Hacking Harvard

by Robin Wasserman

  "Give me one good reason," Max demanded.

  I lied to her, Eric thought. I'm still lying.

  "She's obsessed with rules," he said aloud. "She's a total control freak. Everything has to be exactly the way she wants it to be. Everything has to be safe. And I--"

  "Yeah, you're danger boy," Max said sarcastically.

  "I happen to believe that disorder is good for the soul."

  Schwarz lurched forward so abruptly, he nearly spilled his champagne. "It is like the two laws of thermodynamics!" he blurted. "She is conservation of energy, orderly systems, productivity. And you are entropy. Disorder. Chaos. Two opposing forces that seem contradictory--but fit together perfectly to govern the universe as we know it."

  "Geeky but freakishly brilliant, Professor," Max said approvingly. "Just like you. That's it, Eric. Order and chaos. It's not destiny, it's science: You two are meant to be."

  But Eric wasn't listening. He was in another place, another time, shivering on a street corner in Kendall Square, babbling about the laws of thermodynamics while steeling himself to ask the almost- pretty control freak on a date.

  And he was reminding himself of all the reasons that he couldn't-- shouldn't--ask her on another one.

  235

  "You still with us, Eric?" Max asked. "Are you . . . it's not possible . . . blushing?" He slapped hands with Schwarz. "We have definitely achieved blushing!"

  "Drop it!" Eric said, trying to shake himself out of the memory. He raised a glass of Champagne, trying to ignore the fact that his cheeks were warm. "One minute to midnight. Resolutions, boys?"

  Max shook his head. "Screw resolutions. We've got everything we need right here. Why change anything? Instead, a toast." He raised his glass. "To winning."

  "To winning." Eric clinked his plastic glass against theirs and downed the cheap Champagne in a single gulp. He had to stop thinking about the past, about all the ifs and maybes and mighthave-beens. He still had his best friends; he still had the hack. Soon, if all went well, he would have one third of twenty-five thousand dollars. He would have his principles; he would have his victory.

  Maybe, once he had all that, he would no longer need to have the girl.

  236

  237

  238

  February 3

  THE INTERVIEW

  Objective: Complete personality overhaul

  March 10 ADMISSIONS COMMITTEE DELIBERATIONS

  Objective: Surveillance, precautionary measures

  239

  February 3 * THE INTERVIEW

  Objective: G- xaal

  Don't do anything during an interview that you wouldn't do at a dinner party. Or in front of your grandmother.

  --former admissions officer Lloyd Peterson, The New Rules of College Admissions

  Eric held out for as long as he could. Clay couldn't get through five lines of the script without stuttering, cursing, or stringing together a chain of nonsense syllables in the dim hope of stumbling upon an actual word. Still, rehearsals continued, while Max badgered Eric daily to go to plan B, wire Clay for sound, and talk him through the interview minute-by-minute. Eric wasn't sure why he was hesitating, or why it seemed so important that they let Clay fend for himself.

  "This is psychotic," Max complained, the day before the interview. "We can't take this kind of risk." He shot a glance at Schwarz, who was across the room, immersed in some kind of algebraic morass. Max lowered his voice. "You know what's at stake."

  240

  "You don't have to remind me," Eric said. "But you agreed: This one's my call."

  "Then make the call, Eric. If you really believe you're right, if you believe Clay's up to this, then great. Let's do it. But you're the one who's been drilling him. And you're the one who's been calling him a moron all year. So you know if he can handle it--and if he can't. You make the call you have to make."

  According to Eric's calculations, in the history of his life, he had almost never been wrong. He had a complete faith in his ability to make the right choices. But having faith in other people--especially certain other people who'd never lived up to any expectation except the expectation of failure? That was something else.

  "If you really believe you're right," Max had said. "If you believe Clay's up to this ..."

  But those were two separate questions. They were opposing teams, facing off on a mental battlefield.

  Believing I'm right--that's the easy part, Eric thought. But how am I supposed to believe in him?

