Philip and I arrived two hours early in Oxford Hills for a Sunday evening admissions presentation by Ingram University, which was quickly becoming Philip’s first choice and long-shot school. I had brought a book; Philip had brought Ingram’s large glossy brochure as well as an SAT Preparation guide. We ate a fast food dinner and then Philip asked if there was somewhere more comfortable we could wait. I selected the Oxford Inn which was just three miles from the upcoming presentation.
When a luxury hotel is not hosting a major event, its restaurants, lounges and community areas tend to be nearly empty. There are plenty of places to sit and relax for an hour or so. And as long as I buy at least a cup of coffee, or a round of beer every so often at the hotel in question, I don’t feel any guilt taking advantage of the otherwise unused space at times when I am not patronizing them in any way. Philip and I parked in a sparsely occupied section of the parking lot and wearing the kind of attire one would wear to an admissions presentation at a top-ranked university, we strolled confidently past check-in and the bar to the comfortable outdoor courtyard, and found ourselves a table.
As expected the courtyard was nearly empty. The ivy-covered brick structure of the Oxford Inn provided late afternoon shade, so that even for an August day, the air was a perfect seventy degrees. About forty minutes into our hour-long layover, a server came by to ask if we would be ordering dinner. I explained my son and I would be leaving in twenty minutes for a college admissions presentation and asked if it was alright if we stayed at the courtyard table without ordering anything. I conveniently said nothing about the fact that we were not overnight hotel guests, and instead of asking, the server simply told me it was fine not to order anything.
Just prior to departing, we stopped in the men’s restroom. Like many luxury hotels, the Oxford Inn sported an elaborate restroom that included a large basket of perhaps fifty terrycloth hand towels rolled into little cylinders with a hamper for used towels on the floor below. There was a giant mirror covering the entire wall in from of the sinks. Between sinks on the mirror were eye-level advertisements promoting various hotel special offerings at the hotel’s restaurant, as well as a reprint of a magazine article praising the hotel and its restaurant.
The mirror in the Oxford Inn restroom reminded me of the mirror in our own upstairs bathroom these days. For the past few months now, I have been using the upstairs bathroom mirror to post information about the colleges Phillip is considering. My idea is not unlike the hotel’s idea. I want Philip to be thinking about these schools and what it would be like to attend one of them. In general he is easy going. But he made it clear there are certain schools he simply does not like. His search is national. He does not mind extremely hot or extremely cold. But the risk of a campus-disrupting flood is something he absolutely wants to avoid. Rather than pestering him every time I find some interesting information, I have been formatting it into a single page, printing it and attaching it to the bathroom mirror for him to view as he casually washes his hands or brushes his teeth. Information about Ingram and Sierra State are mixed in with information about other universities, the college application process and even an article about selecting a laptop for college. Most recently, I created a scatter graph that listed the various schools under consideration. The Y-axis tracked the overall strength of each school while the X-axis tracked the strength of each school’s engineering program and color indicated whether we expect he would carry a high, medium or low amount of debt at graduation from each school.
From the Oxford Inn Restroom, we headed out to the car and were soon sitting with perhaps one hundred others for Ingram University’s admissions presentation. We learned a lot about the school and specifically what made Ingram unique when compared to other top-ranked universities. On the ride home, Philip was digesting it all. He was no longer entirely convinced Ingram was his top choice. Its rival was Evans Tech. Ingram was a top-ranked university with a very strong engineering program. In contrast Evans was a very strong university with a top-ranked engineering program. As Philip digested Ingram’s presentation and conducted online research, I built the scatter-graph mentioned above and hung it on the mirror of our upstairs bathroom. Ingram appeared highest on the Y-Axis while Evans Tech appeared farthest to the right on the X-Axis. Sierra State appeared in the middle and there ten other schools listed, including a safety school in the lower left.
A few days later, Philip confirmed his decision to make Ingram his first choice and we will be helping him take advantage of the favorable “early decision” process the school offers. Ingram is a long-shot but we believe Philip has a fighting chance.
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