Congratulations. You've been accepted to our college. Hopefully, this comes as good news, but it probably comes as more of a surprise since you never applied. That acceptances like this exist will likely come as a shock to students and parents (like me) who have recently suffered through the highly stressful, family bond-testing, overly competitive college visit and application experience. But application season is very different for different schools. The top brands somehow parse through an entirely unmanageable mountain of applications; last Fall, my son's current top choice, UCLA, received 145,910 applications from prospective freshmen. But it can be a lot more lonely for those schools not at the top. Many of them have deployed a relatively new strategy. "Under so-called direct admissions programs increasingly being tried by states, colleges and third-party services, seniors who meet minimum academic qualifications are receiving unsolicited notifications of admission. Once they are identified as qualifying candidates, the students can complete an often-simplified application online." (I can't believe I've spent all these years sitting on the couch waiting for people to subscribe to NextDraft when I could have preemptively accepted them.) NYT (Gift Article): Even if They Didn’t Apply, Some Students Get College Admission Offers. (I came of age during the wrong era. The only time I've been accepted without applying was for a Capital One card.)

2

Future Tense

It's not that rare these days for teens to question whether they'll have a future. In most cases, the doubts are related to climate change or other global issues. For others, the threat is much more imminent—and at close range. Those kids live in places where America's gun violence scourge dominates and defines the teenage experience. "Like most teens, Rashad is impulsive and cares about impressing the people around him. He likes to wear cool clothes and crack jokes that make his friends laugh. His mentors recognize that behavior as normal for a 14-year-old. But they also understand that it would take only one bad decision to ruin Rashad’s life — or worse, end it." WaPo (Gift Article): He’s 14. He’s been to five funerals. Can he avoid his own? (And yet, these kids encounter more efforts to ban books than guns.)

3

I'll Stick with the Man Cave

I don't consider myself a misanthrope, but I will concede that I'm often not particularly enthusiastic about others. In short, I value my alone time. So I could relate to the spirit of Beatriz Flamini's goal. But I definitely can't relate to its execution. The New Yorker: The Woman Who Spent Five Hundred Days in a Cave. ""Her basic goal remained intact: to neither see nor speak to another human being for five hundred days. She didn’t even want to see her own face ... The experience was gruelling and surreal." (In fairness, the same can often be said about hanging out with other people.)

4

Dog Eared (and Mouthed)

It’s a testament to his creativity, remarkable versatility, relentless work ethic, and prolific output of quality writing that Dave Eggers was just awarded the John Newbery Medal "which is given to the most distinguished American children's book ... for his middle grade book The Eyes and the Impossible." This is just Dave's latest gift to young people after starting youth programs like 826 Valencia and Scholar Match. You've got to order the wood-bound hardcover version from McSweeney's. (The book is written from the perspective of a dog. I tried something similar based on my beagles, but the first few paragraphs ended up being a repetition of the phrase, "Wait, do you smell something?" I'm still waiting to hear back from my agent about my pitch for a book about my beagles' neutering experience called K9 Unit.)

5

Extra, Extra

Look Away, Look Away: "Even though he appears poised to potentially lock up the nomination this week on a bombastic campaign laced with the kind of once-shocking remarks that used to spur highly-rated days-long news cycles, the evidence continues to show one thing: many fewer people care." Inside the collapsing U.S. political-media-industrial-complex. (This collapse is a good thing. Let's hope it's not followed by a democracy collapse.)

+ Taken: "Relatives of Israelis being held hostage by Hamas in the Gaza Strip burst into a session of the Knesset Finance Committee on Monday to demand that the government do more to secure their family members’ release." Kfir Bibas, a hostage kidnapped on October 7, just reached his first birthday while in captivity.

+ Modi Operandi: "Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday opened a controversial Hindu temple built on the ruins of a historic mosque in the northern city of Ayodhya, in a political triumph for the populist leader who is seeking to transform the country from a secular democracy into a Hindu state."

+ You've Got the Brains, I've Got the Ron: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis drops out of the presidential race, endorses Trump. (Florida, Ron DeSantis spent the last couple years completely screwing you up for nothing. Sorry.)

+ Say It Ain't Joe: "The message says that 'it’s important that you save your vote for the November election.'" An undertold story about American elections is the use of the so-called dark arts—tricks that get people to vote, or more commonly, not to. Here's one example: Fake Joe Biden robocall tells New Hampshire Democrats not to vote on Tuesday.

+ Nothing is Forever: USPS stamp prices going up: Forever first-class stamps now cost 68 cents. (I still find it remarkable that someone will deliver a physical object for this low, low price.)

+ Stanford's Court: Tara VanDerveer passes Mike Krzyzewski as all-time winningest D-I college basketball coach.

6

Bottom of the News

Jason Kelce was great at football. He's even better at retirement. As one whose childhood was spent shopping in the husky department, I really think this should be the new Calvin Klein underwear ad. Jeremy Allen White is in The Bear. Jason Kelce is the bear.

+ This article would have come in handy at the 49er watch party I attended this weekend. Does Double-Dipping Really Spread Germs?