Even though, globally speaking, the AP French group project ended up going more or less in compartments, contrary to her initial wish, everyone was relieved that it was over, especially since they were going first, thinking they benefit from the advantage it gives them (at least to Shane's eyes). That said, for every junior, the group project is inconsequential compared to the ACT taken scarcely ten days ago.
"Thank God that it's over; Gen was so obsessed with the financial details of practicing the profession that I fell sick! If you could please excuse me..." Shane expresses himself on the way to the bathroom.
"The ACT sent us a notice that our results are released!" Gen shouts.
Relax; no matter what score I have, it's not going to stop me. That said, it will determine my range of possibilities. For several weeks I refrained from talking about it to anyone, since I preferred to focus on the Square Root of the Answer. Nevertheless, since the SRA made me very trendy in class, I will find it impossible to hide my score on the ACT. In fact, anyone that seriously considers college attendance and whose friends will be equally serious about it will be way too tempted to talk about it. So, I may as well be as direct as Marcia... speaking of her, here she comes! She thinks, fingers crossed, while a great many students will consult, over mobile, the results obtained on the ACT administered for free with writing. Since there are a lot of students that will check on their scores simultaneously, it will be a little slow.
"Thirty-five!" Marcia exclaims, jubilant about this result which, for some, takes some time to arrive.
"I will be honest, the writing score won't be as important as the composite score, but how much did you get?" Gen asks Marcia.
"Eleven. And you?"
"Thirty-four. I must say that we started out from a very high spot, I have no regrets, we henceforth have two anchor points to start the following year on the right footing. I say that pending the results of the finals and the AP Exams, however. You remember that at the beginning of the winter, when we said that, if there was anyone for whom the Ivy League was realistic, it was us? By now it's more realistic than ever! Ten in writing for me" Gen explains herself.
Just because I can apply everywhere I wish to do so without complications does not mean that I can make this choice without any complication. Now I can actually say that I am spoiled for choice, she thinks while Cory was texting her:
"My father wants to see you after class"
His father only met me once, I am wondering why he wants to meet me now... he was full of admiration last time, but with the national final that's fast approaching, and, on top of that, the high tax season at church, the deal has changed, in which case I must effectively spend all week-end at church to file tax returns for low-income families! she muses while attempting to calculate Jacobians of two and three variables in her head.
Once at Cory's home, where she continues to do all kinds of homework, such as the one on electoral campaign finance, which surprised her by the speed at which she finished it, his father announces dinner time to her, to which she responds:
"This problem makes me hungry!"
"What kind of problem in a problem set makes you hungry like this?" Cory's father asks while the rest of her family settles in.
"A point charge Q is found at the bottom of a slice of cake with an angle of pi over four. What's the electric flux of the slice of cake?"
"I give up" Cory's father then announces.
"The flux-divergence theorem tells me that the flux integral, or f point dn, is equal to the integral of the divergence over the volume. Coulomb's law also tells me that the f whose flux I want is in spherical coordinates, hence f is equal to Q over four pi epsilon-zero r squared. Yet a slice of cake would usually be a cylindrical problem" Gen explains her solution.
"What the hell is this?" Cory's mother asks, wondering what does the dn represent.
"The dn represents a surface vector that's perpendicular to the surface itself; you cannot enter or exit a surface by staying parallel to it! But Coulomb's law being independent from the angle, we then solve for two of the three integrals required by the flux-divergence theorem, back-to-back, the integral over theta which yields pi over four, multiplied by the integral of sin phi from zero to pi over two. Therefore, the last integral... contains all the complications.
The formula for divergence in spherical coordinates contains, for the part that matters, a factor of 1/r^2 in front of the partial derivative with respect to the radius, which eats the r^2 of the spherical Jacobian in the third and final integral. Yet what's remaining of the divergence of Coulomb's law yields a strange mathematical object called a Dirac delta, which takes the value + infinity in r0, and 0 elsewhere. The key property of this object is that we have
"The product of the first two integral yields pi over four, and the third one yields Q over four pi epsilon-zero, therefore the global answer is Q over sixteen epsilon-zero" [https://img.wattpad.com/1928ba8d59948c8dd0c048fa9902262fd2efbc0b/68747470733a2f2f73332e616d617a6f6e6177732e636f6d2f776174747061642d6d656469612d736572766963652f53746f7279496d6167652f7639596f354e504e64576f314d413d3d2d313239303033343938312e313732623530336364656238323231363137383938303230303635372e706e67?s=fit&w=1280&h=1280]
"The product of the first two integral yields pi over four, and the third one yields Q over four pi epsilon-zero, therefore the global answer is Q over sixteen epsilon-zero"
"Bravo Gen, but I think you're putting the cart before the horse. It might be amusing to see you perform multi-variable calculus this rapidly, but it remains entertainment. I don't understand anything extra compared to last time" Cory adds
"That's a problem that makes you hungry? I would have preferred to file my own tax return over having to solve this!" Cory's mother questions Geneviève, astonished to hear everything about this problem.
