It’s college admissions time again — and for those who applied early action / early decision, the results are coming in this weekend and next week. I try my best to ignore all of this in the classroom. I know that some students are going through devastating times, while others are so elated they can’t contain themselves. But I don’t know which is which, and honestly, I don’t want to know.

Why? Because I can’t do anything about it.

College acceptances and rejections are, unfortunately, a trial that all seniors have to endure [1]. Having books, counselors, and teachers around telling them “it’ll all be okay” is fine and dandy, but it doesn’t do them any good. Yes, we know it’s true. We know that these students will get in somewhere. We know that years down the road, they won’t be able to imagine going to a different college than the one they went to, because they’ll have made all these friends and had these amazing experiences. We might even say all that to them, in addition to the “it’ll all be okay.” But our words won’t make a difference to them, and we know that too. We say it because we can’t say anything else, because we’re helpless to help in this trying time. Really we say it for ourselves, our own contrived pretense that we can help in a situation where we have no control.

Their hurt is real, immediate, and prevents a broad outlook.

My own story shapes how I feel about this.

As a senior, I applied early to Harvard. I told everyone that it was a long shot and I didn’t think I would get in, and that I didn’t care if I did or didn’t. I applied early just to get it over with. And part of me wanted to believe all that, but a deeper part of me thought that I couldn’t not get in. This wasn’t because I was vain or conceited or thought I was something special. (Trust me, I was incredibly self-effacing in high school.) But the truth of the matter was I honestly couldn’t think of anything I could have done to make my application stronger [2]. Although I said I wouldn’t get in, I thought I would.

You know where this is going… I didn’t get in. I got the small envelope and was devastated.

And the honest truth was: I wasn’t crushed because I didn’t get into Harvard. It wasn’t some place I had always longed to go, or had a sweatshirt from, or anything like that. Harvard was just one of the five schools I applied to. I was devastated because:

(1) I was judged and was deemed not be good enough
(2) I didn’t know why I wasn’t accepted
(3) I had worked so hard in high school and I felt it was all for nothing
(4) What would my friends think of me, because I believed they all expected me to get in

Those thoughts rattled around in my brain for months. Seriously. I tried to shake them off, but couldn’t. All the nice things that people said to me slid right off, because “it’s all going to be okay” didn’t address any of my concerns. It wasn’t until months later when I saw the inner workings of the MIT admissions office — working there as an undergraduate — that I saw the insane number and quality of applications that were coming in. By that time, of course, I was over the college admissions fiasco. I was enjoying my freshman year. But I finally understood the arbitrariness that sneaks its way into college admissions, and comprehended the statement that I had heard from colleges way back when I was a senior in high school: if we threw out all the applications of the students we admitted, and picked another freshman class from the remaining students, we would get a class as strong and successful as the first.

All of this is to say: this time can suck for seniors emotionally. Rejection or deferral from college is complex, because it deals with how we perceive ourselves, how we think others perceive us, and toys with our own notions of self-worth. Our grades aren’t applying. We are. We make it into a story of morality: have we been deemed good enough to enter the hallowed gates?

I wish I could give all my senior who were rejected / deferred / waitlisted early the gift of hindsight and perspective. But I can’t. So I’ll just say “everything will be alright, I promise” and continue on with my job.

[1] Well, actually, I wrote a letter of recommendation for a junior last year to get into a summer program at one particular school, and if she got in this summer program and did well, she was guaranteed acceptance to that school. So this one senior got a free pass.

[2] If you really want to know: near perfect SATs and SAT IIs, straight As in all my classes, 5s on all my APs (which spanned a variety of disciplines), going to the local state university to take multivariable calculus my senior year, doing a number of extra curricular activities which focused on community service, two summers of mathcamp, and participating in a number of different math competitions. (I also had a pretty good social life, believe it or not. I loved high school. And honestly, for the most part, I didn’t join things for college applications… I joined specific clubs because I loved what we did… or because all my friends were involved with them…)

I can check parent conferences off my to-do list. I had around 25 this year, and most of them were enjoyable 10-15 minute conversations. About half were parents of students who are doing fabulously in my class. About half were parents of students who need to recognize that their previous method of doing the bare minimum and not seeking help wasn’t going to work anymore. Some parents have a reasonable and healthy outlook on grades. All the parents — this year — recognized that we were both on the same side. One parent even brought me a tin full of candy!

