At the college welcome for the Class of 2018, Peaches and President Cassidy (#kcass) both made a point of saying that Admissions does not make mistakes. They called out that awful thing that every Mawrtyr thinks during especially hard exams or impossible papers, “I must have been the admissions mistake.”
Maybe the sentiment didn’t resonate with the Class of 2018 (and transfers and new McBrides!), but as I looked around the room at Customsfolks and DLT and assorted other stragglers, I could tell that something had struck a pretty serious chord. Maybe it was that all of us were being validated at the same time, in a really intense way. Or, ya know, maybe it was just me, and I was projecting my epic feels out onto everyone I saw…
I remember the first time I confronted my own “THEY WERE WRONG” mindset. It was during my Customs Week, last year. The giant crop of new McB’s was heading into Erdman to eat lunch, and I stayed behind to hit the bathroom. One of the McBride Traditions Mistresses was waiting with me, and we were trying to have a conversation in all of the noise and confusion and crowding that is Erd during Customs. It was probably not the best time for me to have asked this question, but I’d been thinking about it all day, and I couldn’t hold it in.
“So…admissions requirements for McBrides are different, right?”
After two days surrounded by students who were (in my mind) better, stronger, faster, I couldn’t really understand how I got in. I was definitely the fluke. That, or they were just taking anyone. Because that makes sense.
Noa kind of laughed, but then she looked straight into my face and said, “No. Admissions for us is the same as it is for them. You’re here because you belong here.” And then the bathroom was free, and the moment was over. It wasn’t a super emotional heart-to-heart, but that answer stuck with me. I’ve been thinking about it a lot this week, as I help to usher in a new McB cohort who are all probably thinking the same things I was last year.
I’m not immune to feeling like I’m not good (or whatever) enough to be at Bryn Mawr, for sure. It comes up a lot, especially when I’m waiting for papers to come back or for grades to post. It sure does help, though, to hear from the President that we’re all supposed to be here.