Waitlists & answered prayers: How Marquette U. found us

I’m going to Marquette.

With those words, uttered four years ago this spring, it was settled. Matt McCarthy was committing to the university we almost overlooked, the place we almost didn’t visit, the school that, in my mind, was … good enough.

Good enough? Stay with me here.

The spring of his senior year was an emotional time in our suburban St. Louis household — just as it is in every household in America where an 18-year-old sleeps. It’s senior spring and all that goes with it: final classes and AP exam prep, proms, senior activities, spring sports. And his dream school — indeed, our dream school for him, one of those “elite” universities with acceptance rates in the teens — had just pitched him one of the cruelest curve-balls an institution can throw: The waitlist.

A waitlist is college admissions limbo at the worst possible time. It’s a letter that arrives, often late in the spring, that tells young people they’re qualified for admission, but not good enough on the first pass. But hang on, because there might be a spot before classes begin in the fall.

Not good enough? How could that be? As his mom, I was dumbfounded, and took it personally. Throughout Matt’s high school years, everything pointed to a positive outcome at that dream school. Every varsity letter, every “A”, every AP score; every hour in ACT prep class; every merit badge that helped him achieve Eagle Scout. How could this school – I don’t need to name it, but it’s south and east of Milwaukee, and around Lake Michigan’s bend — not accept him outright?

Turns out, Matt at 18 was much smarter than his mom at 49. He wanted no part of the waiting game. He wanted to move on with his life. The day after receiving the letter, he said, simply, quietly: I’m going to Marquette.

And so it was settled. Just like that.

Marquette? Yes Marquette. Thank God, Marquette.

You see, what I forgot that spring four years ago was that it wasn’t my life that was at stake, and anything that happened in the college admissions process wasn’t personal. If there’s one lesson that should be shouted from the rooftops to every parent of a kid going through, or about to go through, the high school years, it is this:

Don’t think your son or daughter needs to go to what a guidebook or an arbitrary ranking says is the best school. Find the best school for your son or daughter.

You do that by visiting campuses. By asking questions – lots of questions. By getting a feel for the culture, the academics, the campus life. All of it. And you hope — and pray — that it works out. It’s that simple.

For us, that place was Marquette University. Where we got lucky, I know now, is that we didn’t find Marquette. Marquette found us.

An interrupted campus tour

In the summer of 2011, our family of four took an upper Midwest college tour with Matt and our younger son, Jack. Both boys were students at St. Louis University High School, Matt, a rising senior, and Jack, an incoming freshman.

Matt’s first day at Marquette, August 2012.

It was timed with precision. Four days, four colleges. We started in South Bend, Ind., and then made two stops in Chicago with a fourth planned for Milwaukee to visit Marquette U.

But by the third day, we had had enough admissions-speak. Three days of happy faces and snappy videos; three days of gushing, squeaky-clean tour guides. It would have been easy to head south on Lake Shore Drive and home to St. Louis. Instead, we stayed the course.

And sure enough, upon arrival in the Admissions Office in Zilber Hall on Wisconsin Ave., we watched a snappy video featuring comedian and alum Danny Pudi, and went on a tour with a delightful young woman from St. Louis, who had a brother who was a graduate of the same high school as our boys.

By that point, it was hard to distinguish one university from the next. Marquette was nice, to be sure. But this moment changed everything:

We were standing in the Alumni Memorial Union when seemingly out of nowhere, an elderly priest came rolling along on a motorized wheelchair, greeting us with such joy that it felt as if a wave had overtaken us.

Sophomore year, August 2013.

The tour guide smiled and took a step back in deference to Fr. John Naus, SJ, who began asking questions of all of us. When he found out we were from St. Louis and that my husband, Tom McCarthy, taught history at the Jesuit St. Louis University High, he regaled tales of his visits to the province and Jesuits they both knew.

And then he said to all of us, “Follow me.”

We followed him down the hallway to an office, where, for another half-hour, he talked to us as if we were long lost friends. He told corny jokes and did magic tricks. But mostly, he gave his attention to Matt and Jack, making them feel as if he had been waiting on them all along. All the time, our tour guide waited nearby, patiently smiling.

