Rory and Yale: A Cautionary Tale

Since it is perpetually fall in Stars Hollow, Connecticut, where Gilmore Girls takes place, I have decided to rewatch all seven seasons this fall. And friends, I have thoughts. I have so many thoughts about the colorful, eccentric Stars Hollow townies, including dance instructor Miss Patty who has a storied past on the stage and a hunger for men, but I don’t want this to be the length of a novel.

Therefore, I will demonstrate self-restraint and focus only on our young ingenue, Ms. Rory Gilmore. Rory is the adolescent daughter of Lorelai Gilmore, the fast-talking single mother who gave birth to Rory at age 16.

At the beginning of the show, basically until she goes to college, Rory is perfect. That’s her whole deal. In Lorelai’s words, “she has her nose in a book and a halo around her head.”

The perfect Rory from seasons 1 through 3 is unbelievably boring. She is either studying, volunteering at the town’s many festivals and events, being wooed by a handsome young gent, or reading a work of classic literature.

Her taste in literature bothers me a disproportionate amount. As someone who pretty much exclusively reads contemporary fiction, I wish she would cut it out with the Proust and check out Elin Hilderbrand or something. You can be erudite and enjoy Elin Hilderbrand. These are not mutually exclusive.

But if she read Elin Hilderbrand, she would not be Rory. Reading Proust for fun is who she is. She is a diligent rule-follower, not someone who breaks the mold and shows you something fresh and unexpected about humankind.

Incidentally, this is what she struggles with when she takes on the college process.

Rory is a formidable academic talent, serving as valedictorian of her high school class, and she presumably got a perfect score on the SAT. But this is not enough to earn admission to Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, the schools on her list. (These are the ONLY schools on her list. Hilarious.)

After listening to a panel of admission professionals and learning that they are looking for applicants who do well in school and also do well in their other pursuits, Rory panics and scrambles to get involved in extracurriculars.

When it comes to her essay, she also struggles to present herself in a way that admission readers will find compelling. She had planned to write about how much she admires Hillary Clinton, but the panel of admission professionals steer her in another direction.

As if they could read her mind, as if they were talking directly to her rather than to a full auditorium, they say they’re tired of reading about Hillary Clinton because they find it inauthentic and predictable.

This is who Rory is, though. She is predictable. She is a rule-follower, not a trailblazer, and she is smart in a way others have seen before and will easily recognize. She is praised for this until the pivotal moment she applies to college.

Rory seems to genuinely enjoy reading Proust. She genuinely admires Hillary Clinton and could write a really good, heartfelt essay about it, but this is not the kind of authenticity the admission readers are looking for.

What they’re looking for is an erudite student who enjoys Elin Hilderbrand. The exact hypothetical person I described earlier. They are looking for someone who follows the rules enough to establish the baseline qualifications for admission but steps out of line just the right amount.

For someone like Rory, it is hard to win in this instance. This is fiction, so she earns admission to all three highly rejective schools, but in real life, it would have been challenging.

She ends up winning but has to contort herself into a shape the admission readers will find appealing. And guess what? It isn’t even worth it. She ends up going to Yale and has a terrible time.

She could have been herself in the application, enrolled in a less prestigious school, and had a better experience. Tale as old as time.

Only a college counselor could watch Gilmore Girls and view it as a cautionary tale about college admission, but here we are. Don’t do what Rory did, kids. Call me, and we’ll come up with something better.