<\/p>\n
I met my contact in the dark alcove between Harper and Stuart. Vance was a well-dressed guy with an over-waxed mustache. I tried to shake his hand, but before I could ask him where we were going, I was blindfolded, and he shoved a chloroform-soaked rag in my face. <\/p>\n
Vance sat with me until I came to, and then walked me through a small smoke-stained door into a large room resembling an underground stock exchange\u2014only without computers or businessmen. Most of the people in the room were students, with a few adults in the mix. I figured somebody from admissions had to be involved. How else would they get the prospies? <\/p>\n
After about 20 minutes’ milling around, a Dean of Admissions stepped into the middle of the room and proclaimed, \u201cRemember, these prospies are admitted students for the Class of 2019. No matter how fun or boring they are, I believe they\u2019re worth something. Now, let the business of the night begin!\u201d<\/p>\n
The room exploded into a flurry of activity. An econ major grabbed me by the shoulder and asked if I\u2019d be interested in hosting a prospie. \u201cHis name is Topaz. He\u2019s pretty outgoing and he’s from Denver, so it\u2019s safe to assume he\u2019ll bring weed.”<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t get a chance to tell him I was just there to observe, as another gentleman swooped in with a counter-offer: \u201cCandace! She goes to my old high school, and I know she\u2019s super chill,\u201d he said, scrolling through Candace\u2019s Instagram selfies. <\/p>\n
I tried to get away from the higher-value trading area and found myself in a far less occupied corner of the room, where I met a girl in a very expensive pantsuit. The prospies she was offering seemed to be of a lower quality. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis one will be adamant about participating in your Sosc class. Clive here,\u201d she said, pointing to a photo of a complete nerd, \u201c\ufeffHe\u2019ll alphabetize the Scrabble tiles in your house lounge.\u201d I asked her why she would bother dealing in less-prized prospies. \u201cSomeone\u2019s gotta take em, and so what if this Gilbert kid will only ask questions about the food? Some people are into that,” she explained.<\/p>\n
It was fascinating seeing the market at work. Some in the University community may say this isn\u2019t fair to the prospies, but now I see: this simply ensures that they\u2019ll have a host who values them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Dan Lastres March 1, 2015 I met my contact in the dark alcove between Harper and Stuart. Vance was a well-dressed guy with an over-waxed mustache. I tried to shake his hand, but before I could ask him where we were going, I was blindfolded, and he shoved a chloroform-soaked rag in my face. Vance sat with me until I came to, and then walked me through a small smoke-stained door into a large room resembling an underground stock exchange\u2014only without computers or businessmen. Most of the people in the room were students, with a few adults in the mix. I figured somebody from admissions had to be involved. How else would they get the prospies? After about 20 minutes’ milling around, a Dean of Admissions stepped into the middle of the room and proclaimed, \u201cRemember, these prospies are admitted students for the Class of 2019. No matter how fun or boring they are, I believe they\u2019re worth something. Now, let the business of the night begin!\u201d The room exploded into a flurry of activity. An econ major grabbed me by the shoulder and asked if I\u2019d be interested in hosting a prospie. \u201cHis name is Topaz. He\u2019s pretty outgoing and he’s from Denver, so it\u2019s safe to assume he\u2019ll bring weed.” I didn\u2019t get a chance to tell him I was just there to observe, as another gentleman swooped in with a counter-offer: \u201cCandace! She goes to my old high school, and I know she\u2019s super chill,\u201d he said, scrolling through Candace\u2019s Instagram selfies. I tried to get away from the higher-value trading area and found myself in a far less occupied corner of the room, where I met a girl in a very expensive pantsuit. The prospies she was offering seemed to be of a lower quality. \u201cThis one will be adamant about participating in your Sosc class. Clive here,\u201d she said, pointing to a photo of a complete nerd, \u201c\ufeffHe\u2019ll alphabetize the Scrabble tiles in your house lounge.\u201d I asked her why she would bother dealing in less-prized prospies. \u201cSomeone\u2019s gotta take em, and so what if this Gilbert kid will only ask questions about the food? Some people are into that,” she explained. It was fascinating seeing the market at work. Some in the University community may say this isn\u2019t fair to the prospies, but now I see: this simply ensures that they\u2019ll have a host who values them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chicagoshadydealer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2067"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chicagoshadydealer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chicagoshadydealer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chicagoshadydealer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chicagoshadydealer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2067"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/chicagoshadydealer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2067\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3100,"href":"https:\/\/chicagoshadydealer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2067\/revisions\/3100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chicagoshadydealer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chicagoshadydealer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chicagoshadydealer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}