College results season baggage

May we all find trusted advocates to illuminate the way forward

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Something 100% out of my control activates my baggage like clockwork this time of year: Announcements about college acceptances, and sometimes—for the brave—rejections.

To clarify, I want every kid who decides that college is their path to find their place to thrive. I would love to not care about where kids get into college. And yet, because the system is broken and favors those with privilege—especially those with a shit ton of privilege—it’s difficult for me not to get worked up.

It’s also worth noting that I grew up in an achievement-oriented culture where I was labeled, by quantitative standards, a loser. 

Which means that even though I am a grown ass adult, years of being told I was a loser created deep wounds and this particular topic picks at the scabs of a younger Christine.

I am working on it. Trust me, I would love to be free of it. I just want kids to not be judged for results based on a broken system.

I wrote about my perspective on college applications last year for Boston Globe Magazine (College rejection season doesn’t have to hurt this much) and there are two key pieces of advice that I issue on repeat to other parents wading through the emotional ringer this time of year. First, there are many places a kid can thrive and be happy. And second, acceptances or rejections are not indicative of a kid’s worth.

I want to add a third piece of advice: There will be other crossroads in your kid’s life, and if they have the gift of a trusted advocate who cares—first and foremost—about your kid as a human being vs. a commodity or reflection of the adult’s success, that is everything.

The importance of trusted adults, by the way, is confirmed by actual science, which I have the gift of knowing about through work I have done over the past five years with truly amazing people at the American Academy of Pediatrics and CDC National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. 

With the exception of a brief meeting with my high school guidance counselor, I didn’t have anyone in my corner when I applied to college. This counselor didn’t know me at all so all she could do was look at my dismal transcript and board scores and suggest some schools that might accept a C/D student. 

I didn’t put much stock in her recommendations since we didn’t have a relationship and proceeded with my overreaching applications and was rejected almost everywhere.

Based on the strength of my essay—I know this because of the handwritten note to this effect—an admissions officer at Wheaton College took a gamble on me. I knew little about the school, other than the fact that it fit my criteria of being out of the 617 area code and also, my best friend’s mother was an alum and suggested I might like it.

What a fortuitous moment.

At Wheaton I connected with several faculty and staff members in whom I found trust and deep, extraordinary care; people who became fierce and tireless advocates for me even when I was too clueless to understand what was happening.

In the spring of my senior year of college, I was at a crossroad. During the previous winter, my path seemed clear following graduation. I was fired up about the field of music perception and pedagogy (the focus of my senior independent project) and had applied to 8 or 9 graduate programs. My dream was to earn a Ph.D. and return to teach alongside my mentors at Wheaton.

In contrast to my college applications, for graduate school, I felt confident. I had a strong and interesting college resume (Dean’s List, eventual magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa graduate, solo violinist, editor in chief of the college newspaper, White House intern, etc.) and solid GRE scores. However, I lacked an understanding about how graduate school is all about matching to an advisor in your lane of research interest.

Instead, I made comical decisions such as applying to Emory University because I thought going to school in Atlanta sounded novel and smart. And also, because I liked their elegant uppercase serif font.

I wish I was kidding about that, but I am still that same person today. I have been known to leave a restaurant if the menu font sucks.

Anyway, due to that not great application strategy and the reality that I also didn’t have hard lab experience, I got rejected everywhere.

It stung. 

But I am nothing if not a person who hits a roadblock and thinks, “Well OK, what’s next?”

So that spring I thought about trying to find work in a lab or switching gears entirely to look for work at a newspaper. Being a staff writer then editor for The Wheaton Wire was a formative part of my college experience and it felt like maybe I could make a go of writing.

LOL.

Graduation was fast approaching and jobs were scarce. And so I worked that summer as a temp at the Harvard AIDS Institute in Cambridge. 

One day that summer, one of my Wheaton mentors—the late Derek Price—called to tell me he had received an email from a friend at Brandeis University who knew of an opening for a lab manager and research assistant in the psychology department. Derek suggested that if I was still interested in pursuing academia, this job (plus a better application search) was what I needed for graduate school. 

