College Fair

So I took D2 over to the Palmetto High College Fair last night. We went last year, and now that her applications are largely done I thought she'd skip, but apparently the latest college admission rumor is that an applicant needs to show up to show a school they're serious about getting in.

It was held in the school gym, and it was packed. Wifey had been there earlier, to help set it up with the PTA, so she opted out of going to the actual event.

D@ was immediately disappointed: 2 of the schools she wanted to "visit," Duke and Emory, weren't there! And the "hot schools" for the Miami High School set, Florida and the U, were packed with students 20 deep, making any chance of interaction tiny.

Still, we had a good time, seeing old friends and their parents. I wandered over to SMU's booth, and struck up a talk with the representative, asking her if she knew my friend Ross Murfin, the retired Provost there. She did, and the Joycean connections flowed, and soon it became apparent that her daughter, now a Princeton senior, probably knows D1's boyfriend, since she went to Boles High in Jacksonville, etc..., etc...

The representative, Carol, was a Tulane alum, but she told D2 how she WISHED she went to SMU, even though she was Jewish. She went on about how great it is, and how Dallas is a terrific city, and how D2 ought to apply. I didn't ask her why she sent HER daughter to Princeton, given how wonderful her employer is...

We ran into D1 and D2's wonderful guidance counselor, Harry Nerenberg. He was profiled recently in the Herald under an article about people who love their jobs. He truly does, and was there for D1 during a rough patch, and continues to be there for D2. To show what a mentsch he is, he noticed one of the colleges at the Fair, St. Joseph's of Brooklyn, NY, wasn't getting any attention. He took D2 over to the nice fellow, and made an introduction.

The representative was a charming fellow, and asked D2 about her class rank and ACT scores. He offered her a full academic scholarship on the spot! I told him that D2's mother grew up in Canarsie. "Wow!" he said "Then it would be a homecoming!"

As we walked away, we agreed that it was a long shot that D2 would attend any college with "Saint" in its name, unless it was part of Oxford as part of a Rhodes Scholarship. I guess the same goes for a school with "Methodist" in its name, too.

As we left, D2 thanked me for coming, to another in a line of "last" events. "The last Homecoming, Back to School Night, etc..." As much as I like to make sport of attempting to embarrass my teenage daughter, its clear she now takes sport in making her old Dad get teary eyed. It's happening more and more.