•••quote:•••Originally posted by locitamd:
•Cavey: you really don't want to share about Northwestern? It could be cathartic...
•••••you know what..i'll tell you the freaking story. but it might make you cry but hopefully you laugh your ass off because it's in the past, and i'm only telling it to amuse and entertain you guys.
basically, i was caught by surprise. i'd been doing horribly my senior year and got the NW interview in feb. i was so excited on interview day when i heard that 50% of interviewers got in. the panel interview rocked, and then the dean interviewed me. caught me off guard--i hadn't realized it would be so soon--thought it was later in the day..so i wasn't even in the interview frame of mind when she called me as i was talking with the other applicants. i turned around, adn there she was. i followed her into her office. anyway, my file was on her desk. after some BSing she asked me to look at my file and see if anythign was missing. immediately you know what rushed through my mind. i thumbed through it and said "yep. looks like everythings here" acting like i thought she just meant for me to look through it for no apparent reason. she then asked me if i could "update" the grades section with my fall grades. well, i took a long time to "remember" saying that i couldn't remember what classes i'd even taken, and saying "can i send official transcripts when i get back to miami" with her saying "well, just try to remember a few and give us those...i'll give you some time to think" so i slowly started coming out with course names and letter grades. two c's, one b, one withdrawal, one incomplete and a solitary A in musicology! i tried to space it out with the A in the middle to make it look a little nicer.
<img border="0" alt="[Laughy]" title="" src="graemlins/laughy.gif" />
. anyway it got very pathetic at this point, because i couldn't remember one last course that i'd taken. but anyway as soon as i'd written down those first several courses her facial expression changed completely. her face and body no longer moved. the was still, and her eyes were looking down over her nose directly, and with a serious demeanor, at my crappy grades. i was trying to pretend i didn't notice the sudden change in "aura" in her office (she was the dean of admissions did i mention....). finally i "realized" that i'd folded up my grades and stuffed them into my wallet to carry them around as a reminder of my utter failure (yes, i told you it was sad). i'd actually realized that i had my grades with me before i "realized" it in front of her. but i was debating whether i should make it known to her that i'd realized i had the grades in my wallet. "is it worth it to look this bad"--to look like i'd lied about not remembering my grades and offering to send official transcripts--which i'd planned to "delay" sending anyway.
eventually, when i pulled it out of my wallet the aura of the room fell to an even deeper level. like the audience suddenly went aaawww and all hopes for the hero had gone down the drain. i got the feeling she thought i'd lied and had those grades with me the whole time (and knew it) but had lied to hide my secret a little longer. i was like "oh actually wait, i just remembered i have my grades in my wallet. i carry them with me to remind me how bad i messed up. etc, etc." i was very uneasy as you can imagine. after filling in that last grade with was actually that incomplete that i mentioned above, i folded it back up and stuck it in my wallet. it was over. and i knew it. she bull****ted for a while more with me, like 3 more minutes. then it was over. she got up, i got up, she moved to the door saying some bs chit chat stuff. in my last desperate attempt to look like a decent guy and possibly rescue the interview (HA!) i offered to move back the chair to where it was (i had to pull it up to her desk), and bent down to move it and looked up at her and asked. she just looked at me like i was a dying piece of roadkill. like i was alrady screwed and i knew it, and i was scrambling for something...anything. i walked out eventually. i sat with the other candidates who were by now basically done with interviews also. people were surprised to hear that i thought the dean interviw (which is supposed to be a 5 minute getting to know you deal) was really tough for me. they were like "no way, it was so easy, all she wanted basically was to know my grades and that's it. it was totally stress free." everybody was saing that and looking at me puzzled. i wasn't about to tell them anything specific (my shoulders felt about 10,000 pounds heavy, and felt like they were down around my waist). the weight of the world was on me. like somebody had told me my mother just died and also beat the **** out of me. that's how powerful it felt. but it wasn't sadness that i felt, it was complete, complete embarassment. i felt pathetic. anyway, the day continued adn throughout the stupid financial aid talk that lasted like 2 hours and people were talking back and forth, i just felt like a huge boulder was pushing it's way through my skull. it was even worse because everyone there was a great applicant from a top school and I was a total scrub--not worthy of their time.
i saw her at the end of the day passing through the office as all the applicants and I went into the admissions office to get our coats, etc. i looked up as she quickly passed by and tried to give her a smile. she saw me, but didn't turn her face towards me..just kept walking. at that point there was no doubt in my mind.
as you can probably guess...this was not cathartic!! reliving this moment makes me cringe.
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