[speaker001:] uh oh
[speaker002:] are you still there
[speaker001:] yes I'm still here
[speaker002:] oh I know what it was the answering machine must have run out of  I I heard something click and I was like oh no it disconnected us
[speaker001:] well that no I think I think it's on I'm I'm so glad I got hold of you I want um something came up at work the other day people are wondering how to choose a college
[speaker002:] uh-huh
[speaker001:] and I was wondering how what did your parents do to help you choose a college
[speaker002:] well to be honest they didn't really do a lot I mean my dad sat me down I guess in junior high and said um that I guess they had called him from the school and you know when they start giving you all those standardized tests and everything and you know Dad said well you know you're a smart kid so you're going to college and you're going to graduate school so decide now what do you want to be here here are your choices you can be a doctor a lawyer an architect uh he gave me a list of choices all you know the different professions and I was kind of like I didn't even know you know I had no clues so I said dad well I can't stand the sight of blood so a doctor is out and uh I'm not I can't do math so a lot of stuff is out um I didn't think I'd be a very good architect because I like to draw but not that way so I said well I guess I'll be a lawyer because I think they help people boy was I stupid so Dad said okay fine you're going to be a lawyer so then when it got time to you know get close to you know you start getting college brochures and stuff my dad kind of said well uh what's the best law school in the country and all his friends told him Harvard and he goes okay well I think you should go there for undergraduate too so I was like okay fine so I like uh send them the uh you know do the what do you call it you know send for the things you fill out and filled out the forms and um they interview you they always have one of their alums interview you and at the time I applied you had to do it through Radcliff because
[speaker001:] oh
[speaker002:] used to Harvard was for the boys and Radcliff was for the girls
[speaker001:] oh yeah
[speaker002:] and even though they were combined you know even though they had to let women in Harvard you still had to apply through Radcliff so I did all this and uh a Radcliff alum here in Dallas did my interview and basically Harvard has a recognized and constitutionally upheld quota system and they told me that I was provisionally accepted but that if that they got a black person or Hispanic person or something that was qualified from this area that I would be bumped because I'm just a basic you know wasp type person so I'm not really
[speaker001:] oh
[speaker002:] you know they had this minority recruitment thing
[speaker001:] hum
[speaker002:] so and sure enough about two weeks before school started I found out that they had taken uh they uh found a black girl and uh took her instead so the only thing I could do was I had to go somewhere that you could pretty much register and start the next day so University of Texas was where my dad went to school and luckily it's kind of that way so I went down there and late registered and basically started classes the day after I registered
[speaker001:] so you got to choose a college twice
[speaker002:] yeah by myself
[speaker001:] good grief
[speaker002:] I mean my parents didn't really you know my dad was the first well my mom they were the first people in their families that had been to college which I know like people from the east coast colleges are all around you you know
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] and so everybody goes to college or it's more normal I think because a lot of my friends that are from the east coast you know everybody in their family's been to college but out here you know in fact my mother hasn't really been to college college they had a junior college
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] that was fairly close by and and so she that's all she ever did was go to junior college
[speaker001:] um
[speaker002:] just you know two year college and and got her degree but you know then my dad went back to school and finished school and went to professional school
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] but that was after my brother and I were already little kids so nobody in my family really knew how to advise me
[speaker001:] that was the same way in in my family of course my parents were divorced so it was just mother and my grandparents but one of the key things then was what could we afford to do
[speaker002:] oh yeah
[speaker001:] and I got a a co-op deal at one of the schools in New Mexico and I was there for a couple of years before I flunked out
[speaker002:] well where did you go to school in New Mexico
[speaker001:] New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology and that choice
[speaker002:] I bet that was neat
[speaker001:] yeah it was but men out women numbered the women about twenty or thirty to one
[speaker002:] wow
[speaker001:] but uh it was just a very small school about three hundred students but the big the reason for choosing it was because of the financial aid that was available
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] and it
[speaker002:] that is really critical these days I think
[speaker001:] yeah yeah but then I my next choice in college was hey I move back with home with mom and I I went to the local university to get my grade point back up
[speaker002:] oh yeah
[speaker001:] so a decent school would let me in