Hillbilly Elegy

one of his law school classmates at a
popular D.C. restaurant. She was
bussing tables, simply because that was
the only job available to her. On the next
round, I gave Yale and Harvard a try.
I didn’t apply to Stanford—one of
the very best schools in the country—
and to know why is to understand that
the lessons I learned as a kid were
sometimes counterproductive. Stanford’s
law school application wasn’t the
standard combination of college
transcript, LSAT score, and essays. It
required a personal sign-off from the
dean of your college: You had to submit
a form, completed by the dean, attesting
that you weren’t a loser.