Rory and Lorelai share their application anxiety with each other, as these two finally get a reality check and realise that it’s possible Rory won’t just waltz into Harvard. It’s unbelievable that Chilton wouldn’t have prepared her for the rigours of a college application – they’re a Harvard feeder school! Instead she discovers it for herself, through an after-school panel that she and Paris had to organise.
This sudden realisation is mostly for reasons of plot – it’s much more dramatic for Rory and Lorelai to receive a sudden shock. The result is to make Chilton look utterly useless – why are parents paying huge fees to send their children to Chilton, where they are getting less help to prepare for college than a local public school would give?
EMILY: I was watching TV and that insipid Kate Hudson was talking about going to a university. If she decides to go to Harvard, she’ll get right in over Rory, who we know is more qualified.
Kate Hudson (born 1979), actress, the daughter of actress Goldie Hawn and singer and actor Bill Hudson, although raised by her mother and stepfather, actor Kurt Russell. Her film debut was in Desert Blue (1998), and at this stage, her best known film was Almost Famous (2000) [pictured]. Her most recent movie in 2002 was the war film The Four Feathers, released in September, around the same time as the events of this episode, which was panned by critics. She went on to greater success during the 2000s, and has won several awards.
Kate Hudson was accepted into New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts in 1997, but turned it down to concentrate on her acting career. I don’t know what television program Emily could have been watching – by this stage, Kate Hudson was 23, and not exactly college aged.
EMILY: Every child that applies has the same high grade point average, they’ve taken the same AP classes, and they’re all on the student council … One college admissions officer said that he sometimes puts a random stack of applications in the yes pile and the rest in the no pile because he knows it doesn’t make any difference. He doesn’t even so much as glance at them.
It’s true that it’s very difficult to tell apart applications from high-achieving students who’ve all been to Ivy League feeder schools and all got the same grades in the same classes. And a college admissions officer only has a few minutes to decide whether an application should go on the yes or no pile. It’s a hard decision to make in a very competitive Ivy League college environment.
However, like Lorelai, I find it hard to believe this story – most of all, I find it hard to believe in a college admissions officer who would openly admit to this practice in a print publication. I think Emily must have got over-excited, and what they really said was something like, “Sometimes it seems as if I might as well choose the applications randomly when they are all so similar”. Or else the magazine just made it up.
College admissions officers certainly admit that it’s a tough decision to make, and that they don’t always make the right choice – many of them have stories about rejecting a candidate who didn’t seem quite good enough, and then they went on to become something amazing. (They also remember the times they had to grit their teeth and let in terrible candidates because they were on athletics scholarships or had bought their way in). In any case, the final decision is made by a committee, it isn’t just one person deciding who gets in.
EMILY: I’ve unearthed some shocking statistics. I mean, do you have any idea how hot the competition is to get into a school like Harvard?
LORELAI: Well, yeah, it’s very hot. It’s one of the top schools in the country.
EMILY: In the world. People from China, Russia, India, children from every country apply to Harvard. There’s more competition than ever before.
Lorelai should have already known this. Why is it Emily reading the college magazines to educate herself, why not Lorelai? You can forgive Emily and Richard for being behind the times on college applications in the 21st century, as competition was much less when they went to college, and Emily is trying to catch up.
Lorelai tells Emily that she already knows how hard it is to get into Harvard – which is true, she discovered how low the acceptance rate was in Season 2, when she took Rory for a day trip to Harvard. However, this episode makes clear that she hasn’t really been thinking about it, because the minute she’s forced to, she goes into a panic. And that’s when Lorelai and Emily start getting application anxiety as well.
PARIS: Okay. So, how early should a student get an application in?
MR. ROMAINE: By the due date. Earlier makes no difference. It’s a complete myth that there’s a benefit to be derived from early admission.
This is arguable. You would think the obvious benefit to applying early is a smaller pool of applicants. If applying to Harvard, you cannot apply early to another university, meaning that the restriction of doing so may discourage a lot of people. People who apply early are more likely to gain admittance to the university of their choice – but according to Harvard, that’s because quality candidates are more likely to apply early. Harvard insists there is nothing to be gained from applying early, even though the standard advice is to apply early if you can. The only real drawback is that you have less time to polish your application.
