Postcards from the Verge

Jonathan Dee's NYT Magazine's article "The Tell-All College Tour" came out this weekend, making half of my face famous, offering new evidence on the Who's Bigger, Me or Katie Price question (don't I look TINY in that picture down there in the corner?), and catapulting my fledgling company into the spotlight. Our internet traffic spiked on Friday as soon as the link appeared on the NYT website, and there was much whooping and sending it back and forth in the office.

The media attention guarantees nothing, of course, except that we now have a chance. And although we at one point hit #1 on the Most Emailed list, the Sunday loudmouths have crowded the top and bumped us down to #6. Just what you'd expect of the media elites.

Though I'm glad Jonathan Dee had a positive take on us, I have to say that I'm astonished by the utter lack of fact-checking that occurs over at Gray Lady HQ. You'd think the Paper of Record would take note of the following, wouldn't you?:

• there were initially 15 editors, not 20; now there are 13
  
• we each were assigned 14 schools to cover, not 10
  
• our office is on Park Avenue South, not Park Avenue, though I agree that the latter fits better into Dee's narrative
  
• there are only 20 of us in the entire office, not 26
  
• my brother, the quoted "current Cornell student," is, as he should be at 27, an alum

and so on. Also, I maintain that "the New Face of College Admissions" would have been a better title. But it's churlish to complain. The buzz is beginning! Perhaps we are well on our way to becoming the next medium-sized thing.

My coworkers and I hooted over Dee's dour-sounding note at the end of the piece:

It all might seem less suggestive if it weren’t for the fact that this whole “grass-roots movement” seems poised to make a lot of money — most of which seems destined to find its way to the usual suspects, none of whom are part of a grass-roots anything.

As someone who is yet to have made over $30K a year in New York City, I can only say, Amen, brother JDee. Amen.