The Monday morning after the Math Madness quarter-final loss, the atmosphere wasn't about celebrating and the student body's morale was rather low. In an attempt to cheer students up, the morning announcement contains admission offers from certain students.
"Congratulations to Shane for his early decision admission to Tulane and to Cory for his admission at McGill!" the principal then announces on the PA system.
I really ought to check on the status of my early decision application at UChicago! Ouch... if I was rejected there? I know only that I started working on my applications to Georgetown and Tulane. But I believe that Georgetown isn't for me since I can see the issues with this mathematics department from here: it's the university's poor child. If it comes to negotiations with Krista or Marcia, I can easily let go of Georgetown without any complication. There's a world of possibilities for all three of us and I must take advantage of it! I may as well add one or the other within HYPS, and another one among the « Lesser Ivies » should I get a rejection from Chicago... Radio silence as it relates to Krista and Marcia. So neither of them have been admitted or rejected under early action or early decision as of yet, she thinks, while the big difference entre early action and early decision resides in the attendance obligation should we be admitted.
"There's only one month left, and we haven't finalized our application lists! Damn it! We must finish this immediately and we will have free reign to study" Marcia hustles Krista.
"It has been weeks that we haven't checked anything about that! We were too busy with this math tournament!" Krista then sighs.
And it's only now that Geneviève feels like she can write anything for the student newspaper; she can, without complication, talk about loans and scholarships without substantially changing the content of the article on financial aid for college compared to last year's article. Maybe a few numbers here and there, but otherwise...
During the food drive organization meeting, Florence and Geneviève might quickly agree on the essentials, that is, posters and food baskets at the grocery, gas station, in schools and at church, with the food bankers, such as the community soup, who will take their contents, in loose change as well as in non-perishable foods. But once these planning details are finalized...
"You undoubtedly know that everyone here acts as if you were to attend Chicago; you might have what it takes to succeed there, but never did I have the occasion to meet you outside of the math team meetings, which I attended when Curtis brought me there" Florence points out to Gen.
"In my mind, you appeared to be more of an art girl. You jump on graphics opportunities, be it for the math team, the food drive..."
"Yes, but the big problem of arts is that there are few careers in arts that require a degree. College is more about choosing a backup plan. But I also want to go to college to travel, so I decided that ULaval..."
"Laval? Are you kidding me?"
"Laval is much better than anything I could get in-state with what I have, if you talk strictly about the educational quality I'll receive"
Laval... the only time I remember having heard this name before Florence talks about it is in an article in the AP French course. Very easy to get into so long as you pick the right major, she thought.
"Let's say that Skidmore is my first choice. Laval should send me my acceptance letter by now..."
"Flo? Go check in the system at Laval and I will do the same at Chicago."
The admissions committee has reviewed your application and, while we are unable to offer you a place in the class at this time, we would like to review your application again in the spring. Poor Geneviève! It's not a rejection, but it's not an admission either. Without a doubt I hold the absence of clubs at this school responsible for this situation. That said, clubs are not the end of the story, she thinks, while Florence realizes that, while she is admitted in the année préparatoire, the AP Exams don't count at Laval for advanced standing purposes, at least not for French.
Later, during the mathematics practice, where both boys entering the VMC solve integrals of all kinds (single and later multi-variable) while the three girls don't have calculus on their minds. They only care about their college applications.
"Deferred at Chicago..." Geneviève announces in front of her math team friends.
"You're lucky to be deferred... I was rejected at MIT, but let's hope that our Math Madness run suffices to appear on the radar at Carnegie Mellon" Krista adds her news.
"I'm in the same boat as you, Krista, but at Columbia. I thought it was realistic, I did this, that, that for extracurricular activities... at least as much as it was possible in our area" Marcia adds.
"You were one of the tutors of the football team, a semiprivate tutor for the ACT, you were part of the quiz bowl for all four years, and on the math team for one year. You certainly did some, but we did no community service together. We all played the underserved population card" Gen runs down Marcia's extracurricular record.
"At MIT, girls aren't very common. I relied a lot on this, especially since I came from a rural region, as we all do"
"But now that I think about it... maybe I can apply to Carnegie Mellon rather than Georgetown! And add Brown too... They know that female mathletes are uncommon and, if I'm not mistaken, no other team that went in the Math Madness quarterfinals had a girl for a captain. I'm not sure for the SRA if even one of the other twelve teams tied with us even had a girl for a captain, but I know at least two or three of the twelve had at least one girl on hand" Gen adds to these laments.
"You may as well add Harvard... I promise you that, if you apply there, I will not apply there" Krista adds, knowing that, mathletically, Gen accomplished more.
"In that case, promise me that you will not apply to Chicago either" Gen adds another condition.
"It's asking a lot on your part hat we don't apply to two very prestigious universities because you're doing it... it will take an equivalent exchange for us to agree to this!" Marcia makes another condition known.
"I couldn't help myself from listening to you talking about finalizing your college lists, but the only person in this town that would have expected these results is my mom" Cory comments. "Everyone in this town will be surprised, especially with what you made us live through since January in math"
"The core of the problem is the complete absence of clubs" Marcia points out.
