College Days and Nights

Part One: Getting There

To most people, the years spent at college are like an extended rite of passage. Unlike those imposed by primitive societies, college students don’t have to learn to hunt with poisoned darts, get promised in marriage to an old guy who is looking for a juicy virgin, or get painful scars all over their bodies just to show they are entering adulthood. They just have to take loads of classes, complete with quizzes, midterms, presentations and finals, and get enough good grades to be spit out at the end of four years as graduates. And they have to do this while cheering the football team, partying hard, getting stoned now and then and trying to hook up with someone they aren’t ashamed to be seen with.+

If you know all this, and are still eager to enter into a den of hungry lions without a weapon, read on. If not, stop right here. Time wasted is never retrieved.

Choosing a School and Applying

Gertrude “Hot Pants” Padinkelmeier’s grade point average never gets above a 2.5 in a good semester. She is known throughout several local high schools as “That Blond Cheerleader With the Great Rack.” Her greatest moment in high school occurred when her skirt caught a breeze and flew up during a particularly athletic cheer, revealing to everyone in the North High School football stadium that she wasn’t wearing underwear. One of her teachers wrote on her latest report card, “This slut is the dumbest female who ever took up space in any of my classes. I hope it isn’t genetic.”

Alice “The Brain” Facciabrutta has gotten straight A’s since the First Grade. She has the highest measured IQ in the history of North High School. She is captain of the Chess Club and co-captain of the Debating Team. Her biggest thrill came when her project in the school Science Fair, an experiment in genetics using cockroaches, was judged to be “so far superior to the other messes here” that it was removed from competition to make the field more level for the others.

Which girl is more likely to get into a really top-notch, tough, competitive school?

Hint: The only way that Hot Pants Padinkelmeier will be accepted at any halfway decent college is if her parents graduated from it (making her a “legacy”) and if they just gave the school its new science building.

In other words, don’t apply to any school you have no hope of being accepted into in this lifetime.

Let’s move on to the application process.

For the sake of illustration, let’s say that Hot Pants and The Brain have both decided to apply to the same high end institution. Hot Pants has a slight advantage because her rich uncle is a big donor. The Brain, whose relatives think $100 is a lot of money, is on her own.

The admissions staff passes Hot Pants’ application around the office. When they are through laughing, they notice who her rich uncle is. They laugh some more, express pity for the uncle, and pin her application to the bulletin board so that they can get another laugh when they need one.

Of course, The Brain’s application is put on the express track. To make sure that they snag this gem, they offer her a full four-year scholarship and free movie tickets.

So Alice Facciabrutta, the school outcast, who only had two friends and could never get a date, is on the fast track to becoming a scientist who will save mankind from some awful thing or other, while Gertrude Padinkelmeier will be a packer in a chocolate factory, have a bunch of kids, get fat and stay stupid.

I don’t know what the moral of this story is, so please don’t ask me.