THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, November 18, 1994 TAG: 9411170051
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ELIZABETH THIEL, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 73 lines
THIS SUMMER'S harsh experience at his dream college could have meant the end of hope for 17-year-old Cedric Jennings.
Now, though, the sting of rejection has mostly subsided. Sitting in the living room of his mother's apartment last week, Cedric's boyish frame burst with new plans.
He'll need an entire lifetime - maybe two - to accomplish them all.
First, there will be college. He's applying to the biggies: Brown, Cornell, Harvard, Stanford, Morehouse, Duke. He intends to apply to M.I.T., but no longer cares whether he gets in.
He's discovered that beneath his gaping disappointment over an M.I.T. minority summer program that turned out bad, he just wasn't impressed with the school.
He didn't like the campus, with its huge, maze-like buildings and poorly maintained roads. The students he met seemed snobby to him. There didn't appear to be much to do for entertainment.
``If I got rejected, I would laugh,'' he said, ``because I didn't really want to go there anyway.''
He'll consider M.I.T. for graduate school, though. Then it'll be off to Howard for business management training.
Eventually, he'd like to work as a computer programmer or as an actuarial scientist, a person who juggles statistics to predicts risks, such as life expectancies or insurance premiums.
He also wants to return to his neighborhood and teach math at his high school, ``So I can feel like I'm giving back to my community.'' He'll top that off by owning his own record company.
As he sums up his goals, his eyes shine with the confidence of a kid about to unlock the door to a treasure-trove.
The tough work at the M.I.T. summer program has helped him in his classes this year. He's looking at straight A's for the first semester, and he's in the running with one other girl for valedictorian of his high school.
He has no regrets about attending the program, where he learned as much about life as physics and calculus.
``I got to see how really competitive it is out there,'' he said, ``and the types of people I'm going to have to deal with.''
His mother, Barbara Jennings, is glad he went, even though she admits a stab of maternal anger at the way Cedric was treated.
``Some people don't care about your feelings,'' she said. ``That's just how they are.
``That's a learning experience too. He's going to encounter that again.'' MEMO: EDITOR'S NOTE:
Cedric Jennings' story is a powerful look at one person's struggle to
succeed against tremendous odds. We are reprinting his story, which
originally appeared in the Wall Street Journal in late September, in its
entirety, along with an update by staff writer Elizabeth Thiel.
[For complete Wall Street Journal story, please see microfilm]
ILLUSTRATION: MARTIN SMITH-RODDEN/Staff color photos
Above, Cedric Jennings laughs with classmates in physics class at
Ballou High School in Washington. Jennings lagged behind in M.I.T.'s
physics class, but was rejected when he asked a top-notch student
for help on some homework. ``He said it was `beneath him,' '' Cedric
says. ``Like, he's so much better than me. Like I'm some kind of
inferior human being.''
Photo
MARTIN SMITH-RODDEN/Staff
Cedric Jennings is glad to be back at Ballou High in Washington.
by CNB