"Speaking of taxation, it's precisely for this reason that I asked to meet with you. The deadline approaches so I would like that we file our tax returns together. The major complication comes from everything about the children as dependents. No medical expenses..." Cory's father then tells her.
"In your position, I would look at the interest on the mortgage if applicable, as well as property taxes, the contributions to the booster club as well as sales taxes. If the sum of all these items is above the standard deduction... well, if we suppose that the booster club is an eligible charity" Gen comments on the tax aspect.
The question is: is it better for the parents to declare both Cory and her younger sister, or only the younger sister who didn't earn anything? Regardless of that, there is little chance that the standard deduction is exceeded. What's going on here? Do they have other sources of income, or did they invest in a 401(k)? Luckily my parents finished their tax returns, and so did I, she thought.
"We'll start with you, Cory. Do you have a W-2 on hand? If so, it will be over quickly, but we will not submit your return until your parents haven't finalized theirs" Gen asks Cory.
"Why?"
"It will affect whether it's advantageous for them to declare you as a dependent. In the event you have no income to declare, the question answers itself"
I will need to find a way to study for all sorts of courses while I am at church, even though I won't be able to study a whole lot of material at a time. I admit it isn't very efficient, but it's better than nothing. If I make my inventory of my extracurricular activities, starting from ninth grade... I don't even want to think about it, it's a little too early to do so, she starts musing while the logistics starts weighing on her and she wonders why she seems headed on a trajectory that appears dangerous to her. If my experience as a volunteer fiscalist at church serves me well, the coordinators of the VITA, or Volunteer Income Tax Assistance, wants me to fill out a tax return in thirty minutes, and the majority of the tax returns will contain cases that are relatively elementary: the church excludes capital gains, dividends, self-employment income, bankruptcies, deaths and rental income from any consideration under VITA, she ponders, while each local organizer of VITA is free to impose its own criteria to determine whoever is eligible for it.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
Saturday morning, at church, the waiting line for using VITA without an appointment begins, and, for the exams that are fast approaching, she brought a variety of flashcards containing key material for her courses other than calculus and French. That way, between two tax returns, she should be able to get by.
"Here she is! The town's mathematics champion! You finally gave us a reason to root for the Venomous Agendas!" a VAs fan fawns over her.
"Listen, that's not why you came here on a Saturday morning. Please present the following documents: Social Security number, an identification piece with photo, your tax return from last year, W-2 forms as well as your Forms 1099" Gen asks that person.
There, she starts feeling the pressure of getting a tax return done faster than 30 minutes; the list of the tax filing software questions starts with marital status, and later the sources of income. Senatorial confirmation of various high-ranking civil servants has for objective to protect the civil service from partisanship, but with what we're seeing at the level of the Supreme Court, the Senate treats the Supreme Court as an extension of Congress so that the Supreme Court's review power essentially amounts to legislating through the rendering of decisions and therefore the Supreme Court violates the principle of separation of powers, she things while she rereads the class note flashcard relative to the separation of powers while the client takes his time to present the required documents, in particular last year's tax return. I therefore need to take advantage of the slowness of certain clients to study, but it will force me to double down to enter the forms so that I can then have another person review it! The AP Government course had a reputation for being a lenient course where one can earn an A with only a little study, but next time, I will get to Stokes' theorem... to determine which one to use between that and the flux-divergence theorem, one must ask which one must be non-zero: only one between the divergence and the curl can be nonzero. The proof of this statement requires the calculation of the determinant of a 3x3 matrix, but with the gradient on two of the three lines. It took forever for this client to fetch his tax return from last year!
She was almost finished filling out these forms, only the boxes that depended on past data remain. Once the return is finished...
"You will receive your tax refund by direct deposit in two to three weeks"
If this client proved to be rather pleasant, but just slow, the subsequent client hurried to hand over everything on the double, and one can see immediately that the client doesn't have patience for the result. Once the balance owing appears...
"Sorry but you have a balance owing. To do so, pay by check, wire transfer or credit card but I advise against paying by credit card"
"A balance owing? But why?" asks the client, distraught by his balance owing.
"When we look at your last tax return, you earned a lot more this year than you did last year; you used the CARES Act and now that you work..." Gen explains to the client.
"It's your fault!"
"Your will need to readjust income tax withholdings, I am not the problem! As for the reason why, if possible, favor the wire transfer, it's because the credit card and the check both come with extra fees, just not the same fees"
Very quickly she realizes that balance owing cases are more common for people who used the CARES Act for 2021 regardless of why or how they lost their previous jobs during the pandemic. Because their current employers made their withholding planning based on part of a year on CARES Act while the taxable portion of it was not subject to withholdings!
"If you obtain a raise in the near future, I strongly advise that you ask your employer to review the withholdings. Unless you want to make estimated payments... between you and me, better have more money withheld for taxes vs a balance owing as of April fifteenth or estimated payments! Less work for you!"
