There was no Monica Lewinsky yet to compare me to. Instead, when I visited ‘Burr College’ in 1995, the Admissions Director said I looked like Phoebe Cates. Actually, she kept calling me Princess Caraboo. I guess it would have been inappropriate to say “girl with red bikini getting out of the pool in Fast Times at Ridgemont High.” I wouldn’t have taken offense to “chick from Gremlins.”
The place reeked of high-income earning potential. This was where Mummy and Daddy sent me to graduate with a M.R.S. degree.
The school is listed in “The Official Preppy Handbook” as the second preppiest college behind Babson. At first, the royal “we” of Burr alumni might take offense to that. Not to worry, Lisa Birnbach listed the “institutes of higher prep learning” in alphabetical order. So, while she doesn’t belittle Burr with a crap rating, she does take a shot at the unusual number of male students who are shorter than 5’10”.
Seriously Lisa? Lowbrow insults aren’t very preppy are they? I guess that’s why you received poor reviews for the sequel, “True Prep: It’s a Whole New World”.
When sophomore year rolled around, I was ready to escape. With a total student population of 1600, I needed to meet new people. I needed to explore beyond my comfort zone. I needed a larger sample size of guys to hook up with.
That’s when I applied to the college’s Semester in Washington Program for the following fall. The first half of the semester, a congressional internship, the second in an executive agency or non-governmental organization. A Burr professor would join us, and we would have two separate seminars a week. We also had to write a term paper on detriments to civic virtue, which I submitted with a highball in my other hand.
I was accepted into the program in February 1998. The Lewinsky thing had blown up only a month before. Sure, people had begun to make comments on my resemblance. Pictures of her magically appeared taped on my dorm room door. Little did I imagine it would continue to follow me over the next several months, never mind subsequent years.
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