How We Did It

Are you wondering what cool scam I came up with to get my son into college?
Okay. Here goes:
First of all, we encouraged him to follow his muse from an early age. That landed him, on a tour of potential high schools, behind a drafting table in the engineering classroom at the local technical high school. He was ready to pursue his dream of becoming a car designer or creator of the next Bionicle. Then he started classes. In high school, the old demon of upper level math rose up and bit him. Hard. As responsible parents we did exactly what we could: We talked to our son. We talked to his teachers. We watched as he suffered along with his grades. We began prepping as a family for the possibility that our son might not go to college, or at the very least he might take a gap year after graduation.
But somehow the flow of life swept him up in the current and he took all his requisite tests and passed all of his classes and he made the treacherous journey through the application process along with his friends. His engineering friends.
By this point, the engineering dream had died on the hill of math. It was replaced with a new love and fascination: Theater. Not acting as much as making everything ready for actors. He became a techie. So while his friends were being accepted to the engineering powerhouse down San Luis Obispo way, he applied as a theater major. It was this savvy move along with his ability to test well that got him in. It turns out that while navigating a semester's worth of information over the length of a semester was a chore, his capacity to regurgitate that information over the course of a three hour exam was nothing but incredulous.
Then his mother and I had to figure out how to pay for his admission. Well, as it turns out, being a school teacher has some perks. Most notably, the relatively small paycheck which made us as a family eligible for money that allowed him to go ahead and pursue his dream of driving a well-designed car and keeping actors clothed, lit and audible when they were on stage. That, along with a number of very generous donations made by his family and friends, he is achingly close to completing his degree.
It never occurred to us that bribery was an option. We did consider going to the admissions office and whining, but we still have our dignity. And a couple bucks left over for pizza.