Meaningless Snapshots: Caltech

HBO showed "Accepted" today, a mediocre, predictable genre comedy starring the inexplicably successful Justin Long. I didn't watch the whole thing because it was too boring, but nonetheless, the movie sparked some memories of my own college decision process.

My most memorable campus trip was to the California Institute of Technology, or, of course, Caltech. Without directly offending anyone who went to there, let's just say that at age 17 (or really, any age where I have been alive), I was not particularly excited at the prospect of attending the school. My dad insisted I at least apply, and despite submitting an essay entirely about sports trivia (I must have mentioned Jamal Mashburn like 4 times), I wound up getting in.

So, against my better instincts, I went to the prefrosh weekend. The campus is, at is was then, approximately 30% female, and that 30% is perhaps better known for mental aptitude than, say, other characteristics. Curiously, I met or saw at least 3 cute girls that weekend. To this day, I am convinced Caltech hired them for the weekend to pose as potential students.

During the day, I struck up a conversation with a sophomore girl.

"You're a prefrosh?"
"Yeah", I replied. "How do you like it here?"

"Oh, you know, it's good, I'm glad I came here", she replied, almost convincingly.
"What's your major?"
"Biology - I'm a premed." This provoked some surprise from me - Caltech is notoriously difficult with grades, and premeds are of course notoriously obsessive about them.
"Oh, wow - that's cool that you would be a premed at Caltech", I said, completely failing to grasp where this conversation was soon headed.
"Yeah, I mean, you know, I know that grades are tougher here, but you know, I think...I think medical schools will...I mean, I hope they will understand that...that it's different here...and just because I have...I have a C doesn't...it doesn't mean that..."

Her voice was quivering, and I raised my palms and started mumbling, "hey hey it's okay it's okay". That didn't really do the trick though - a moment later she was flat out bawling in front of me. As I, a helpless 17 year old, stood there stunned, this college sophomore continued to cry her eyes out. I made some vague consoling gestures, but she shooed me away. At that point, my friend, a fellow prefrosh passed us and I just bailed, said a quick bye and left this girl sobbing in the hallway. Sort of a fantastic moment for everyone involved.

Fast forward to that evening. I went to get some food at some sort of mini-student center. The cashier looks Indian, maybe Pakistani, with very delicate features. I order some fries.

"You're a prefrosh?" Man, that must have been like stamped across my face.
"Yeah - how do you like it here?"
She looked pensive for a moment. "I would have to say I really don't like it."

As far as prefrosh weekends go, this was sort of like finding bizzaro buried treasure. On college campuses everywhere, it's understood that no one is to say anything even remotely negative to a potential freshman, under any circumstances whatsoever. You could look like a serial killer and not shower for 9 days, and every person you meet would just happily talk about "all the great friends they made" and their "fascinating professors" and "low student-faculty ratio". Needless to say, I was intrigued.

"Why did you decide to come here?"

"Well, I am from Pakistan, and I did not really know anything about American colleges. My family had a copy of that magazine, and it ranked Caltech number one. So that's what I chose."
Wow. Brutal.
"Okay, um, I'm gonna go eat some fries now."

At midnight, I headed to the gym for "Midnight Basketball". Although I play basketball, I'd be hard-pressed to classify myself as anything better than "average". But in this gym, I was Kevin Garnett, reincarnated as a 6'2" Asian guy. I played in a 5 on 5 game where 6 or 7 of the guys appeared as though they had never played basketball before in their lives. Blatant travelling, horrific shooting and dribbling. I tried to be a team player, but every time I passed the ball, that guy would immediately throw it right back to me. The other team had a guy about my ability (who I later learned was a prefrosh, not a student), and the game quickly became the two of us playing one on one, with eight other guys running around intensely, but without purpose. My team won a game to 11 - I scored the equivalent of 22 points with probably 14 rebounds and 6 blocked shots and a couple steals. I did not rack up even a single assist, but I think that was largely not my fault.

During a water break, one of the especially awkward guys came up to me.
"Hey man, you're really good!"

"Oh, um, thanks man."
"You're a prefrosh?" Again.
"Yeah - how about you?"
"Oh I go to school here. I'm actually on the basketball team."

Whoa whoa whoa. What? Whoa. "What?"

"Yeah - a bunch of us right here are." He pointed to 5 or 6 other guys we had been playing with. "We play all the time."
Whoa whoa whoa - what? They play all the time? What?
"Yeah, man, you should come to school here and join the team!"

Weeks later, as I retold the story, someone would mention to me that Caltech's basketball team had not won a game in eight years. I couldn't decide what was more shocking: 1) that they hadn't won in eight years 2) that they managed to beat someone eight years ago (who could it have been?) or 3) that the guys I was playing with represented a school that had a basketball team for over eight years.

It was in all honesty sort of a selling point for Caltech in my mind. If I were to enroll, I would become, within an extraordinarily narrow definition of the term, a basketball superstar. Alas, I did not attend Caltech, and my dreams of basketball "greatness" would go unfulfilled.

Even today, I still dream about what could have been.