Chapter 4

Soon enough, the GRE score deadline arrived. Applicants were scrambling to get their scores in before the deadline.

Meanwhile, everyone else in my class was completely unconcerned. Not one of the other 45 students had even taken the GRE.

Instead, they celebrated in the class group chat.

Kendra: [People are seriously freaking out over GRE scores right now. Meanwhile, I'm lying in bed gaming. This is the life!]

Preston: [Everyone, relax and get some sleep. Novi just confirmed again that our GRE waivers are approved and our spots are secured. All we have to do is wait for our interview invitations in March!]

Carly: [Preston is the best! I just saw Anders leave with his backpack. Guess he's still wasting his time studying. I'm dying.]

I had indeed left with my backpack.

But I wasn't studying for the GRE. I was going to my advisor's office to help organize materials for a federally funded research project I'd be working on the following semester.

I looked over the screenshots I'd taken from their class group chat using an alternate account and shook my head.

Time flew as the entire class partied their lives away, and before long, March of the following year arrived. Spring was in the air.

By March, graduate programs across the country were deep into admissions season. Applicants who'd made it through the initial screening were receiving invitations for interviews and other final-round assessments.

That spring, the 45 self-proclaimed future grad students in my class reached the height of their excitement.

To prepare for the admissions interviews they were convinced had been guaranteed, Preston organized a group trip downtown, where everyone ordered cheap, poorly made black suits.

The guys wore crooked ties, while the girls paired tight skirts with high heels. Every day, the whole group gathered outside the dorms, taking endless selfies and posting them online, showing off as if they were already part of the academic elite.

Kendra: [Hawthorne interview tomorrow! The second I put on this suit, I feel like I'm already some Wall Street executive making seven figures a year. [Sunglasses]]

Preston: [Novi has already taken care of everything for us. Tomorrow's interview is just a formality, so everyone can relax and chat. Don't be nervous!]

Carly: [Thank you, Preston, for taking me to the next level! After our interviews tomorrow, our whole class is booking out a five-star hotel to celebrate!]

Everyone else in our year stared at them like they'd lost their minds. They all knew none of the 45 had even taken the GRE, yet somehow they were convinced they had interviews waiting for them.

Our academic advisor had tried talking to Kendra and Preston once, asking what exactly they thought they were doing. Kendra had simply shot back, "You wouldn't understand. These are connections way above your level."

The advisor stormed out, furious, and refused to have anything to do with the entire group.

As for me, that same afternoon, while they were frantically trying on their suits, I calmly signed for the formal acceptance package from Hawthorne University's graduate program. Hawthorne's distinguished crest was embossed in gold on the cover.

I took a photo of the letter and sent it to my parents back home, then carefully locked it away in my drawer.

Early the next morning, all 45 of my classmates piled onto a chartered bus in their cheap suits that made them look like a bunch of real estate agents and headed straight for Hawthorne University.

I asked Emily Wren, someone I knew who was already in grad school at Hawthorne, to video call me. I wasn't about to miss the show.