Read Online Full Ride by Margaret Peterson Haddix - Free Book Online Page A

out?
    â€œOh, Becca,” Stuart says, appointing himself spokesperson for the group. “Becca Becca Bec.”
    â€œWhat?” I say. Or screech, actually.
    â€œWhat did you do all summer—hide under a rock?” Stuart asks. “Didn’t you work on college stuff at all?”
    â€œI worked at Riggoli’s,” I say. “You know—making money for college? Do the math: Every minute I spent shredding mozzarella or slicing pepperoni earned me point-oh-eight seconds in a college classroom.”
    I know this group: They won’t let a ridiculous statement like that stand unexamined. I didn’t actually do the math myself, but Rosa will. She’ll pull out her calculator. She’ll ask how much I make, and then she’ll figure it all out: How much time my summer of pizza making would earn me at a private school, a public school, a community college . . .
    I’ll have them distracted in nothing flat.
    But all of them are still staring at me.
    â€œYou’ll never earn enough for college working at Riggoli’s,” Stuart says flatly. “That’s if you even manage to get in anywheregood. Grades and test scores aren’t enough. Do you know, there are people with almost-perfect SAT scores who still don’t get into Georgetown? Georgetown! It’s not even the Ivy League!”
    â€œStuart, you have got to stop looking at collegedata dot com,” Clarice says. “It’s making you crazy.”
    â€œAnd stop texting me about it!” Rosa adds, waving her peanut butter sandwich at him for emphasis. She sees me looking confused and seems to remember that I don’t have a cell phone, so I haven’t gotten any texts. “Collegedata’s this website that tells you your chances of getting in at any school.”
    â€œAnd where kids like you got in last year, and what kind of aid they got,” Stuart adds. “Though everyone says this year’s going to be even tougher. . . .”
    He does look a little wild-eyed. Maybe this conversation hasn’t exactly been a joke. But then, Stuart’s the kind of person who walks out of an exam moaning about how this time he’s sure he’s failed, he’s ruined his life forever, he’ll be lucky someday just to get a job emptying Porta-Johns. And then it will turn out that he only missed one question, and with the curve, he’s got 100 percent.
    â€œYou’ll be fine,” I tell him. “You’ve got a million extracurriculars. Marching band president, remember? Aren’t you senior class president, too?”
    Stuart shakes his head violently.
    â€œThat’s not enough,” he says. “There’s a senior class president at every high school in America. Do you know how many spaces there are in Harvard’s freshman class? One thousand, six hundred and fifty-seven. A certain percentage of those are legacies; a certain percentage has to be international students—you break it down far enough, I’m probably competing with ten thousand other kids for just five spots!”
    â€œYou like competition,” I say.
    â€œBut how is that fair, when the odds are so stacked against me?” Stuart asks. He stabs his fork a little too hard against his cafeteria tray. “It used to be, if you were a decent student, you did okay on the ACT or SAT, you could go anywhere you wanted.”
    â€œIf you were a white male,” Rosa mutters. “And rich.”
    Stuart ignores her.
    â€œBut now it’s like, if you haven’t already discovered the cure for cancer as a high school student, forget it,” Stuart says. “You don’t have a prayer.”
    â€œSo discover the cure for cancer, already,” I say. “You’ve got a couple months.”
    I look around—surely Oscar will high-five me for that zinger. But he and both the girls are slumped down. Stuart has them all stressed out now, worrying about