The first Carl day, colloquially known as admitted students day, of the year happened on Monday, April 13th. A swarm of over 300 of America’s most annoying high school students descended on Carleton’s campus, most of them considering (or even already committed to!) becoming some of the chillest Carls around. Throughout the day, tour guides, professors, and a small handful of current students did their very best to convince these students that Carleton is the place for them. And, because some of these students are already embodying some of the usual Carleton traits, many of these students did their best to likewise convince those around them that they could be the guy for Carleton (even though, in being admitted, they already had).
This became a challenge for Awa K. Ward ‘30 when her phone went off while she was visiting a class. The 2a senior seminar was taking a reading quiz when Ward’s phone began to loudly buzz from within her bag, receiving a call from her concerned parents wanting to know how the class was going. Ward fumbled awkwardly in her unorganized tote bag to grab and silence her phone for several long moments, before finally whispering out a “sorry” to the professor and sinking down into her seat.
Ward, tearfully running out of the building the second the class ended, encountered and gave a long statement to the first Carletonian writer she encountered. Even though she hadn’t yet made her committing deposit, Ward felt strongly about coming to Carleton anyway and then transferring as her only course of action. Ward said, “it’s not like I didn’t get into other schools. I did. But if I went to one of them, I would be carrying the weight of this phone call around forever, I would always know. Coming here, and then transferring, seems like the only way I can actually face this experience directly and then let it go, start anew, shed my cocoon and become a beautiful butterfly, you know?” Our reporting team kindly informed Ward that all the students in the course were seniors, and she wouldn’t encounter them again in her time here; she wasn’t reassured. “You don’t get it,” Ward continued, “people would be aware. Maybe peripherally, but they would. I don’t mean to suggest that everyone is obsessed with me, or would be talking about it forever, but I can just strongly imagine being at graduation or a career fair or something and hearing someone mention the time they heard about this admitted student’s phone going off. And then what? I have to tell my best friends of four years that it’s been me, the admitted student whose phone went off, all along? It just wouldn’t do.”
After careful consultation with her parents, Ward made her online deposit to come to Carleton on her very same phone while still on Carleton’s campus, before promptly drawing up a list of potential schools to transfer to, including several she had been accepted to this year.
