The shindig was thrown by the alumni association of my alma mater on the occasion of a visit to Washington by the president of the college.
After the cocktails were consumed and the glassware collected, we were herded into a lovely auditorium, where the president, opened his remarks with remarks I remember as if it were yesterday, "We are so happy you could all find time in your busy schedules to join us and it's a joy to see so many members of the college family here tonight. You know how important you all are to us, how much we enjoy seeing you whenever you make it back to campus, especially around commencement to walk with your class, and you know how we continue to delight in your progress through life, and we want to continue to do anything we can to foster the success you began as undergraduates--just don't ask us to accept your children as legacies."
There was a nervous tittering among the family and I felt a heavy pull on my right arm, which was my wife, who instinctively grabbed it, knowing I was reflexively raising it and she knew what I would blurt out: "Well, why the hell did you think we came here tonight?"
It was one of those moments of clarity, where the truth was unmasked: We were members of the family when we opened our checkbooks, but not when we asked the college to reciprocate by accepting our children.
Now, I understand about meritocracy. Why should some feckless son or vapid daughter be handed an admission to the college when some kid who had knocked himself out getting good grades and going to Kaplan courses to get high SAT scores, who had studied violin, cut throats to get the lead in the school musical, been the star of the volleyball team and worked tirelessly in soup kitchens among the less fortunate, why should someone who had done all that before the age of 18 be spurned just so some fortunate son or daughter of an alum could walk away with the glittering prize?
Well, actually, there are reasons.
A meritocracy is based on several assumptions: First, you know what good is, i.e. you can define merit. Second, you have some reasonably reliable way to identify this thing called merit among individuals in a large pool of applicants. Third, merit has nothing to do with the quality or behavior of the applicant's parents, but only with the 18 year old in question.
Some years after drinking the college's wine at the National Gallery, I got a phone call from my wife, very amused. We had received a letter from the college informing me it had been 20 years since my graduation and to mark this milestone, the college had calculated, given my current financial circumstances as an esteemed professional in my community, they thought I ought to write them a check for $20,000.
My wife found this very amusing. I had written the college a check for about $200 each year and she had written the same to her college and I had written one to my medical school and to her professional school and obviously my college had a secretary who was decimal point challenged.
But no, a few days later I got a phone call from one of the few people I had known in college. I knew most of the pre med students, a few of kids who lived in my dorm, but for the most part, being a pre med in college does not allow for much socializing, bonding with classmates or idle chatter. But the college somehow managed to identify one of the few people who I would actually know: And he was now a radiologist in Dallas. He said he gulped hard before writing his check, but after all, think of all we owed to the college for setting us on the path to medical school, for really launching our lives, financially. We kind of owed them. It was pay back time.
Now this is a radiologist talking. Radiologists tended, in those years, to make between $300,000 and $500,000 a year, which is why Radiology, Opthalmology And Dermatology was called "The ROAD" to happiness. So $20,000 was not a budget wrecker for him. For me, it would have been more than 20% of my gross adjusted income. That's a pretty big tithe.
One thing he said really impressed me: He said he knew, given my specialty, my income from the practice of medicine might not allow for a 20 K check but after all, I had written all those books. The reason this was such a surprise to me was each time I had written a book, the publisher had called the alumni magazine to put a notice in the alumni monthly--a little free publicity to a group which might be interested. The alumni magazine never responded.
I guess, as a family, we were not all that close.
So, I wrote a check for $300 that year. It was probably a total coincidence three years later my son was rejected from the college. My son with his perfect SAT score but less than perfect grades--it is a meritocracy, after all. There were probably, always are reasons to not admit any individual.
My wife, being a cynic suggested the college was simply saying it made more sense to look for a family which would contribute $20,000 annually than to stick with one which contributed $200 a year--$300 on a big day.
Maybe I hadn't done enough pay back, I thought. After all, this college gave me my start.
On the other hand, no. Like most colleges, the faculty there seemed to be intent on weeding out undeserving pre meds. Professors who themselves never got closer to a medical school door than delivering a paper, were now intent on selecting against the unworthy. Professors of biology, organic chemistry and math threw trick questions at us on exams, piled on hours of make work work and generally created havoc, paranoia and no small degree of misery much as the drill instructor in Full Metal Jacket did, all in the name of weeding out the weak and undeserving.
I did have some wonderful professors who opened up new ways of thinking for me, who delivered ideas I still think about today, but on balance, I did not like the place much at the time.
As years went by, I actually became fonder of the idea of the college. And it was a social card in some crowds, as my kids were growing up and other parents hearing where I went to school became suddenly my new best friend, hoping I could write their kid a letter.
But, really, that whole marketing ploy of family, pay back? I don't write Honda a check every year because I so loved that car, which served me so well for years after I made my last payment. I don't get letters or phone calls reminding me I'm part of the Honda family, write a check.
And when I really think about it, there was a lot of talk in college about life long learning, but most of the life long learning I do is through public radio, public television or at work. I write checks to the public broadcasting people, but not to the folks at work who teach me about computers.
And computers. When I was in college, computers were in early gestation. I learned about computers on my own, after college and not because college had prepared me for lifelong learning but because computers offered me something.
How many people have jobs today for which college did nothing to prepare them? People who went through college in the 60's, 70's and early 80's learned computers after college and this learning became their careers. If they were out to pay back, they would not be writing checks to their colleges.
Families do provide an ongoing connection to the past, which, despite miles of separation, despite the passage of time endure. Parents continue to brag about their children, tell the world about how well they've done.
Colleges as families, actually don't really do that. Yes, there are the notes in the news of the classes in the alumni magazine, but the college doesn't really bother itself with success stories--the college's interest in tracking success is strictly financial. This guy make a ton of money. Maybe we can get him to give us some. Some alumni magazines run articles about alumni who have become prominent in their fields, but it all has the feel of marketing.
Face it, the college has only one interest in you, once you graduate. You are a source of pay out. You buy love with money, and that's really all she cares about.
But, if there is no rational case for writing checks to the alma mater, there is the emotional case. It's an act of righting wrongs. Most people feel they missed their chance in college. Didn't study hard enough. Didn't play hard enough. Didn't take full advantage of all the college offered. And by writing that check, you place a warm glow over those college years. You turn a failure into a success. You say to yourself, "I really had a great time there."
Reminds me of when I went back to my high school to interview applicants for my college. I had not liked high school at all. I felt defeated, rejected, beat up by high school. The colors of the high school were black and white and that struck me as perfectly appropriate: Those years were colorless, dreary and best put behind me.
Walking back into the same old hallways, for the first time in years, I saw cheerleaders, all bouncey and excited, flirting with boys and kids who looked a lot like my friends had looked at that age. Lockers were slamming, kids were shouting to each other. nAd I looked around and thought, "God, I loved this place."
Later that day, I wrote a check to help the high school build a new gym.
Go figure.
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