  Thirty-two percent of successful applicants since 2002 listed their favorite color as green.

  Twenty-three percent claimed their favorite book was The Catcher in the Rye, while 17 percent preferred The Great Gatsby. According to their confidential roommate surveys, 41 percent were "morning people," 33 percent were "very neat," while 15 percent were "slobs," 63 percent listened to top-40 music, 31 percent to hip-hop, 7 percent to jazz, 29 percent to classical, and 11 percent to Broadway showtunes.

  The list went on, some of the qualities relevant, some not, with

  241

  no way of telling the difference . . . not unless you had access to several years' worth of surveys and a computer program able to sift through the data and spit out a graphic interpretation of relevant patterns along with a magic formula for success in less than twenty seconds of number-crunching.

  Like Max did.

  Then, of course, there were the personal factors. Under normal circumstances, applicants were randomly assigned to their interviewers. But there was nothing random about Schwarz's carefully engineered circumstances. As the admissions office's most trusted employee, Schwatz needed only a couple of minutes to gain access to the system that matched up interviewer and interviewee--after that, it was only a matter of a few keystrokes and Clay was guaranteed an interview with one Samuel Atherton III. Of course, most applicants would have no way of knowing that Atherton preferred blue ties to red, sports coats to blazers, and kayaks to canoes. The average applicant wouldn't know anything about Samuel Atherton III's passion for fly-fishing, his secret love of Dilbert comics and Big Brother, or the fact that six nights a month, he rendezvoused with a freshman dean in the empty administrative building, locked the door, and emerged two hours later, his hair and suit rumpled, a wide smile on his face. Not that details like that need come up in the interview.

  But it would certainly be useful to know that Atherton's favorite poem was Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"--that, in fact, he was prone to quoting lines for interviewees ("I grow old ... I grow old ... I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled .. ."). He would wait for the dazed applicant to realize that he was quoting a poem and not just having a premature senior moment, and then challenge him

  242

  or her to identify the poet. It wasn't the answer he cared about; it was the reaction. He loved to see how his interviewees stood up under pressure, how they acted when confronting a situation they didn't expect. Atherton loved surprises. Most applicants didn't.

  Most applicants, on the other hand, hadn't spent two months watching Samuel Atherton in his home and office, pawing through his garbage and listening in on his phone calls until they were able to construct a detailed plan of what to wear, what to say, and what to do, from start to finish, from hairstyle to brand of shoelaces, each detail carefully chosen to suit Samuel Atherton's hidden whims. They would even satisfy his desire for the unexpected, allowing Clay to act caught off-guard for a moment by the out-of-left-field stress questions. But it would all be for show.

  Surprise wasn't part of the plan.

  "Looking good," Max said into the mic. From where he was sitting, just beneath Atherton's living room window, he had a perfect view of Clay in the doorway, decked out in impeccable "arty-intellectual" gear: tweed blazer, khaki pants, perfectly scuffed loafers, orange socks, funky thick- rimmed glasses, hair neatly trimmed and just slightly spiky on top, and, beneath the jacket, a black T-shirt with a bright blue lightning bolt slicing across the front. They'd argued
about the shirt, Max claiming it was the perfect idiosyncratic artist's touch, Schwarz, the self-proclaimed Atherton expert, concerned that it was too risque for the conservative admissions officer. Eric, uncharacteristically, had offered no opinion.

  In the end, Clay himself cast the deciding vote, warning them that, six hundred dollars or not, if they forced him to wear a button- down shirt and tie, he couldn't be held responsible for his actions.

  243

  They went with the T-shirt.

  "Shake his hand firmly, but not too firmly," Max advised. "Don't forget to look him in the eye and smile."

  "He can handle the handshake," Eric said. "I spent a week training him."

  "We're not leaving anything to chance," Max whispered, pressing his hand over the mic. "This is too important."

  Eric let it go. The interview wasn't his operation anymore. He'd given up--given in--and let Max take over. Eric, as usual, had supplied the equipment. But Max was running the show.