"My mom can undoubtedly talk about these students that sought to join the most clubs possible before the pandemic. They were overwhelmed and..." Cory talks before being interrupted.
"Yes, I recognize this description in the book Overachievers... and broad-nosed" Krista points out.
"I can count myself lucky not to have to engage in these maneuvers" Randy comments after having heard a good chunk of this conversation. "Louisiana Tech for me"
"Krista, I'm not even sure that we even talked about your extracurriculars at your old school, other than you were the math team captain for three years in a row" Gen asks her teammate.
"You're looking for reasons for which you were rejected at MIT or Columbia? That's what I think you're doing!" Ted grumbles.
"Very well, I have been a tutor of the football team at my old school, too. My extracurricular record was much like Marcia's, with the science club of which I was the treasurer because, at my old school, even though the club offerings were rather limited, there were. And church volunteering, too" Krista answers Gen.
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"Did the players seek to date the female tutors of the team there?" Zack asks Krista.
"No"
Zack seemed to be far too envious of Ted and me, and also of Curtis; he thinks we eat female tutors like apples. If Marcia and Krista were girls that came to help us mathematically when we needed it most, Florence was there to help us with language arts, Randy thinks, while Zack does not realize that two of the three girls he envies by boyfriend proxy fight each other.
"What's an equivalent exchange then?" Gen asks.
"You ask us not to apply at Harvard, or at Chicago; if I told you not to apply at Yale and at UPenn, is that an equivalent exchange to you?" Marcia asks her teammates.
"I'd really love to know what Krista would have to suggest. We will see what adjustments we need to make for the exchange to truly be equivalent!"
"But why do you insist so much on the equivalent character of the exchange?" Marcia asks.
"Marcia, you're the one who started with this idea of equivalent exchange! As for you, Krista, would you allow me to apply to MIT, if Marcia is not applying?"
"I could be asking the same, Marcia, but for Columbia instead. And only if Gen does not apply there either"
"Good Lord! Why is it so important for you three to avoid applying to the same colleges?" Zack asks, without knowing the whole context.
"Zack? What are you doing here? I thought you were too jealous of Ted and Randy to come here!" Krista questions.
"Jealous? Randy and Ted date with you two; I might envy them, I told myself, if I knew what their girlfriends were made of intellectually..."
"Zack, you were there for this first-round game against Georgetown Prep, and you said two kisses for the price of one. But before these kisses you must have made an idea of what we were capable of mathematically. The crowd was nearly powerless over these problems, and we solved them as if it was nothing" Krista adds.
"You envy us by boyfriend proxy, Zack. You know very well how we differ from other girls" Marcia points out.
"Now, to answer your question, it's because our resources to make more applications are limited on the one hand and, on the other hand, it might seem strange, but, for colleges such as Harvard or Chicago, they will compare us not only to our school, but applicants from the same school to each other. They will be unable to admit all three of us at the same time, except maybe at Tulane. Better negotiate that now than to throw money by the window! It's not like at LSU or Louisiana Tech where they can admit qualified students irrespective of their school" Gen answers Zack's question.
"If that's how it is, Gen, Stanford and Notre Dame would be my idea of an equivalent exchange" Krista puts on the table.
"I was about to suggest Columbia and Yale but you already applied to both; one of us must withdraw its application to Yale!" Marcia adds oil on the fire.
"I may as well give Gen permission to apply at MIT if that's how it's going to be!" Krista adds.
"I will accept this only if you withdraw from Yale..." Marcia clamors with vehemence. "On top of that Yale rewards those who can fake learning properly in class! You never seemed to be the kind to favor grades over learning! Far from it the idea of wanting to attend MIT myself... and now it's UPenn that I want you not to apply to"
"Never did I see you fighting each other like this! The process seemed to have started off well!" Trent screams at his stars.
It goes increasingly poorly. The tournament finished poorly, and now Marcia stirs the knife in the wound! And I thought we were friends! Not that I question our ability to succeed, but this dispute starts making me sick! I don't have an excuse anymore: I want my mathematical prowess to allow me to attend the best college possible! Geneviève thinks, while she starts writing her essay for Harvard while waiting that the other two decide to put their cards on the table.
"I agree not to apply to UPenn, Stanford and Yale, too many careerists. But is Notre Dame appropriate for you, Krista? I have my doubts" Gen asks the transfer mathlete.
"Notre Dame? I will get some attention in more advanced courses, not many people will want to there for math" Krista answers her.
"Listen, young ladies, it's not what you think. Mathematics represent a rather common option for those people who don't know what to do in universities of that kind but have talent in the sciences. But it takes an institution like this to have students that will default to studying pure mathematics as a major. There will be a big funnel effect if you choose to attend, I don't know, Carnegie Mellon or MIT" Trent points out. "It's also true at à Yale or even at Tulane to a lesser extent"
"A funnel effect?" Gen and Marcia both ask in unison.
