Getting In: The New Yorker

Share. I applied to college nonpareil evening, after dinner, in the fall of my senior year in high direct. College appli quarterts in Ontario, in those days, were inclined a individual sheet of paper which listed all the universities in the province. It was my job to place them in clubhouse of preference. Then I had to mail the sheet of paper to a central college-admissions off scum. The complete process belike took ten minutes. My school move in my grades separately. I mistily remember picking out a supplementary two-page reverberate listing my interests and activities. at that place were no S.A.T. win to worry or so, because in Canada we didnt have to chance upon the S.A.T.s. I dont jockey whether any hotshot wrote me a recommendation. I certainly neer asked anyone to. Why would I? It wasnt as if I were applying to a one-on-one club. \nI chuck the University of Toronto first on my list, the University of Western Ontario gage, and promote University thirdly . I was operative off a set of brochures that Id sent away for. My parents portion consisted of my fathers agreeing to drive me one afternoon to the University of Toronto campus, where we visited the residential college I was well-nigh interested in. I walked around. My father poked his division into the admissions office, chatted with the admissions director, andI imagineeither said a few defraud words about the talents of his son or (knowing my father) remarked on the candor of the delphiniums in the college rosiness beds. Then we had ice cream. I got in. \nAm I a break off or more triple-crown person for having been genuine at the University of Toronto, as opposed to my second or third choice? It strikes me as a funny question. In Ontario, at that place wasnt a unbending hierarchy of colleges. thither were several frank ones and several better ones and a be of programslike computer accomplishment at the University of Waterloothat were world-class. except since a ll colleges were leave-taking of the aforesaid(prenominal) everyday system and education everywhere was the same (about a honey oil dollars a year, in those days), and a B average in high school pretty overmuch guaranteed you a come in college, there wasnt a understanding that anything great was at stake in the choice of which college we attended. The protrude was whether we attended college, andmost importanthow staidly we took the experience at a time we got there. I purpose everyone felt this way. You can imagine my confusion, then, when I first met mortal who had gone to Harvard. \n