When we continued on, she told us, “I’ve been stopped by Fr. Naus on campus tours a lot of times, but this is the first time I’ve been invited to his office.”

At that moment, we were 13 months away from saying goodbye to our son on a Wisconsin Ave., sidewalk. But all I knew then was that this priest came wheeling along on his motorized chair, and made all of us feel for 30 minutes like we were the most important people in Milwaukee that day.

At that moment, Marquette was inevitable.

Ringing out Ahoya

First day of junior year, 2014.

Fr. Naus would retire before Matt started classes in 2012. He died in September of 2013, Matt’s sophomore year. Matt may well be one of the few graduating seniors of the Class of 2016 with a link – brief but unforgettable — to the legendary Jesuit who said, “See written on the face of everyone you meet, ‘Make me feel important.’ ”

And perhaps, in a way, Fr. Naus passed on to him that afternoon some Marquette magic that lingered his entire four years. I’d like to think so.

By September 2013, Matt was a declared political science and history major; was settled into Schroeder Hall after freshman year in O’Donnell; and was beginning the activities that would mark his four years: Kappa Sigma fraternity, O-Staff; Wednesday night bingo caller in the Alumni Union.

Before the four years would end, he’d be a mainstay at basketball games, he’d be a regular coffee drinker at Brew Bayou and he’d be among the first residents to live in the Kappa Sig house, a renovated Masonic temple on 11^th Street. He’d “Walk a Mile In Her Shoes” and take part in two Marquette Mardi Gras trips to New Orleans’ 9th Ward. He’d become president of his fraternity. He’d promote Senior Challenge. He’d attend 10 p.m. Sunday Masses in the Union. He’d Ring Out Ahoya through and through.

And I don’t even know the half of it. I’m just his mom who caught glimpses from 376 miles away in regular texts, weekly phone calls, and what little Facebook stalking and Snapchat stories I could decipher. And that’s how it should be. Marquette was his experience, not his dad’s and mine.

Just before the start of senior year, 2015.

And this month, sometime before the commencement ceremony, I’ll stand in the center of Wisconsin Ave., and take Matt’s picture in his cap and gown under the gate one last time, so I can have one to match the four I have from the beginning of each school year. We’ll attend the ceremony and I’ll cry unabashedly. But not before a fleeting thought for the school that waitlisted him. Not out of a grudge, but with great affection, because of this moment:

It’s the summer of 2010, the night before a football camp he begged us to send him to.

That night we arrived, we took our own tour of campus and stopped at one of its iconic corners, a beautiful grotto honoring the Blessed Mother. At that point, he’s a 16-year-old boy who only knows this campus is his dream, mostly because of a Hollywood movie and a pretty famous football team.

But we both pause to light a candle and kneel down, a mother and son in silent prayer. I got up first; he stayed kneeling for much longer than you’d expect of a 16-year-old.

I left him to it. After a few minutes he got up and asked, “So Mom, what’d you pray for?”

I wasn’t going to lie.

“I prayed that for whatever path you were meant to be on, God would make it clear – and possible,” I said.

“Mom!” he scolded me. “You always said, ‘Be specific’ when you pray.”

“I’m pretty sure I was,” I said.

Six years later, I know I was. And I know that prayer was answered.

A postscript

I did cry unabashedly that weekend, but not at the ceremony. I think it was on the way home that Sunday night, somewhere along I-43 in rural Wisconsin after picking up a case of Spotted Cow for Matt’s graduation party. Memo to future parents: Graduation weekend is a marathon, not a sprint. It’s a rollercoaster of emotion wrapped in a frenzy of parties and packing, pomp and circumstance, hellos and goodbyes. And that’s exactly as it should be.

Matt picked up degrees in political science and history that glorious weekend. Three months later, we packed up the car again and helped moved him into a studio apartment in Ann Arbor, Mich., where he began law school at the University of Michigan. He’s on his way. I am absolutely sure Marquette University had a lot to do with it. Turns out, that waitlist was the answered prayer.

Graduation 2016