been waiting on Holy Cross longer than usual.
"Oh crap! I've been rejected from Holy Cross! I guess I just need to ask my parents to pay the deposit at LSU..." a dejected Albert is about to call his parents about Holy Cross.
"Which Holy Cross?" a confused Paige asks him for the first time in several months. "I don't know which one you're talking about!"
"Sorry for not being transparent, but it's the College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts. It was my reach school, I didn't expect much, but I could dream, too" Albert explains to the two before his parents respond, and leaves.
My turn now. I took the ACT once junior year for free, and my subscore profile is imbalanced. Math was my big weakness, and, while I had a 30 composite, I had only 25 in math. Fingers crossed that the 3.50 will be enough, Paige then opens up her myLSU account for her admission decision and then her financial aid award. Congratulations, Paige... she starts reading.
"Woohoo! LSU time!" an exuberant Paige jumps for joy.
Daisy finally receives a response from the other two colleges she applied to, Tulane and Trinity. Waitlisted at both. Tulane didn't have enough space in regular decision for me, and Trinity must have assumed I was a flight risk. That's the only reason I could think of why I would have been waitlisted at Trinity; a few students at my level are attending that place. I guess, I may as well check on Conn's financial aid appeal status, check if anything has changed about Conn's financial aid award, but Daisy takes herself off the waitlist at both Trinity and Tulane. She remains mindful of the work-study component when making the determination of whether Conn actually matched LSU's financial aid offer.
"And it looks like Conn wanted me enough to award me an extra five grand per year and hence bring Conn to the same cost as LSU" Daisy summarizes her reading of the revised financial aid award.
Conn is a fantastic college, I'm sure of it. I won't regret attending it and playing for it. They must not have had a whole lot of kids from the South, or perhaps their debate team was a little depleted. Probably both, Daisy then tweets about her commitment to attend Connecticut College and to play debates for the Camels.
"Daisy, you kept quiet about Connecticut College for months. Why that school?" Paige asks her, having never heard of that place.
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"Now it's clear that I'm a recruited debater at that place. I will be playing from day one. This college is a little small, but is a dry campus the way LSU isn't. A lot of kids there have interests and talents all over the place"
I can kind of tell that people secretly envy both Gaston and me, which is why I kept quiet. Even so, I didn't think that people would actually know about Conn here. They'll probably consider it a college like another. Stronger students tend to be more thorough in building college lists, Daisy's mind seems to block that paragraph from being spoken.
"Wow! I think I heard about you on morning announcements, but the principal never gave much context to what these results actually mean" Paige seems to ask for more information about the field at these interstate tournaments.
"People tend to understand that all quiz bowl tournaments we enter are regional better than for debates, except when we qualify for the HSNCT"
Daisy breaks down the varsity LD fields at inter-state tournaments the VAs entered, and a bulb lights up in Paige's mind.
"I can't believe you were given the nickname Daisy Choker! Say what you will about Chantal, but you fully deserve to be playing debates in college" Paige then stops talking to Daisy.
I guess, it's time to return home, and ask my parents to pay the deposit at Conn, now that I have the confirmation that they actually gave the $5k I was asking for, Daisy's thoughts cross her mind while she leaves Paige's home.
After Daisy left her home, Paige calls the offensive tackle she calls her boyfriend:
"I'm in at LSU" an apprehensive Paige tells her boyfriend.
"I guess, it's time to break up..." the OT starts crying, realizing that his relationship with Paige cannot survive graduation. "Paige Turner... it's over, but it was due to happen at some point"
Whereas, come senior year, people in position to go to college will sometimes date people at their academic strength, I didn't. And I'm paying the price for it, Paige starts crying as well.
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On April 4, since there just isn't a whole lot of students who still wait on their college decisions at VA, the main attraction for the morning announcement is Daisy. For this reason, the principal makes her announce her college decision on the PA system.
"The most glamorous acceptances, as well as the most mundane, are past us, so I guess, I am the one remaining who still has to decide which college to go to. And I'll attend Connecticut College" Daisy announces in a solemn voice.
William and Mary was going to be too expensive, Trinity College waitlisted me, as did Tulane, to which my parents made me apply, and with the scholarships I have, it's going to be around the same price as LSU, Daisy reflects on the result. She then realizes that she's the only one actually called upon to tell the student body about their college decisions, since virtually everyone else already made theirs. She can then spend the next 2 months studying in peace and in complete confidence that she made the right decision in the circumstances. In her case, this means ensuring that she scores 5s on the AP tests she is taking, so that she can get advanced standing.
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Upon returning home, she feels like something is amiss. She completely forgot to tell her parents about everything that transpired on April 1.
"For the record, Conn has bumped financial aid by five grand per year" Daisy announces a little late to her parents. "However, Trinity and Tulane both waitlisted me"
"Now that Conn matched LSU's financial aid award, we can let you go to Conn in good conscience" Daisy's father asks her.
It's a bit bizarre that Trinity has waitlisted Daisy, it was supposedly drawing the same kind of applicants as Conn does, but Tulane has become so selective by now that even Daisy could have been waitlisted in regular decision. Oh well, there is nothing to be ashamed of about Daisy attending Conn, Daisy's mother is a little puzzled to see Trinity waitlist Daisy.
"By the way, Daisy, how much is the deposit at Conn?" Daisy's father asks her.
"Five hundred dollars. We may as well set this up on our bank account so we can pay the tuition bills later down the road"
And then her parents pay the tuition deposit by wire transfer. They are lucky there is enough money left in the bank account to do so.
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Then graduation, almost two months later, comes with bittersweet feelings for Daisy. As Valerie delivers the salutatory address, and Chantal delivers the valedictory address, Daisy can't help but feel like her memories from high school are flashing in front of her. The various events Daisy attended, courtesy of the booster club, by virtue of her having designed the advertising materials for these. Outside of the theater plays, since she was playing in these. And the less pleasant memories of her last season on the debate team. About how she tried to shake off the label of Daisy Choker in inter-state debate tournaments. About the long nights spent poring over net price calculators and chancing tools. Coursework actually had very little impact in either direction on how she views her time as a Venomous Agenda.
"You have your whole life in front of you, and hopefully four of the best years of your life will be taking place in New London" Daisy's mother deadpans her, after the mortarboards are thrown into the air.
"I get it, it's not necessarily going to be the best four years of my life" Daisy responds, diploma in hand.