  "Okay, follow him into the living room," Max said into the mic. "No, don't sit on the couch, it's a trick! He wants you to sit on the chair--good. Okay, good. Legs crossed at the ankles, right. Good. No-- no, you don't want anything to drink! Trick question. Thanks but no thanks, then cue the charming smile. Look relaxed. Good. Very good."

  "So, Clay, tell me a little about yourself," Atherton said, his voice deafly audible to the three aspiring Cyranos huddled in the bushes.

  Clay--smoothly parroting the words Max whispered in his ear-- described his passion for his studies and his art.

  "And how about for fun?" Atherton asked. "Any hobbies?"

  "I'm a runner and an amateur chef. But what I really love is fly fishing."

  "Really!" Atherton exclaimed. "How remarkable. That's quite a passion of mine--but you don't find too many students around here who know anything about it."

  "Oh, I've been doing it since I was a kid," Max said, looking down at his notes. Clay repeated it word for word. "Do you use a split-cane bamboo rod or synthetic?"

  244

  Atherton leaned forward eagerly. "I usually prefer the natural wood--carbon-graphite performs better, but there's just something about the natural wood. ..."

  "I know what you mean," Clay said, nodding. "It makes the whole endeavor into less of a sport, more of an--"

  "Art!" Atherton finished with him. "That's just how I've always felt. Tell me, how do you feel about the manually operated fly reels?"

  Max let the fly-fishing talk continue for ten minutes--he was waiting for the perfect opening. It finally arrived.

  "There's just something so calming about the water," Atherton said, staring off into the distance. "I can lose myself in it for hours."

  "I know what you mean," Clay said, and Max instructed him to furrow his brow. "It always makes me feel like J. Alfred Prufrock, contemplating my life--you know, 'I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.'"

  Atherton looked at him in surprise, almost shock, and for a moment, Max, Eric, and Schwarz held their collective breath, wondering if they'd gone a step too far.

  Then Atherton shook his head. "That's it exactly. I've just never heard it put so well before by someone your age. Remarkable."

  The foreplay having gone better than expected, they settled in for the main event.

  "Tell me, Clay, why do you want to go to Harvard?"

  They'd battled over the answer for days, distilling an ideal response from hours of subpar interviews, searching for the magic words that

  would unlock the ivy gates. Max took a deep breath and began.

  "I really believe that beneath the hype, Harvard has--" He

  245

  stopped abruptly, realizing that Clay wasn't following his lead. Wasn't, in fact, speaking at all, but was just staring dumbly at Atherton, like an actor waiting for his cue. "I really believe that beneath the hype," Max said louder, and still, Clay didn't respond. "Scratch your nose if you can hear me." Nothing. "Clay? Clay!"

  Max turned away from the window to meet Eric's panicked expression. "What the hell is going on?" he asked, fury bubbling beneath his words. "Tell me this isn't happening again."

  "This can't be happening again," Eric said, checking all the equipment, tightening connections, spinning dials, and refused to look Max in the eye. "But. . ."

  "The feed is down?" Schwarz asked. "Again?"

  "This isn't us," Eric said frantically. "There's got to be some kind of interference--everything's working fine."

  "Except for the fact that he can't hear us, and we can't hear him, and we're totally fucking screwed!" Max yelled.

  "Shhhh!" Schwarz hissed.

  "What's the difference?" Max rubbed his hands across his face. Its over.

  "Maybe not," Schwarz said hopefully. "You rehearsed all month, right? Maybe Clay knows what he's supposed to say. Maybe he does not need us."

  Max snorted in disgust.

  Eric sighed. "Yeah. Maybe."

  They watched in horror as Clay stared blankly at Atherton, then, after a moment, looked to the window, once, twice, then back at Atherton. They watched him open his mouth, then close it, then open it again. They didn't need lip-reading ability to know that, so

  246

  far, the response had been something like, "Uh . . . uh."