The early application date for Harvard is November 1st, and notifications of their decision are sent out in mid-December. An early decision seems like a good way to avoid application anxiety!
MS. SAMUELS: I’ve seen applications where the student has circled every activity listed. Again, you’re trying too hard there. One can’t be interested in everything.
MR. ROMAINE: They’re the ones who’ve had college paraphernalia on their walls their whole lives.
MS. SAMUELS: Too hungry, it’s a little immature.
Two more blows to Rory – she wanted to circle every activity on the college application except sports – now she finds out it will come across as someone trying too hard. And she’s had Harvard paraphernalia on her bedroom wall since she was about eleven, and wore a Harvard sweatshirt when she was four years old.
Yes, it’s a little immature, and of course Rory’s college dreams are immature. Her dream of going of Harvard was thought up by her teenaged mother, a girl who’d lost her own dreams and was working as a maid and living in a shed to support Rory. Is it any wonder Lorelai wished for Rory to achieve everything she never could? And can you blame Rory for wanting to make her mother proud and happy, knowing the sacrifices she was making for her daughter?
Rory looks increasingly unhappy throughout this scene, as her path to Harvard now looks far from certain. She now has – application anxiety!
MR. ROMAINE: I’m talking about run of the mill responses, a lack of originality, particularly in the essay category. If I read one more over-adulating piece of prose about Hillary Clinton and her profound influence, my head will explode.
A devastating blow to Rory, who now discovers her winning essay topic is in fact an unoriginal, commonplace idea, which many other girls will choose. Apparently writing an essay about any famous person, or a person you don’t personally know, is a sure-fire loser of an idea. Rory would do better to write an essay about Lorelai – which, for all we know, is what she eventually does.
PARIS: My panelists are Jim Romaine, admissions officer at Princeton University, and Ivy League college consultant, Rose Samuels.
Princeton University, previously discussed. Paris’ boyfriend attends Princeton – I don’t know whether that had any bearing on Paris getting their admissions officer on their panel. I wouldn’t put it past Paris, though.
Jim Romaine and Rose Samuels are of course fictional characters, played by Philip Pavel and Karen Bankhead respectively.
In real life, an admissions officer at Princeton University, Stephen LeMenager, had just been removed (in August 2002) after gaining unauthorised access to student’s files on a Yale admissions website the previous April. The investigation and subsequent scandal may have been what put the idea of using Princeton in this episode – they could have had a representative from any Ivy League university, after all.
Ivy League college consultants, also called independent education counsellors, work with students and their parents to decide which schools a student should apply to. They also guide them through the application and essay-writing processes. Top tier college consultants can cost a small fortune, so this is yet another area where being very wealthy can help you on your path to college.
LORELAI: Oh, they want a picture. How about the one of us sticking our heads through the carved out holes of Johnny Bravo and SpongeBob Squarepants?
Johnny Bravo, animated romantic comedy TV series created by Van Partible for Hanna Barbera which aired on the Cartoon Network from 1997 to 2004. The series focuses on Johnny Bravo (voiced by Jeff Bennett), a dim-witted Elvis-esque womaniser who lives with his mother. Episodes revolve around Johnny asking women on dates, although his advances are usually comically rejected, sometimes violently. The comedy derives mostly from celebrity guest star appearances and pop culture references, as well as adult humour – you can see why Rory and Lorelai would be fans of the show! Johnny Bravo helped launch the career of Seth MacFarlane, creator of Family Guy – you can see why writer Daniel Palladino mentions it, as he worked with MacFarlane.
SpongeBob SquarePants, animated surreal comedy TV series created by marine science educator Stephen Hillenburg for Nickelodeon, based on an unpublished educational comic book Hillenburg created in 1989 to teach his students about undersea life. The show revolves around a cheerful yellow sea sponge called SpongeBob SquarePants who lives in the fictional city of Bikini Bottom, beneath the real-life Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean. Here he works as a cook at a fast food restaurant called the Krusty Krab, and interacts with other undersea characters. The show first began in 1999 and is still running, having won numerous awards and inspired an acclaimed Broadway musical, which opened in 2017.
Rory and Lorelai presumably had this photo taken during one of Stars Hollows many festivals. Note that Lorelai immediately suggests sending Harvard a photo of both she and Rory together, as if they are one person, or as if Lorelai will be attending Harvard by proxy.
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 