Eagles, ants and - yes - a wombat
The scholarship interviews ended today. 42 fantastic students representing amazing talent (including a charming magician originally from Australia who boggled our minds with a magic trick during his interview). Our committee likes to pose the occasional unusual question (just to break up the seriousness) and talked about the Calvin and Hobbes cartoons, where Calvin has a “transmogrifier” which will change him into any kind of animal he chooses.
And so we pose to these scholarship applicants - which animal would you ‘transmogrify’ into?
There were a startling number of eagles. Lots of kids evidently want to know how to fly and soar - and metaphorically this works for them because as students of exceptional achievement, in a way they are already soaring in their high schools and communities. We got several other birds as well - peacock, wren, pelican. But eagle was at the top of the list.
Surprisingly (at least to me), two potential students said “ant” because they wanted to get a perspective of what it would be like to live in such an ordered society, and/or because every day would be a challenge of having to keep from getting stepped on - and yet you can lift ten times your own weight. These young men and women had such interesting perspectives.
My gold star for the day goes to the guy who said with great enthusiasm “a wombat!” Well done!