You race over to McNutt, breathless. There she is, your prospective, your very own! It reminds you of the time your mother let you get a hamster at the pet store -- you knew right away which one was meant to be yours. She looks a little nervous standing there, sleeping bag in hand, but you'll put her at ease and show her how awesome Dartmouth can be.
Back to your room first, to put away her stuff. Your roommate's taking a nap so you tiptoe in quietly.
"She's normally awake now," you say, "but she got really drunk last night and she's hungover." Your prospective looks confused. Oh, no! You've shattered MYTH #1: Dartmouth students never consume alcoholic beverages. Oh, well.
You decide to take her to the Hop for lunch, that way you can check your mail at the same time. On the way in, you rub the nose of the statue across from the art gallery for good luck. Your prospective gives you a strange look.
"What did ya do that for?"
"For good luck," you tell her, "I'm hoping not to hook up with slimy, sex-crazed frat boys this term, but to find a caring and politically correct, sensitive man." Your prospective rubs the statue's nose, too. Ahh, she has potential. But wait -- you've exposed MYTH #2: Dartmouth students never engage in meaningless and possibly dangerous sexual trysts. Oh, well.
You decide to treat her on your Dartmouth ID and order up two double bacon cheeseburgers, fries and large sodas. Two of your friends come in sweaty and wearing jogging suits. They sit down with their celery sticks and water and begin by asking your prospective what her SAT scores were. Then they compare their own GPAs with each other and debate how many calories are in a bagel. Well, there go MYTHS #3 and #4: Dartmouth students don't diet to extremes and aren't overly competitive with one another.
So you and your prospective make a quick escape to the HBs. Inside your mailbox you find five job rejection letters and four credit card offers -- a good mail day you think to yourself. But MYTH #5 is ruined: Dartmouth students all find jobs with relative ease during their senior year. Yeah, right!
As you are throwing your mail into the recycling bin (just to show your prospective that you ARE environmentally aware), two guys walk by -- one is carring a G.I. Joe lunchbox and the other has the word "asshole" shaved on the back of his head. You try your best to distract your prospective from these hooligans, but to no avail. She looks increasingly bewildered and frightened. You tell her that most people at Dartmouth look "normal" but there goes MYTH #6: the one that says Dartmouth students are preppie, well-groomed, and beyond their lunchbox carrying and sandbox-playing days.
You have a few hours to kill before dinner, so you decide to give your guest a tour of the library. 1) The Reserve Corridor where people pretend to study but really whisper with their friends. 2) The '02 Room where people talk out loud with their friends and don't even pretend to study. 3) Sanborn where the literary, dressed-all-in-black types drink tea, whisper and pretend to study Shakespeare. 4) The Tower room where nobody studies, nobody talks or even whispers, but lots of people take naps with open books in front of them.
"So where do people study?" Your prospective asks. You try to come up with an answer, but you aren't entirely sure.
"I'll think about it and then I'll blitz you, ok?" She looks at you even more confused than ever.
"Blitz?" She asks. Oops, you forgot, she doesn't have blitz, she's just a prospective, living in a blitz free world -- it's almost incomprehensible! You take her back to your room and show her how to send a blitz. You teach her about "Blind Carbon Copy," "Automatic Actions," and "Return Receipt." She's enthralled.
The next day you return her to the admissions office a more enlightened soul. A week later you go to your HBs and this time you have six job rejection letters, seven credit card offers and a thank-you letter from your prospective. "I've decided to go to Dartmouth next year even though a large portion of the students appear to be alcoholics, anorexics, socially impaired and academically unfocused -- still, I was impressed by the creative haircuts and of course, BlitzMail. I'll blitz ya in September ..."
Satisfied with your mission, you decide to stop into McNutt and inform them of your success -- and of course, sign up for another prospective!
