<p>Couldn't help but find this both amusing and tragic. Thought I'd share it here.</p>
<p>EDUCATION LIFE SUPPLEMENT, The New York Times (reprinted in accordance with internet policy) </p>
<p>STUDENT NOTEBOOK; Dear Amanda
By MEGHANN CURTIS (NYT) Published: April 25, 2004</p>
<p>In my house, the importance of getting into the right college was tantamount to finding a bone marrow match. The meticulous pursuit began no later than grade six and required no fewer than 30 college visits before grade nine. A visit consisted of a guided tour, an interview (never mind you've no intention of applying), an overnight stay (Mom spends night at nearby motel while you tread miserably alongside reckless, feckless freshmen) and a school sweatshirt purchase.
Beyond the visits, our home became indistinguishable from a high school guidance department. All available surfaces accommodated college brochures, course catalogs, personal essays and guides. A map of the United States hung in the living room. On it my mother had traced the edge of a pizza pan to indicate the geographic boundaries of the permitted search. Finding that the ranking systems employed by reputable institutions like U.S. News & World Report were inadequate, my mother had devised an elaborate and overwhelmingly demented ranking system of her own: a series of immaculately scripted pencil charts displayed on our refrigerator.
Convinced that her humdrum suburban life and failing marriage were a direct result of her having not attended Duke University, my mother made it her sole purpose to see that her daughters did not suffer a similar fate. But determination turned to obsession, and obsession to desperation, and soon she was just plain mad.
So after eight years of narrowing the field, my older sister Mandy applied early to Davidson College in North Carolina. A reach it would be, though a hard-working student and athlete would always be viable. But $2,000 of SAT tutoring later, Mandy's test scores just weren't cutting it. She would simply have to accentuate her extracurriculars!
Mandy was captain of the field hockey team and since no scout ever seemed to visit, it was decided that she should submit a highlights videotape. And so the filming began. All season, the local video store proprietor stood through wind and rain documenting Mandy's finesse. The final cut was a wrenching 10-minute ode set to ''Eye of the Tiger.''
I decided I had better take matters into my own hand. On what must have been a dreadfully boring suburban Saturday, I came up with a terrific idea. I would write Mandy's acceptance letter.
Understanding, even at the callow age of 12, that Mandy's acceptance to Davidson was more important than my own will to live, it was peculiar that I should think such an antic would wash over successfully.
But the waiting and agony had gone on long enough. I had managed to find a few letters we had previously received from the Davidson admissions office. Lifting the language, tone and format, I fashioned a glowing letter. </p>
<p>Dear Amanda,
It is with great pleasure that we write to inform you of your acceptance to Davidson College, Class of 1996. With a record number of applicants, it is no small feat that you are granted admission. Upon review of your outstanding record, we believe you will be an excellent addition to this institution.
From there, I moved on to the packaging. My father, who had been working from home, relied on Federal Express to send and receive documents. In his study was a cabinet filled with unused FedEx envelopes. And because the FedEx man was a frequent caller, I knew how the deliveries went down. The guy did not wait around for signatures, like United Parcel Service did, but stuffed the envelope in the screen door, rang the bell and trotted off. Furtively slipping one of the envelopes out of the cabinet, I crept back upstairs to execute the final task. After typing our address on the carbon slip, I sealed the envelope, ran to the front of the house, did what I needed to do and sprinted away.
By the time I casually made my way back into the house through the garage, the good news had already broken and, to my discomfort, the intensity had surged a bit beyond what I had envisioned. A tremor of joyous wailing shuddered from the top of the stairs, from my sisters, my mother, my father. Hesitantly climbing the steps to behold the fruits of my labor, it dawned on me that this idea was positively bad.
On reaching my sister's room and finding them clutched in a sobbing, unbreakable, euphoric mound, it became unmistakably apparent that I had but one option: end the charade now.
''I did it!'' I proclaimed. I knew full well that this would not be taken lightly, much less laughed off. Nonetheless, I made this declaration with a big wacky smile.
''Ta-da! Just kidding! How funny am I?'' Jazz hands!
While the ensuing events are, for the most part, not fit for print, it can be said that I came away from this experience a shattered, introverted child. Never before had my very moral fiber been questioned. Never had I been made to doubt my integrity, and more unsettling, my own sanity. Evil. This act, I was told over and over, was nothing but pure, genuine evil.
But when I am reminded of this painful experience this time each year, I always like to draw the attention of my family back to one oft-overlooked element of the deception. In my undertakings, I accepted my sister -- and in the end, wasn't that most important? While it would seem more logical, in such a stealthy and dishonest operation, to pull all the stops and reject her, I, the doting baby sister, accepted her. She got in! She got in that boring Saturday, and then, by the grace of some glorious and merciful god, she did again, four days later.
To this day, though, I can't help wondering: was I evil or were they crazy? I was most certainly wrong for tricking my sister. But with the SAT preparation courses and videotapes and maps, my parents had placed my sister's precious psyche on a tee. I had simply taken a swing.
Years later, one day in early April, I would return home to find a pile of envelopes tossed on the kitchen table. The house was silent: Dad had moved out, Mom was working full time and my sisters were living states away. As is the case with many youngest-child milestones, the collective interest had waned.
So I opened the letters -- a rejection, an acceptance, a rejection, a rejection. And it was O.K. to be alone.</p>