  "I can't watch this," Max said. "I'm going to--" But he slipped away before finishing the thought.

  "What now?" Schwarz asked.

  "He exposes himself as a fraud, breaks down under pressure, tells Atherton about us, and we're all screwed?" Eric said.

  "I could go ring the doorbell."

  "And say what?"

  "Something--maybe I am Clay's brother, and there is a family emergency?"

  Eric nodded. "It could work. We could just call him--but shit, his cell phone's off."

  "We could call Atherton," Schwarz said. He pulled out his phone. "We know the number, and--"

  Eric grabbed his arm. "What's he doing?"

  Schwarz leaned closer to the window. His mouth dropped open. "That cannot be--"

  But it was.

  Clay had dug something out of his pocket and was leaning forward to hand it to Atherton. It was thin, white, vaguely tube-shaped, and Clay had one of his own.

  "It's a cigarette," Eric moaned, trying to persuade himself. "Just a cigarette." But he couldn't quite force himself to believe it.

  Their frantic plans forgotten, they just sat and stared. Max had the right idea running away, Eric thought. At least he wouldn't have to watch his dreams literally turning to ashes.

  Atherton held the slim white-- cigarette, Eric thought furiously, just a cigarette-- beneath his nose, closed his eyes, and inhaled deeply.

  247

  Clay held his up for display, the tip dancing as he waved his hand around, illustrating whatever disastrous point his was making.

  And then, without, warning, the audio kicked back in.

  "I let it, like, burn down all the way, right?" Clay was saying, holding the blunt between his thumb and index finget. "And then I glue it to the canvas with this paste stuff, and you can, like, still smell the pot, right? And the whole rest of the canvas is white--like, pure white. So with the joint in the middle, it's like, it's this statement on drugs and sh--stuff like that. Like the joint burned away everything else, and all you've got is blankness. And there was a spark, but now it's burned out, and the whole thing is dead--except that the canvas is white, not black, right? So maybe it's not a death kind of blankness, maybe it's birth. The blank slate, you know? Everything starting, everything open. Because it all starts with fire. But it could go both ways. So there's not just this one statement, there's like, all these levels of statements, just like there's all these levels when you look at the painting, you know? Because you can see it, but you can also smell it, and it's like, telling you all different things at the same time. So, uh. Yeah. That's what I'm working on now."

  "What is he talking about?" Schwarz whispered
. "Did you write that? Is he back on the script?"

  Eric shook his head, confused. "No, that was Clay. That was all Clay."

  "See, it's not just that's it's a good school and you've got all those good classes and sh--other things," Clay continued. He slid the . . . things back into his pocket, unlit. Unsmoked. Just props in the Clay Porter show--for which Clay was writing his own script. "It's like, I've got all this stuff to say, right? And that's what I'm trying to do

  248

  with my, uh, art. Say what I want to say. And that's hard, because, it never comes out right. And high school, it's like, all about what other people want to say, and what they want you to say. They just tell you what to think, and you've got to, like spit it back at them or they kick you out. But I think, maybe, college is different--like, if I go to Harvard, it won't be about what other people want me to say. It'll be about what I want to say. Maybe that's what they're there for. To, like, help people get it out--the shit they need to say. Or paint. Or whatever. You know?"

  Schwarz gaped at Eric, his mouth open. "He came up with all that? Himself? Did you know he could do that?"

  I knew he couldn't do it, Eric thought. I was so sure.

  Instead of answering, he hunched back over the equipment, searching for a loose wire. "I don't get it. Why's it suddenly working again?"

  "Does it matter? It seems Clay does not need us." Schwarz poked his head out from under the bush, scanning the lawn. "Where do you think Max went?"

  "It didn't just break and then unbreak," Eric muttered. "There's got to be a reason."

  "My computer breaks and unbreaks all the time. That is the way machines are."

  Eric shook his head. "Not my machines."

  "It didn't break. At least, not by itself." Max had snuck up behind them.

  And he wasn't alone.