"Thanks a lot..."
She is very surprised to get a high school senior for a client afterwards, but that she knew he was not part of the mathletics team.
"Gen, did you finally start doing more extracurriculars? You must not waste your score on the ACT by sticking to the mathletics team and to write a few articles in the student newspaper!" Dexter, the senior, and son of the principal, then asks her.
"We simply do not perform the same kind of activities: you have the concert band, the debate team, and other community service activities, just no Christmas food drive or church tax clinic. But enough of that, we'll start with your marital status"
Is he insinuating that I am not doing enough extracurricular activities to get to where I want? That the guy attends Tulane next fall, I accept it, but the people at the University of Chicago will realize that I try not to engage in unhealthy practices in high school! She keeps thinking, while he does not realize that a longstanding girlfriend does not suffice to be fiscally considered as being a common-law partner! Otherwise, his tax situation is simple, and the guideline of 30 minutes per tax return is respected.
"Don't forget: this contest gives hope back to the town's school! Make it so that you bring back victory to us! If we can't accomplish anything on the athletic scene, we have always you!" a fervent admirer of the Venomous Agendas and administrator of its booster club sermons her as he prepares the documents required by the church for VITA.
"If I told you that Lagrange's multipliers demand to take the constraint's partial derivatives as well as those of the function to optimize, with the multiplier itself assigned to the partial derivatives of the constraint, so that we could then arrive at an equation which is equal to several others, modulo this multiplier..."
Holy booster club! Because of the booster club, everyone in this town must know me by now! Each second that I have to read my flashcards won't be lost! I really need to be lucky to get someone that will neither talk to me about college admissions nor about this contest! As if they were so used to lean academic years that they would throw themselves behind anyone remotely resembling an exceptional student! She continues to think while she keeps juggling between tax returns and her class note flashcards, doing so for the entire Saturday, until Dylan arrives by the end of the day.
"I would have loved that we meet each other under better circumstances, but... can you tell me if you considered the cost of attendance?" Dylan asks.
"I believe it's a little early to build something that looks like a final application list but I will certainly take the cost of attendance into account"
"Marcia has already started building her application list. Obviously, she is very attached to UPenn and Columbia, she talked about these in front of me several times, but she is considering the other five that everyone here seems to consider as a must for anyone aiming for the Ivies. And she started doing her financial checks"
"I have a confession to make to you. The closer we get, the more this competition stresses me out, as well as college applications. Yes, having a well-rounded extracurricular portfolio is a good thing. But do you want me to file your tax return or not?" Gen asks Dylan.
"Yes. I would have no reason to be at church otherwise, he responds while he prepares his tax return from last year as well as his W-2"
This can't work! I didn't read a whole lot of flashcards all day here! Now there is another dimension that I must consider for college; not only my academic happiness, but also my financial situation! But Dylan has a point, she thinks while she finishes the tight end's return. Once his return is finished, she calls her mother.
"Mom, we need to talk about college"
"Honey, you changed since you took the ACT. Before the ACT, you had no academic worry of any kind whatsoever. Now, it seems that this world of possibilities that your grades and your ACT open comes with stress" her mother then tells her.
"That's what stresses me out most: ensuring that I will like the atmosphere of the place without ruining us. All that I want is a budget not to exceed. As much as there could be an institution that I could like that's not necessarily a prestigious school, I must have read horror stories about student loans" she answers her mother without noticing the other stressors
"Do you know where your friends are applying?"
"I only know about Marcia, but she already has seven applications to plan for. I only have one. The University of Chicago. I can always build a list later..."
"Oh, I would love to see the faces of my colleagues or of the neighborhood when they will learn about this"
"I don't think it will surprise them, impress them in any way whatsoever. Everyone in this town knows for months that I am the high school's mathematics mascot, thus everyone places very high academic expectations on me"
"Oh, I am not worried about your success"
So I might be wondering what financial aid at the University of Chicago is made of, she wonders while, for the first time, she makes an estimate of what it will cost her to attend, while supposing that what she calls her "two anchor points" will effectively remain so. Because, out of these two anchor points, only ne can be considered solidly fixed, the ACT; everything depends on her grades for the second half of the year and there's a big chunk remaining. Especially for the AP courses, where the highest between the corresponding AP exam and the in-house final will be used as the final exam grade and count for 45% of the final grade.
"Let me make that clear: we will barely be able to pay anything for you, except maybe the living expenses that we currently incur in your name. Therefore, any loan that you will need to take out will be your responsibility"
"And yet the University of Chicago appeared to be pretty good to me regarding financial aid. As for the implications of student loans, I am the one talking about it in the student newspaper, I should be well-placed to talk about it"
Shortly after her call to her mother, Cory texts her while talking about his score on the ACT: « 31 on the ACT. Now we can talk about scholarships ». Or about TOPS to be exact, so long as he remains in Louisiana. Or even about institutional scholarships. « I am happy for you, now good night»