"I mean, this is going to sound incredibly snotty, but I've NEVER gotten a B-. Ever. Like not in high school or anytime in college."
Well, honey, you just did. Welcome to the club.
This is a snowflake who has done her entire college career in only three years because of an obscene amount of AP credits. Now, she's going to law school. She already took the LSAT but she only got into the 97th percentile. She's going to take it again so that she can get into the 99th percentile (which, of course is "where [she] tests" in practice exams).
Also, it's been really hard for her to meet boys, but she has one, and they've been together for the whole three years and he's going to Uber-Famous Law School so she needs to get in there, too, so that they can both be Uber-Famous Law Students together.
But...might there be time...this summer...to go abroad...and hug some babies with HIV in a place that won't cause her mother apoplexy? Mum gets apoplectic easily, it seems, for instance forbidding Precious Flake to ride the DC Metro until several weeks from now because of the recent foiled bomb plot.
I am not making this up.
Ah, yes; the "A-student-as-identity" phenomenon -- very common in the Ivy League 20 years ago, but now (or perhaps always?) proliferating elsewhere. The main group in which I see it at my somewhat-selective R2-hellbent-on-becoming-R1 State U is community college transfers, whose experiences sometimes parallel those of high school valedictorians in the Ivy League: big fish from small pond must suddenly deal with becoming one highly-able person among many. It doesn't usually wait until senior year, but perhaps she took your class thinking it was a gut, and found out that is wasn't? Or put off a requirement she knew she'd have trouble with? Or is simply lying about her other grades?
ReplyDeleteOh, God. I'm probably her Mom. Except my daughter's still in middle school. Do I possibly ride her a little too hard? Do I let her ride the bus alone?
ReplyDeleteOf course, decades ago, I was her. Undergraduate was a real shock to my system.
When I cried over a B+, my fifth-grade teacher looked down at me from his 6-foot-tall frame, and said, not entirely unkindly, "Join the human race." I remember thinking, I don't know what this means yet but I have to remember it until I do, because it sounds important.
ReplyDeleteP.S. I wonder whether Mumsy has noticed that, while the recently-arrested aspiring terrorist's terrorist aspirations seem quite real, he was thinking in terms of fighting overseas, and it was the FBI that persuaded him to participate in a plot to bomb the DC Metro. In other words, the plot to bomb the Metro existed first (and perhaps only) in the FBI's imagination. It's an important distinction, and one that makes it even more unlikely that Precious Flake will be blown up on the Metro. On the other hand, her chances of encountering really annoying delays, broken escalators, and the like are pretty high, and, given her sensitivity, those might do serious damage.
ReplyDeleteI like the part where she pretends she's already a lawyer and she reposesses the manicurist's dog from the estranged husband.
ReplyDeleteYeah, yeah. I graduated near the top from my rural high school and went off to a highly selective university, where I found myself near the middle of a highly talented bunch. I got over it. It helped when I realized that smarts are not all there is to this game. The ability to finish things is also essential. So is depth, or really knowing what you're supposed to know. So are other qualities.
ReplyDeleteI was totally thinking "Legally Blonde" as well. Cassandra, about your first comment: I don't think the "but I always get an A!" students lie about their grades - it's more likely a combination of easy classes and sucking up. Thinking back to "Legally Blonde," Elle tells her advisor that she has a 4.0 GPA and the advisor responds, "Yeah, but your major is Fashion Merchandising. I'm pretty sure Harvard Law won't be impressed with your A in 'History of Polka Dots.'" I wouldn't be surprised if it was something like that.
ReplyDeleteI had a student piss moan about the B she was working hard to achieve in my intro class. The student was coming over from a different department. The student was obviously doing me a favor by gracing my classroom with the student's brilliance.
ReplyDeleteAfter the second, "I have never gotten less than A. Maybe you don't understand the teaching at this institution," I said, without missing a beat (or thinking), "Maybe you don't understand how to do the work in this department."
I never heard a peep out of the student for the remainder of the term. Other faculty in my department reported a similar sentiment from the student.
As to the student in the post, you could explain about the lack of employment possibilities for a lawyer. By keeping her out of law school, you are doing her a favor.