Trust and Admission

I have extremely mixed feelings about what Portia does for Jeremiah. On a personal level, Portia makes an admirable sacrifice when she decides to give the opportunity to Jeremiah and lose her job. However, on a professional level, it is completely out of line and inappropriate. The committee had voted on the decision and it is absolutely wrong for her to take the decision in to her own hands. Her decision and the thought process she went through to make this decision resonates with my opinion that Portia takes her job too personally and assumes that she has more power and influence then she actually has. However, in this specific case, it also settles well with me that Jesse Bolton was planning on attending Yale anyways and only his pride was hurt while Jeremiah now has the opportunity to attend Princeton. I am interested in the application of the “admission” theme to this section of the reading as well. I like the idea that different people see different people as worthy of admission based on different aspects of their personalities and credentials. Portia sees Jeremiah worthy of admission while most of the others do not. In Portia’s view, his grades do not make up his potential, rather his reasons for the grades and his story are what makes him a viable candidate. However, according to the others involved in the decision, his grades define his potential. This also applies to Mark’s decision to marry Helen. Although Portia is not able to see what makes Helen worthy of “admission to marriage” over herself, Mark clearly places higher value on Helen rather than Portia. This novel also spoke to me on a personal level. When I first received my acceptance in to Carnegie Mellon, I could not understand why. I had already been rejected from USC and Occidental College after putting in countless hours in to the applications for both. Up until reading this novel, I had never really thought about the different people that would be reading my applications. For some reason, I have always thought about the school as a whole accepting or rejecting me, not so much an individual person deciding my fate. It is interesting to think about the people who read each of my applications; who decided what made me worthy or not to attend their university, what their basis for judging me was, what aspects of my personality and credentials they placed the most value on. This also leads me to think about what I judge other people based on. What aspects of their personalities and credentials do I most value? What do I require of other people that want to gain admission in to my thoughts? The meaning of “admission” is becoming more tied to the idea of trust. College admission is a sign that the college trusts that the applicant will bring honor to the school. Personal admissions are a sign of given trust and a tool to gain trust. Admission fees are required to create a bond of trust between the giver and the receiver. Can admission mean to trust?