lolaraincoat | Our work and why we do it

I'm sitting here surrounded by towering stacks of admissions files to a graduate program, which are more than a bit daunting, and so I cruise the internet for solace and distraction, and this is what appeared today:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/20/us/20mobility.html?em&ex=1203656400&en=fd81d8756f45e5a5&ei=5087%0A

I always look for the phrase "first member of her/his family to attend university" in letters of recommendation; those are the students I most want to admit and to fund. It's good to have a little empirical research out there as a reminder of why that matters.

And so anyhow:

Writers of letters of recommendation! Teachers and tutors and librarians and university staff and principals and deans and department chairs and committee members and high school staff and teaching assistants and teachers' aides and Montessori teachers everywhere! Crossing guards and school-bus drivers! Politicians who don't cut school budgets! What you do counts for something! It counts for so much! Thank you so much!

And now I'll get back to reading the files, all right? All right then.

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