The Neurotic Parent

Before the men met up with me in New York, to conteract all the high-testosterone activities to come, I spent a girly day with my sister – manicure, pedicure, haircut, street fair. 

And that evening I had a fabulous dinner near Grand Central with my two of my best friends from high school. (One of my dinner companions traveled in from Pound Ridge for the occasion.)  We went to Avra, a Greek seafood restaurant, where you can sit outside on a patio on a balmy night and dream about summering in Santorini, if your family ever outgrows baseball vacations.  You can also select your own fresh catch, in our case a delicious lavraki (branzino).  The New York Times gave the place a star, and called it “a blind date with a fish”.

My friends are past the neurotic prospective parent phase – Their children have already graduated from college.  They both suggested that it might be more worthwhile to agonize over job placement than college admissions.  (One has a daughter who graduated from Barnard a year ago and still doesn’t know what she wants to be…though she does have a well-written blog.)

We discussed how different “the process” had been when we were in high school – we couldn’t remember owning college guide books, writing essays for our apps or even having guidance counselors.

But we did remember our SAT Prep.  Two of us had met during an evening class in a funky office above a pizza place.  Although we had attended different high schools, we went on to become lifelong friends.  And our teacher was destined for greatness: We were tutored by the pioneer and guru of standardized test preparation, Stanley H. Kaplan.  When asked what the “H” stood for, he would say “Higher Scores”.

All I could remember about the historic course was that Stanley H. had to stop speaking whenever the subway came because the whole office rattled.  And I can recall him telling us, “If you girls would just shut up and listen, you’ll get a 1600!” 

My friend had a stronger recollection.  She said Mr. Kaplan had taught us a mnemonic to remember a trigonometry formula – “Boo Boo, Square Root of Two”.   She could not identify the formula, so she called her brother-in-law, a successful dentist with a great memory.  He too had never forgotten the phrase, but could not conjure up what it was supposed to help one remember – perhaps something related to a hypotenuse?

On to Google.  All I could find on the entire information highway was a 2001 New Yorker piece about Mr. Kaplan, which I vaguely recall reading seven years ago.  Fascinating stuff about the origins and sociology of standardized testing.

And sure enough, a “Boo, Boo, Boo” reference (It turns out there were three “boos”, which could lead you astray during an exam, if you had memorized just “Boo Boo”):

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2001/12/17/011217crat_atlarge?currentPage=all

Kaplan once determined that the testmakers were fond of geometric problems involving the Pythagorean theorem. So an entire generation of Kaplan students were taught “boo, boo, boo, square root of two,” to help them remember how the Pythagorean formula applies to an isosceles right triangle.”

A nod to the past, but alas, no explanation.   Will we ever find out what exactly “Boo, boo, boo” stood for?  It might be worth an e-mail to Stanley H.

We are in Cleveland on the final leg of our “vacation”, which has included six states, five ballparks, four colleges, three museums, two countries and one Wonder of the World. 

I am anxious to write about baseball, family bonding, and of course, to describe our two college drive-throughs. 

But first I must disclose that CJ is no longer traveling with us. 

Two days ago he received a text from a friend asking if he planned on attending a giant camp reunion scheduled for tonight in Malibu.  A creature of habit, he had attended the same camp for eight summers, starting when he was eight and culminating with a leadership program two years ago.  His lifelong friends and counselors, who somehow had received advance notice of this gathering, would be flying in from all over the country to attend.  

CJ asked (nicely) if he could go home a day early, even though the Indians are his favorite team (he was brainwashed at an early age by an old babysitter’s boyfriend).  He’s an upbeat kid who never whines or sulks, but he did seem terribly unhappy to miss the evening.  He said he would pay a change fee and basically be our slave for the rest of the summer if we let him fly back to LA a day early. 

As a neurotic parent, I assumed it was my fault that he had not heard about the reunion.  I probably had received something in the mail a month ago that remained unopened at the bottom of a pile of college brochures.  (But I have since found out that no adult has laid eyes on a formal invitation to the event.)

So, feeling guilty, we caved and allowed CJ to fly home from Detroit this morning without us.  He is now sitting around a campfire 2500 miles away.  And the rest of us are recovering from an iconic American vacation day (3.5 hours of driving, 3.5 hours at the Rock & Roll Hall of fame, 3.5 hours of baseball). 

Three of us playing cards in a hotel room: Is this a foreshadowing of what family life will be when CJ heads off to college?

CONTINUED FROM YESTERDAY

I sat in the front row of the Penn information session, pondering the inspirational Ben Franklin quotes on the wall.  The charismatic admissions dean explained the university’s commitment to both the theoretical and the practical.  He pointed out the many accomplishments of Penn students, including the recent success of a boy at Wharton who had invented ecological detergent pellets called Dropps, a sensation in the world of laundry.

But I could barely concentrate because of the presence of a large group of a world-reknowned boarding school students – 44 kids from the Minjok Leadership Academy of Korea, all copiously taking notes in English.  Their school had been featured on the front page of the New York Times (and also in this blog).  Minjok students achieve average SAT scores of over 2200 – even higher than top American prep schools like Andover and Exeter. Their secret? 15 hours a of study a day, no dating, and tongue lashes from their parents if they score below 100% on quizzes. 

The group was well behaved (although I did see a few yawns and squirms), but could use some leadership training in the world of fashion.  The boys, in head-to-toe light grey or brown polyester uniforms, looked as if they were wearing vintage Jetsons Halloween costumes. The girls wore collarless shirts with brass buttoms tucked into floor-length dirndl skirts, worn over baggy pants with bows at the ankles – like a Sound of Music-themed Project Runway challenge gone awry.

When the information session ended, we were split into groups.  We followed our enthusiastic dual-major tour guide, and the Minjok students headed off in the opposite direction.  But then we caught up with the group at the athletic field, where I struck up a conversation with one of their chaparones.

I told the chaperone (who was dressed in Lacoste and khakis) that I had read about Minjok in the New York Times and had even blogged about it.  It soon became obvious that he didn’t understand a word I was saying, so I let him do the talking.  The group, he said, was on an American summer college tour for freshmen. This seemed a bit extreme to me, until I realized we had dragged our younger son, a rising freshman, along.  (Brown’16 seemed reasonably happy, even inspired, during the info session, but later told us he was smiling because he was silently quizzing himself about baseball statistics.) 

“So,” I asked the Minjok chaparone, “How many kids are you sending to Penn in the fall?”

“Seven,” he answered proudly.

“If our son attended your school would that help his chances for college?” I asked.

“Thank you very much,” he responded. 

—-

After the tour, we headed to Pat’s for cheese steak (adults were underwhelmed, kids were in heaven).  Then we visited the Liberty Bell and the interactive National Constitution Center, which must have been designed by Penn students because it brilliantly integrates the theoretical and the practical, bringing history to life. (I had never seen my kids more enthusiastic about a museum until today, when we visited the Baseball Hall of Fame). 

We arrived back in New York in plenty of time to watch the Mets game – thankfully on television. 

And CJ, satisfied with the day although it had not included a live baseball game, seemed unfazed that the students of the Korean Minjok Leadership Academy have a better chance of getting into Penn than he does – unless he can come up with an improved laundry pellet by the end of the summer.