He said it was of course up to me but that he just wanted to let me know.

No judgment, no pressure.

I ended up applying for, interviewing, and landing that job. I spent the next three years gaining lab experience while also pursuing a Master’s part-time, because at that time as a full-time employee I was able to earn this degree for free, save paying taxes on what the tuition would have cost.

When I applied for graduate school the second time around, I got in everywhere, including the epitome of achievement for Korean immigrants: the Ivy League. More than one, even.

I toured around to visit my top prospects and at one of the Ivy League options I was pulled aside during the lab tours and social hour by different faculty members, who asked if I was a flexible person. They each wondered whether I would, say, be willing to switch to study visual perception or some other field if things didn’t work out with my advisor.

What?!

Apparently the person I applied to work with was amazing on paper and a nightmare when it came to advising students.

I felt confused and conflicted. The red flags thrown in my face pointed to HARD NO. And yet, my upbringing had drilled into my head that the Ivy League was the mother land; that I would be a fucking idiot to pass it up.

My Dad told me not to be a fucking idiot.

My advisor at Brandeis, who was a lovely, generous person and very much entrenched in the academic pedigree belief system, was more genteel and said I needed to go to an Ivy League school to develop my pedigree; that it couldn’t possibly be as bad as people said.

And then I called Derek Price.

I can still hear his voice. He had a smooth tone with just a hint of gravel that created a rich, soothing vocal timbre. His countenance was warm and gentle, yet smart and direct.

In that moment his voice took on an urgent tone I had never heard before. He said he understood how tempting the opportunity was, but issued caution; that a Ph.D. advisor dictates your life experience and wellness as a graduate student and can thus dictate your happiness (or misery). He reiterated what a major red flag it was to have other faculty members break the colleague code with their warnings.

After we hung up the phone, I took a deep breath, grimaced, and made my choice.

My Dad didn’t speak to me for three months. He only came around when I stumbled upon and showed him an article that referred to my ultimate choice—Queen’s University—as the Harvard of the north.

I went on to have a fulfilling experience at Queen’s, designing an experimental series about which I was truly excited and applying for and earning a prestigious pre-doctoral fellowship from the National Institutes of Health to fund my doctoral research.

Derek saved me at that graduate school decision crossroad.

Derek died two years ago this week. Though I kept in touch with him in the years following graduation—sending Christmas cards and seeing him on campus when I was an active Wheaton volunteer—I had lost touch in recent years. When I learned about his passing while paging through the Wheaton Quarterly I broke down and wept in the middle of the living room amidst my family, brimming with regret. 

Had I ever articulated how much I valued him as a person and a mentor? 

Had I ever thanked him for his honest sauce when I tried to draft my first journal submission on my senior independent project and it sucked?

Had I ever told him how he met me at two major crossroads and was there for me—Christine Koh human being vs. Christine Koh academic legacy commodity?

Had I ever thanked him for showing up for me at every turn—office hours, violin recitals, academic festival presentations, career consultation, my wedding?

Reflecting back on that moment of grief and regret serves up a good reminder to meet me at this particular moment. While I am doing the work to let go of my baggage—to trust and hope that kids will be met with love not judgment at this pressure packed time of year—I want to keep remembering the gift that is showing up to support another person for who they are, not what you want them to be.

And to say thank you, always.

Derek Price is pictured behind me to the left, amidst the Wheaton family who attended my wedding (L to R): Lorna and Carlton Russell (Carlton was my music department advisor and professor and performed our wedding ceremony), the late Grace Baron (a formative psychology mentor who advised me on my senior project), friends Jonathan Crane and Heidi Milne, Sue Alexander (former Dean of Students who was an anchor in the storm for me at many moments, including making financial magic happen so I could accept a position as a White House intern), Ann Sears (one of my music professors who encouraged me towards boldness and confidence and consoled me every time my violin teacher ripped into me), and friend Kathy Orlando.