Elite Colleges Want to Date You, But Aren’t the Marrying Kind

By Julie Blair Riekse

Pragmatic Pen Writing Coach

Dear Harvard: Buzz off.

You are seducing my phenomenal students with crisp, crested letters suggesting they apply to your hallowed halls but I do not believe you have any intention of ever admitting them.

You are correct to identify them as the creative achievers they are--they are amazing humans--but you have no right to imply they are a fit for you when they do not meet your criteria.

This is akin to having humorist David Sedaris call me and tell me he's interested in taking me on an international book tour that begins aboard Bill Gates' yacht.

I'm very good at what I do, but it ain't gonna happen.

Harvard has an admission rate of 5.6 percent--and that hole is shrinking annually as applications surge.

Students have an average GPA of 4.0.

SAT scores range from 1460-1590; the ACT range is 32-35.

And while many of my candidates have hit some of those marks, they have neither lifted Guatemalan babies to safety over Trump's fence in South Texas nor have they published a thesis on the impact of others' doing so on the mental stability of their breastfeeding mothers.

Even if they had, they are from the wrong zip code--a well-to-do, predominately white one.

Also, their hometown is located in the United States of America, not Ghana or Ireland or Iraq.

And while my families are so, so lovely, they are not alumni nor have they the financial ability to donate a new physics laboratory in a place where it regularly snows.

All of these are qualifiers, you see, for Harvard. (And frankly, for all the Ivies.)

Harvard, when you extend the promise to my vulnerable teenagers atop a glowing, crimson pillow, I know the result will be me gripping a cell phone after midnight wandering around my kitchen in ratty pajamas while I repeat to a sobbing, beautiful child that they are not, in fact, ugly.

Harvard, you sell to them with no intention of cashing their checks.* (Well, you happily take the $75 application fee.)

The sad thing is, my kids would do very well in your fold.

They will invent stuff, cure stuff, write stuff.

They will serve their families, their communities, their country.

They will be excellent parents, citizens, mentors.

Know this, Harvard: Your abrupt dismissal of their time and talents does offer a gift, but it won't come until later.

When my students succeed wildly after having graduated with honors from Austin College or the University of Texas-Dallas or Purdue University, they'll believe they're the ones who earned it, not you.

They'll proudly donate hard-earned money from good jobs to beloved institutions of higher education that offered them opportunities they took--and shook.

Mind you, this foundation of self-worth is imperative to innovation. I'd prefer it not all be corroded during the college admissions process at the fragile age of 18.

Remember this, friends: You can get everything you need from formal education without the Ivy League sweatshirt.

Buzz off, Harvard. My students have important work to do. Your flirtations are a mere distraction.