Over the many years in my role as a teacher of high school mathematics, I was often asked to write letters of recommendation for students applying to college. I knew how important these letters could be, and tried my best to make them as personal as possible, to paint a picture of the individual and student in the best possible light, without exaggerating or crediting them with things they hadn’t done or attributes they didn’t possess. Most of the time the writing came easy. But there were rare instances where crafting one of these truthful letters was nearly as difficult as coming up with a fresh idea for a mystery story.
Getting accepted at the college of their choice is something that a lot of teenagers stress out about these days. Kids put a lot of pressure on themselves to get into what they perceive as the right school. Sometimes, in the process of the college search, they latch on to the idea of going to a particular school without a rational reason for doing so. Honing in on acceptance at what’s perceived as an elite school can set some kids up for a major disappointment.
Of course, some of the strain on kids can also come from external sources. There are parents out there who tend to apply pressure on their children based on their own wants and needs. We all remember the big college admissions scandal from a few years back, in 2019 when the results of a years-long investigation were made public. More than fifty people were charged by federal prosecutors with various things like felony counts of conspiracy and money laundering. The whole mess led to firings of college coaches and administrators, and even jail time for a few well-known celebrities. Some very wealthy and influential people made some bad choices in an effort to circumvent the standard college admission process. Even Netflix made a documentary about the investigation, called Operation Varsity Blues.
I first had the seed of an idea for the story “Admissions” long before the scandal broke in 2019. I was teaching at a private high school at the time, and had been asked to serve with other faculty members on the admissions committee, screening and voting on which applicants would get to join the ranks of our student body in the coming school year. That got me thinking about the whole admissions process. Not for high school, but college.
I knew some people who worked in college admissions and wondered what would happen if they were faced with an applicant with excellent credentials, but who, for some intuitive reason, they had misgivings about accepting. My idea was that they might hire a private investigator to look for something to use as a reason to reject the candidate’s application. I made notes on the idea and stuffed them into the bulging folder with all my other scribblings on stories I hoped to write someday.
Years later, in the summer of 2021, when I finally got around to starting to write the story, my original concept had changed direction. I decided the story idea might work better if the student in question had already been accepted at an elite college of her own choosing. One that her parents weren’t particularly happy about, given the exorbitant cost of matriculating there. And what if this particular student was one with less than stellar grades, mediocre recommendations, few extracurricular activities or sports experience, and little in the way of community service.
And maybe this student was more than just a little on the unscrupulous side.
To add further conflict to the story, I came up with the idea that the director of admissions had insisted on her acceptance, despite the serious misgivings of the admissions committee and the assistant director.
With all that in place, the story “Admissions” was off and running, with P.I. Pete Barrow being hired by an old friend now the assistant director of admissions to find out why his boss was so insistent on accepting such an undeserving applicant.
Trace Evidence 