Liars and Saints

 Recently, I coached a student through a college-application process. It occurred to me that many readers will need to do this at one time or another (as parents, or aunts, or uncles), so I'm collecting a few thoughts here: (1) Don't talk down. Treat the kid as an adult. If he voices frustration, that's a good thing. (If there isn't a struggle, there isn't any learning.) If all the material doesn't sink in now, it may nonetheless sink in two years from now. (2) Walk the walk. I think, if you're helping a kid with a college essay, it's only fair that you yourself draft a "college essay." Let the kid see your multiple failures and your rare epiphanies. ("Rare" if you are *yours truly* .....) Do you know how easy it is to wag a finger and say, I told you to write FIVE rough drafts ? Do you know how much harder it is to go ahead and write five rough drafts? Do the drafts from your own point of view--and your finger-wagging will take on ne...

 One of my favorite essays in recent months is from a senior at Regis High School: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/24/nyregion/regis-catholic-school-racism.html The senior lives in Queens, and his parents are immigrants from Jamaica. He describes standard high-school issues: maintaining one's GPA, studying for the SATs, enduring Zoom burnout, feeling cut-off from one's classmates. But then he looks closely at his own identity, in a way that feels unusual when you're considering a teen's writing. The student, Rainier, mentions racism at Regis, and he spells out precisely the forms racism can take: *Students calling you a "monkey" *Students using the N-word *Students blithely complaining about affirmative action, as if such a program were not one, small, good step toward addressing a major problem *Students turning their gaze on you whenever history teachers address slavery or the civil rights movement *Students mistaking one non-white student for another in a p...