"All three of you are used to being at the top of the academic pyramid, here or, in Krista's case, at her old school as well. Once in college, everyone will be at your level. It can be a traumatic shock to some who were used to be at the top for years and years and suddenly everyone is at the same level as us" Trent answers his star mathletes' question.
"If that's how it's going to be, if I give permission to Gen to apply to MIT, promise me that you will not be applying to Caltech..."
"It's no longer an equivalent exchange anymore! We went from two institutions we agree not to apply to per person to three!" Marcia complains.
"If you missed the fight between our stars, know that this fight is caused by their early admission results. Gen is deferred at Chicago; Marcia is rejected at Columbia and Krista was denied at MIT" Trent recaps the fight for the other mathletes.
The rest of the room is bewildered, including those who attended the team's practices without being on it; everyone expected the stars of the team to be admitted to these colleges. Especially after all these stars made them live, to them and the town, in the past four months, and winning back-to-back victories against the biggest mathletic teams in the country... How is that possible? I wouldn't even imagine the kind of people they took in their place! Randy and Ted thought, especially since they knew what they were dealing with by dating Marcia and Krista respectively.
"I am beyond outraged!" Vontae grumbles while listening the three girls trying to prevent each other from applying to such and such college.
"Now I don't have a choice anymore: to restore the established equivalencies, I ask you not to apply at Duke!" Marcia pleads with her teammates.
"Marcia, I refuse to go any further in this game of musical chairs, we caused enough problems to the rest of the team!" Krista prays to her teammate. "But if it allows us not to overload ourselves in the coming weeks..."
"Very well..." Marcia sighs, while she feels this game of musical chairs was becoming sterile.
"And a detail you may have missed: the absence of clubs. You undoubtedly have asked yourselves why there are no clubs here; the school's administration, during the pandemic, judged that clubs did not bring enough to school life for the resources they demanded. Pre-COVID life in a school club was reputed to be more unpleasant than anything else. Some students were poisoning club life by trying to join as many as possible, but also by transforming life in a club in a power play worthy of the Game of Thrones" Trent explains the club situation.
Jesus! The girlfriends I envy in my teammates are stressed out! Zack starts thinking while the girlfriends of the teammates he envies makes him nauseated about this fight that is essentially caused by the stress they live about college admissions. Who do I really envy anyway, my teammates or their girlfriends? Who is it better to envy, being able to date super-geniuses or envy the girls themselves? This sequence makes me sick! He goes to the bathroom later; he believes that it would be less stressful to date a girl as brilliant as them than to possess their intellectual level for himself.
I will need to start writing these essays for other backup plans on top of my negotiated allowance of three. Several essays, it will take me hours, she thinks, while returning home after these painful memories of this negotiation session continues to haunt her. She ends up agreeing on the following: beyond Harvard, MIT and Carnegie Mellon, and the latter does not seem to be a reach for mathematics, at least not in her personal situation, and obviously Chicago and Tulane, there would be Brown, which is diametrically opposed to Chicago about distribution requirements. And Sewanee as a safety. One thing is certain however: this session made it clear that we shouldn't expect our friendships to remain the same in college. So enjoy it while it lasts; I'll surely make new friends that shares an interest with me once in college.
She knows that, with 5 essays to write, she has little wiggle room. Nevertheless, her mother comes to question her once she hears about the content of these essays:
"You're writing your essay for Harvard; can you explain to me what happened at Chicago?" Gen's mother asks her.
"Deferred. I'm not admitted yet, but not rejected either"
"Chicago did what?" Her mother asks, surprised to hear about the decision from ED.
"There's still hope for me, my teammates got worse; they were rejected from MIT and Columbia..."
"They lost the lottery, but I have confidence in your success. It's not about any lack of talent on your part"
"Krista evoked a book, Overachievers, and that gives an idea of what to expect from people who apply to these universities. Very accurate, but you must not forget that Whitman is a magnet school in a big city. That said, if I'm not mistaken, none of the characters from that book used mathletics as a trademark. On top of that, if nothing changed there beyond the students, we have a better idea of what drives our biggest mathletic opponents"
"Overachievers, you say?"
Taylor found a way to attend Duke? If I can somehow attend Carnegie Mellon or Notre Dame, it would already be very good. That said I have another regret: having applied prematurely to MIT, Krista thinks while she rereads the passages about Taylor in Overachievers, realizing that the people that will be with her once in college will not necessarily be extracurricular stars even at Carnegie Mellon or at Notre Dame!
Marcia comes to the same realization. I applied prematurely to Columbia, too; maybe this quarter-final at the Math Madness could have changed the deal!
Since McGill was Cory's safety, the only thing left to do was to determine whether it was worthwhile to aim higher. Just seeing the stress that my girlfriend must endure, I'm not sure it's a good idea, I only need to pay my deposit and it ends there. I know that, for our three star girls, their mathletic feats ignited their academic ambitions, but even I, who must make a lot of mathematical efforts to even be able to perform a level close to theirs... if I qualify for the AIME, I will compete just for form. What will really matter to me is the VMC, he thinks, while he remembers this scene that spoiled this practice.