The mail that he was waiting for the last three weeks was the one which contained the result of his LSAT test. Getting excited, Nathaniel hastily clicked on the link and froze on the spot, his mouth agape. He looked again for confirmation and finally came to the realisation that what he was seeing was real. He had achieved a perfect score! The number in the end was even more clear as it displayed a beautiful 180/180. To be honest, when he took the test he found it quite easy but to have a perfect score like that was still surprising to say the least. There were a lot of examples of people finding a subject easy and getting an F at the end because of some misunderstanding, it was something that was on his mind for the past three weeks.
Now, he was just happy to have succeeded and the worry that plagued him finally disappeared. Taking a quick screen of the result and with a bit of editing to cross off everything sensitive, he planned to post it on his twitter account. His number of followers was still increasing every day with the help of his interview in Ellen Show who got a decent amount of attention. He was nearing two million now. He was rather active on his twitter these days, posting one or two tweets per day. He had around a hundred mentions per day and liked to respond with something funny at some of them.
He knew that he had a lot of fans who were girls, principally between fourteen and twenty years old and they were the most active on social media. He was getting a lot of cute mentions every day saying he was handsome, a good singer or all of the above. He had also a lot of marriage proposals coming from girls and guys which made him laugh goodnaturedly. At other times, he got some interesting questions and answered truthfully each time.
All was not perfect of course. He also had a lot of comments which were hateful because he was LGBT friendly and just some didn't like his music. He knew right away that he would not be liked by everyone and it was pretty normal. He even responded to some people who didn't like his music when they were saying constructive things and simply blocked the other. He never had a great deal of patience with stupid and hating people and would never hesitated to silenced them when he had the chance.
Uploading the screen of his test record, he add a message saying 'When you have a dream, work until your dream change.". Despite the hour, the post immediately start getting Rt and like at a point he stop paying attention and he log out. With his LSAT finally at hand, he could finalize his application to Columbia. He had already all the files filed and just had to upload his LSAT before sending it to Columbia which he did. Once done, he turn off his laptop and got to bed.
******
Three days later, Columbia University.
Dean Richard Curtis was a 58 years old man with grey hair and a grey beard. He was an extremely respected man in the city and in the academic domain. After being graduated at twenty two from this exact college, he spent the next twenty five years of his life as a corporate attorney in a prestigious New York firm until he retired.
After his wife died a couple of years after his retirement from a vicious cancer, he was asked to become the dean of Columbia. As he was lonely at home and as he never had the chance to have childrens, he gracefully accepted and in the process became the father of approximately four thousand young people. And not any young people but the most gifted of the country.
Ten years after becoming the head of this university, he had started an era of unprecedented achievement. Even if Columbia was still considered the third best university in the country behind Harvard and Yale, he considerably lowered the gap between them and accentuated the one between the third and fourth position.
His means? First of all, he accentuated the admission of smart young people coming from lower backgrounds with the establishment of more scholarship. In the process, he starts refusing young scion from an influential family with money and antagonizes a lot of people in the process. He was famous in the academic world because he was someone who put meritocracy before money.
Out of the thirty five thousand applications they received each year, only 1 500 would be accepted. That made Columbia one of the most competitive law schools in the world. In that atmosphere and contrary to his predecessor, Richard refused to take useless young people coming from wealthy backgrounds just to gather money. After twenty years as a famous lawyer and with no son or grandson to dote one, he had well enough money to live comfortably for the rest of his life. The only thing that was important to him was now his reputation and his students.
Sitting on his chair, in his opulent office, he was going through the budget of the next year when someone knocked on his door. As he had no appointment at this time and his secretaries did not announce the person knocking, only one person had that level of liberty in his fiefdom.
"Enter Joshua." He exclaimed.
The door opened and an attractive man around forty years old entered the room. He was imposant with his 6"2" and very muscular body. If people didn't know he was an academic, they would think he was someone working as a bodyguard or something. The truth was that he's an ex lawyer and worked with Richard for twelve years. He was also his best friend for the last nineteen years.
When Richard was asked to become the new dean, he did it only if Joshua came with him. The council accepted as they thought it was a sound demand and not an overly expensive one. Once in control, Richard put Joshua in charge of admission, the next more important role here as he wanted someone trustworthy.
"Hello Richard, how are you doing?" He asks, taking place in one of the chairs in front of the desk without being invited to do so.
"Good, going through the budget for next year, it's a pain in the ass." He grumbled.
"Well, that's why you are getting the big bucks." He joked. He knew really well that he wasn't doing that job for money.
"Are you here for something or you just want to annoy me?"
"As much as I love busting your chops, no, I have something important. I came here because I have a dilemma." He finished getting serious.
"A dilemma?" Ask Richard, surprised.
"Yeah, I received this application three days ago." Joshua said, sliding one of the folders that he has in his hand on the desk.
Curious, Richard opened the folder and started reading it.
"Nathaniel Abraham Lyndon… Sixteen years old… wait, sixteen years old? Why is a sixteen years old asking to become a college student? He should still be in high school." Richard said.
"That was my exact reaction so I got curious and went to see his high school grade."
Turning the page, Richard got even more confused.
"Wait, there is a problem, why did the more recent grade that he had in his application go back to 2008, 7th grade?"
"Because it's the last class that he got, for the next few years, he simply put he had health problems. He didn't even graduate from high school." Joshua said with a smile.
"Okay, why is this crappy application on my desk and not in the trash can where it belongs?" Richard asks, starting to get angry.
"Look at the last page on the folder." He probed.
Richard was going to explode and curse him when he remembered what Joshua told him at the beginning about a dilemma. Thinking about it, Joshua never came to talk about an application before, getting curious, he did as he was told.
"180!!? He ace the test!?" Richard exclaimed loudly.