"It isn't that hard to get into."

A friend pointed me to this article in the June 26th issue of the New Yorker.  David Sedaris (a brilliant author) contributed an article about his days at Princeton. 

Now, over the past few years, several people unfamiliar with the connection (or lack thereof) between the Seminary and the University, have been awed by my attending Prrrrrrinceton.  It's always kind of awkward, because you know I want to tilt my head and smile a little and play along, and say, just as Sedaris says, "It isn't that hard to get into." 

But here's the deal.  I do go to Princeton.  But.  I go to the Seminary.  Not to the University.  I'm really okay with that.  And besides, it isn't that hard to get into...and, it really isn't that great of a school.

Read my favorite part of the article below...

One of the things they did back then was start you off with a modesty seminar, an eight-hour session that all the freshmen had to sit through. It might be different today, but in my time it took the form of a role-playing exercise, my classmates and I pretending to be graduates, and the teacher assuming the part of an average citizen: the soldier, the bloodletter, the whore with a heart of gold.

“Tell me, young man. Did you attend a university of higher learning?”

To anyone holding a tool or a weapon, we were trained to respond, “What? Me go to college?” If, on the other hand, the character held a degree, you were allowed to say, “Sort of,” or, sometimes, “I think so.”

“So where do you sort of think you went?”

And it was the next bit that you had to get just right. Inflection was everything, and it took the foreign students forever to master it.

“Where do you sort of think you went?”

And we’d say, “Umm, Princeton?”—as if it were an oral exam, and we weren’t quite sure that this was the correct answer.

“Princeton, my goodness,” the teacher would say. “That must have been quite something!”

You had to let him get it out, but once he started in on how brilliant and committed you must be it was time to hold up your hands, saying, “Oh, it isn’t that hard to get into.”

Then he’d say, “Really? But I heard—”

“Wrong,” you’d tell him. “You heard wrong. It’s not that great of a school.”

WHAT I LEARNED      

And what I said at Princeton.

by DAVID SEDARIS
The New Yorker

Issue of 2006-06-26
Posted 2006-06-19

                                                                     

Comments

[- kp -]

Ahem. New Yorker. Yeah.

(And it was indeed a laugh of a read.)

[Josh]

Thanks, kp. My bad. ;)

[nicole]

It really isn’t that hard to get into. In the recent months I have had a revelation- it is harder to get a job than to get into seminary. Case in point- I filled out three applications to get into seminary and I got three acceptance letters. I have filed out literally 50 job applications, which resulted in one part time job. So when people say "Wow, Prrrrinceton" I will look back with greater amazement and respect saying "Wow, real job." So if you don’t have a job, just go to seminary.

ps Good to see you have started blogging again Josh.