Ode to College Recruiters : Or, Teen Poetry Phenom Punts Into the Big 10

It is impossible to know, really, where our daughter Jennifer’s talent for writing poetry springs from. Some claim it derives from our family’s bookish ways. Others insist it’s one of those mysterious genetic flukes, like a gift for music, mathematics or even athletics. Suffice to say, Jennifer’s talent revealed itself at age 4. Without warning, she was composing couplets and cantos of rare beauty and eloquence.

At first it was her mother and I responding to her efforts with characteristic parental pride and enthusiasm. Then it was our friends responding with a trace of surprise and unabashed admiration.

It wasn’t long before Jennifer’s teachers, too, were remarking on her precocious capability. Each year at the parent-teacher conference, there we were, listening to Miss Marshall, or Mrs. Taft, Mr. McWilliams, Miss Wallingford, or Mr. Tidwell tell us that while Jennifer’s school performance in general was average, her poetry was amazing.

To be perfectly truthful, by eighth grade Jennifer had established an academic pattern that would barely change during high school. History and language courses were completed without distinction: Bs and Cs. Mathematics and sciences at best were flirtations with disaster. We prayed for Cs but maintained our good spirits when the Ds arrived. It wasn’t all that difficult, knowing what the English marks would be. On three occasions, teachers wrote us that an A+ would have been an undervaluation of Jennifer’s work.

In sum, we collected reasonable report cards for a nice kid with a God-given talent about which she always remained humble. Jennifer knew she hadn’t achieved it; she merely had been a faithful custodian of it.

At the start of junior year, when the students in our typical suburban high school began to feel the premature college application tension, an odd thing happened. Without warning, strangers began requesting permission to sit in on Jennifer’s English courses. They wanted to watch her in action, they said. Learning that the visitors were literature and humanities professors and deans from prestigious universities, we supported the principal’s granting them permission to attend classes.

By Christmas of junior year, 65 scouts had visited the school. There were even professors from denominational schools who couldn’t have cared less that we were of a different faith.

By the end of junior year and for the first months of senior year, we had been hosts to more than 125 college English and humanities professors and deans, all of whom promised not only admission to their illustrious institutions, but scholarships as well. When we learned the astronomical price of freshman year, a dean would hasten to assure us that expenses for all four years would be covered.

Jennifer’s undistinguished performance on the Scholastic Aptitude Test (low 70th percentile in verbal, low 40th percentile in mathematics) didn’t affect the flow of scholarship offers one bit. And all because of a wondrous gift for writing poetry.

Shock, awe, surprise--how does one describe our feelings as these lovely, thoughtful but nonetheless solid business people trotted through our house? The daily procession was so energizing that even our son Douglas lost every trace of envy of his celebrity sister.

Confusion began to set in during the last two months of the semester. In December, we read newspaper accounts incorrectly stating that Jennifer had decided on a college. Nor were the reports of the number of colleges offering scholarships accurate. The final count of 143 was nowhere near the 196 or 218 we read about or heard on television. By now, her every action was grist for the journalists’ mills.

Tension mounted as we approached the February date when English scholars must make their decisions. We were using a computer to track the promises made and the clothes, books, travel and car allowances offered by each recruiter. Douglas calculated that if Jennifer attended all 143 schools that had made definitive commitments, she would receive $2,788,509.

Eventually the choice narrowed to 12 schools, two each in six geographical regions of the country. By January’s end, the choice was down to six, the best in each region. Every morning, every noon, every evening came the telephone calls from the professors and deans. Until the final days, they still straggled in, asking who else had interviewed Jennifer. Eighteen of them had made six trips each to our community. Thousands of dollars had been spent on this arduous recruitment process.

At long last, that fateful Tuesday morning arrived. The school had scheduled the press conference, and the English classroom overlooking the soccer field had been transformed into a television studio. Radio and print journalists were there, too--everyone except, of course, the college representatives. And there was Jennifer, in jeans and sweat shirt, wearing no makeup, looking like she did on every other school day, keeping her choice secret from all the world, including her family.

The ceremony lasted barely five minutes. Jennifer stood before hundreds of microphones. Acknowledging the applause, she clarified the true number of schools that had been involved. Next, she thanked her teachers, her parents and all the people who had found their way to the school and our dinner table. Then she announced her decision. And just like that, it was over, and she was back with her friends in history class.

That night, for the first time in years our home was quiet. No one said a word, all of us waiting for Jennifer to utter something. Finally her mother spoke. She wanted to know only how Jennifer had reached her decision, and why she looked somewhat downcast. Jennifer replied that the decision was based on the fact that her chosen school not only had offered a scholarship, but also promised 13-year-old Douglas a future scholarship, despite his unpromising C average.

As for her sadness, she felt bad for having settled her future months before her classmates had even begun to hear from the handful of colleges to which they applied.

“I’m no different from anyone else,” she sighed. “Being good at poetry isn’t any better than being good at mathematics or science or history. Or even football.”