I Have No Impact At All.
The day after Dylan’s AP test, I got an email from College Board.
“Please be advised that a decision has been made regarding your request for accommodations. A copy of the decision letter can be accessed at…”
Blah blah blah.
To me, it was like a cruel joke. Someone was waiting for Dylan to finish the test, waiting for the full impact of his suffering to take its toll.
After all of my phone calls to various College Board representatives, after emails to the principal and special ed coordinator, after their phone calls to College Board, nothing was done in time to get Dylan the computer he needed for the AP test. We had pushed so hard for so long, to no avail.
Sure, we were lucky. Dylan thinks he did fine without the computer. But did he? What will the person grading the test think, when s/he can’t read Dylan’s handwriting?
So knowing that he could have had those accommodations, if only the test had been offered two days later, was just a kick in the gut.
To my husband, though, it was a sign that his phone call to College Board had been effective.
“That rep must have gone right down that hall and asked for a rush on those accommodations!” he said gleefully. My husband truly believed that his phone call to College Board, made 24 hours before the test, had actually had the desired effect.
He didn’t go on and on about it. My husband just jumped to the conclusion that he’d done some good. That he’d made a difference. That his little chat with the customer service representative – probably the same customer service representative with whom we’d all chatted – was the phone call that made the difference.
When I got off the phone (for the third time), I had finally succumbed to the belief that nothing I could do or say would change anything at College Board. My personal impact on that organization was – and always will be – absolutely nothing.
I have no impact at all.
But my husband truly believed that after he got off the phone, the customer service representative stood up from his chair, walked down the hall, maybe even went into a different building, and found the person responsible for Dylan’s accommodations – then explained the urgent nature of the situation, causing the College Board to actually rush its decision.
And that’s why the accommodations came in so quickly, he thinks.
I am fascinated by the way he thinks. Optimism is not something I understand.
Still, in this case particularly, I’d rather be him.