“It’s not binding.” Margot squirms, staring intently at the table. “I might apply to a few more places regular decision. See where I get in.”
I try to imagine feeling so nonchalant about getting into my dream school. Harvard. My dream school is Harvard, not Penn.
My mom always told me: no one hands anything to a kid from a working-class neighborhood in Maryland. You have to scratch and fight your way to the top, prove you deserve a shot. She was the first in her family to go to college, ended up teaching at a really good school. She got her feet onto the first rung of the ladder so that I could climb. Dream big, Olivia, my mom always said. Keep one foot on the ground, though: dreams are useless without a practical plan of action.
So here I am at Claflin. If I’m going to prove I am worthy of the top, that means gunning for it. And Harvard is synonymous with the best. It also has, hands down, one of the most highly regarded college newspapers. Claflin Ledger, then Harvard Crimson, then the New York Times. That’s what I want. Penn is fine, but have you heard of Penn’s student paper? I didn’t think so. Harvard Crimson or bust. It is my best shot at my dream career.
But soon after I transferred to Claflin and fell in with my friends, I learned about Avery’s rule and the school quotas. One school per girl. Because friends don’t compete with each other for spots. Heck, Avery was so intense about it that none of us have the same academic strengths, hobbies, or interests. Sierra and I are an exception, both being “allowed” to row.
Why all this Machiavellian meddling? Because it’s an unspoken rule that every college has a quota. Not official, and no one can say precisely what it is. But we do know what it isn’t. Harvard isn’t going to accept four seniors from Claflin. It’s never taken more than three. Yale typically takes two. Princeton, two. And so on. Every student at your school becomes your direct competition, even your friends. So I wanted to go to Harvard, but Avery was having none of it. Avery’s school is Harvard, and she is a legacy, so I shut up about how it’s been my dream school since I was eight.
Deep down, I know why. I’m a coward. I want my friends to like me. Because it’s better to have these friends than none.
My first week at Claflin, I was unmoored. Transferring in as a sophomore, already sure social suicide, was bad enough, but I was a scholarship kid to boot. I sat in the back of Honors European History with my head down, willing myself to blend in, maybe disappear, and hoped the teacher wouldn’t make me stand up to introduce myself. But before that horror could begin, a girl sitting diagonally in front of me sniggered. “Is it true you have to work in the office as part of your scholarship? How sad.”
“Hey, Nora, stop being such a twatwaffle.” A vision appeared like a knight in shining armor. Glossy red hair, perfect skin, and designer clothes, she took the seat next to me and extended a hand. “I’m Emma. I like your top. Is that from Brandy Melville? And Doc Martens? Sweet.”
It was. And they were. I’d worked all summer shilling popcorn at my local AMC to pay for my Claflin wardrobe. This pair of boots was the most expensive thing I had ever bought, and using my own money was the only way to get what I needed to fit in. My mom thought knockoffs and remainders from T.J. Maxx were fine, but I knew this place was full of sharks. One wrong move and you were chum. I nodded, words of thanks stuck in my throat.
“So, you transferred in from public school, I heard? That’s cool. You’ll have to tell us all about it at lunch.”
And that was how I joined the Ivies. That simple. So I put up with all the rules and social hierarchy—of which I am at the bottom—because I’m flattered by their attention, because I don’t want to be tossed out on my ass, and because being their friend has its benefits, starting with helping me get to the top of the academic pecking order. My life at Claflin has inevitably been easier, better, because of the company I keep. The Ivies opened a door, and I stepped through it. So I am Penn.
But the secret quota rules don’t start and end with students deferring to each other, which few outside the Ivies do. The school itself enforces who can and can’t apply—or at least who gets a real shot at the hyperelites. Enter the superpowered college counselor.
Claflin has seven of them, a ridiculous number given the size of the student body, and we’re “randomly” assigned to a counselor in junior year. Everyone knows that if you aren’t assigned to Karen “Ivy Whisperer” Bankhead, your chances are automatically halved. Ms. Bankhead has been in the industry nearly thirty years and has all the top elites on lock—a recommendation letter from her is as good as an acceptance. She controls most of the spots at the Ivies, as well as the rest of the T20s (top twenty ranked colleges, according to U.S. News & World Report’s list). It is pure coincidence that the richest and most connected Claflin students “randomly” get Bankhead, of course. Avery, Margot, and Sierra got her.
Emma and I were stuck with a new guy, Tipton. Twenty-four, bro-y, and far too gullible, he came to Claflin this year after working at some private school in Georgia. He didn’t know the elite-school rules. He didn’t know it was his job to limit who applied where.
Which is how I was able to apply single-choice early action to Harvard.
I check my phone. It’s 12:55. In approximately four hours, I’ll find out whether Avery Montfort is going to kill me.
I turtle into my fluffy down coat and make my way across the quad to my next class as a crisp wind slams against me. Claflin’s campus is stupidly picturesque, with red-bricked Georgian buildings dotting leafy green paths, though in blustery mid-December the trees are brown and bare. I watch my feet shuffle over the gravel path edged with short, strawlike grass, and I nearly plow into a tour group smack-dab in the middle of the quad. Rebecca Ito, super student and Ivy competition ranked fourth behind Avery, Sierra, and Emma, is delivering the Claflin spiel to the throng of eager well-to-dos and their shivering offspring.
“Claflin keeps student numbers low so each student may benefit from the maximum individualized attention and resources. There are only four hundred and forty students across grades nine through twelve, with an average student-to-teacher ratio of eleven to one. Every classroom is outfitted with state-of-the-art technology, and the school focuses on conversation-based learning. Claflin students thrive, inside and outside the classroom. And an impressive average of twenty-seven percent of our senior class is admitted into the Ivy League.”
I stop short with a frown and walk around the group, grass crunching beneath my boots. A couple sporting a Birkin bag and a Rolex between them raise their brows at the Ivies statistic, and the woman thumbs through the Claflin admissions brochure with interest. It’s strange to see my friends’ model grins staring back at me from the cover. A statistic I don’t hear Rebecca parroting to the parents: while only 17 percent of the student body are students of color, notably 60 percent of the students featured on the school website and in the brochures fall under the umbrella of diversity. So Sierra, who is Black, and Margot, a Korean American, get to play cover girls.