Pi Day

It has become a well-settled tradition that the admissions decisions for MIT are announced on March 14^th (Pi Day – get it?) and already, the blogs and twitters relating to that institution are filling up with the anxious comments of potential students. Mary and I will never forget standing in the background with fingers and toes crossed in the moments leading up to the moment of truth for Two. That the decision went well for her in no way erases my memory of the stress and hope and fear that accompanied the spool up to that announcement.

Pi Day has become something of a landmark event in my mind in the years since; each early March, I find myself drifting to the blog comments of students awaiting their fate.

It would be easy to dismiss this fascination as a byproduct of my natural affinity for events affecting one of my daughters. But it goes beyond that. I have watched these kids during the applications and acceptance (or not) process and seen them arrive at the school with high hopes and focused intent. These students are different from your usual college freshmen. And not because MIT is such a great learning place, although it is.

I think a big part of the angst vested in the MIT decision is the realization that for many of these kids, in their highly functioning minds it is the only place where they feel they are assured of fitting in.

While some of the prospective Beavers of the Class of ’19 will be drawn from the rarified ranks of the privileged who already attended top prep schools, others – a majority, actually – come from regular old secondary schools. Many of them rose to the top of this year’s high school crop not because they were carefully nurtured in a system with the best of everything, but because their own raw intelligence and drive to understand allowed them no other path.

That second group of kids come from situations in which they were the ‘smart kid’ madly treading water in a sea of the rest of us. And many of them spent their most formative years feeling misunderstood, different, unwelcome. For those, the choice of MIT is much more than the simple matter of getting into a really good college.

For the off-charts-smart kids of this year’s application pool, getting into MIT or one of the other four or five institutions in the world dedicated to the education of one-in-a-thousand minds, the acceptance decision is a signal event in the cultural and social, as well as academic realms. For many, way too many of these kids, getting into MIT or Cal Poly of Rose Hulman or Tsinghua or Harbin means that for the first time in their young lives, they will be surrounded by people – other students as well as profs – who understand them.

It will be a coming home and for that reason, for those who are not admitted or those who are admitted only to find the rigor beyond their abilities, there will soon be the realization that for them, there may be one more denial of the human need to Just. Fit. In. This realization can be soul crushing and I wish I could hold each one of them and find a way to help them find a way.

I understand that an MIT or a Berklee or a Kings College can only admit so many students. And I understand that the admissions process is inexact. But I’m bothered that the decision has to be so binary. Admitted / rejected. Included / excluded. Learn / languish. Fit in / remain outside.

One of the signs that we have at last matured as a society will come when our system allows for differences in a non-binary way.

We need to find a way that works for every one of us. Not only for the incredibly intelligent but also for the pretty smart. For the average kid, yes, but also for the kid who comes with labels. Autistic. Artistic. Exceptional. Odd. Different.

A week from tomorrow, many thousands of potential Beavers will receive the news. And for over ninety percent of them, it will not be the news they seek. Think about that – over ninety percent of the students who did well enough in high school to harbor thoughts of admission to MIT will find themselves rejected. There’s something very twisted about that.

I hope they can somehow understand how badly we as a society need for them to keep on keeping on. I hope they each and all find their way. And I hope that someone will be there to make each of them feel not only different, but special.