Overall: success.

I am a tenth grade adviser. All the tenth grade advisers get together every week to discuss various tenth grade students, our tenth grade community service project, general trends we’ve noticed with the class, and so on and so forth.

In our meeting today, our dean said that she was going to shadow a tenth grade student soon. To see what that student goes through on a daily basis. We’ve been talking a lot about the stress that tenth graders feel — the increased expectations placed on them by their teachers and the increased responsibility they’re expected to take for their own learning. This idea was in response to that. So we can see at least a partial perspective.

The dean asked if any of us advisers wanted to follow a student, saying our school would pay for a sub. I of course volunteered.

This is possibly the best idea ever. For me, it’s less about understanding the stress of students. It’s more about experiencing what sitting in classroom after classroom, being asked to do thing after thing, by person after person, feels like. I’m going to relive what it’s like to be a student again. It’s been long enough that I don’t remember how exhausting (or not exhausting, who knows) the day is. But I’m curious to see my emotional reaction to being a student in various teachers’ classes. I’m also curious to see if I see myself in any of the other teachers — both in a good way and a bad way. (I can see me going “oh my god, this is annoying, and I do that all the time!”)

Anyway it was such a good idea that I thought I’d pass it along to y’all, in case it appeals to you too.

I’ll of course report back when I do it, with my findings.

I was sick a couple weeks ago, before parent night. I recovered. I got a flu shot last week. I thought I was going to be in good shape.

I jinxed it. Now I’m sick again. I went to bed with a sore throat. I woke up sick. I hate teaching when I’m sick; all day I’m going to dream about lying in bed.

It took 18 single-spaced pages (with 1/2″ margins all around, nonetheless!), but in the course of a bunch of hours, I was able to pound out narrative comments for each of my students. And vote.

We get tomorrow off of school for “Election Day.” Translated, that is the day teachers at my school write narrative comments for all their students discussing their first quarter grades. We’ll all be holed up in our apartments, trying to come up with various ways to say “this student is doing great,” “this student is doing okay,” and “this student is not doing well.” Luckily, I’m pretty fast at writing these, so I’m not concerned.

In other news, I gave my Algebra II students a quiz last week, and one of the skills covered was rationalizing the denominator where there are radicals involved. (Multiplying the top and bottom of the fraction by the conjugate.) My three musings:

(1) Why do we math teachers care so much about this? I know it’s a good skill to teach because sometimes it really does simplify expressions, but do we always want to insist that the denominator is rationalized? I always thought that it was a bit dumb — and no one really has been able to justify why teachers insist on it with such vehemence. Any ideas? [1]

(2) Ummm… in Calculus, we’re starting to work on the formal definition of the derivative and guess what? To find the derivative of using the formal definition, you have to rationalize the NUMERATOR. Harumph.

(3) For extra credit, for students who had some extra time after finishing their Algebra II quiz, I asked them if any of them could somehow rewrite the following without any radicals in the denominator: . Although no one got it, I loved watching them work on it. [2]

[1] My high school Algebra II teacher told us: “Why don’t we want radicals in the basement? BECAUSE THEY BUILD BOMBS!” I will never forget that. Love it. I totally use it. His legacy lives on.

[2] Even though I was horrified that some students’ initial step was to rewrite that as . Why is it that students NEVER understand fractions?

I was sad that Polaroid stopped making their film. Now I have an amazing substitute: Poladroid. Check it out.

Yes, I did in fact spend about an hour today converting all these digital photographs into polaroid photographs. (I loved every minute of it.)