The Michigan Daily -0 .. Wednesday, March 25, 2009 Personal Statement The night I can't remember ByMelanie acEach rn 0 0 icture this: you're a 17-year- into my college life, my naivety had old girl from Arizona thrown become but a jaded outer shell of my into campus life at the Uni- molten, burning interior. versity of Michigan. At first, there It would be difficult enough had is the inevitable struggle of meeting I simply been raped and knew it. people and making friends. You're But I didn't know. The roofie coin impressed by almost anyone you had been flipped, and not knowing meet and jump at the chance to hang whether the outcome was heads or outwith someone new - even when tails wracked my ability to cope. I it means forcing your mother's crit- turned to every potential distrac- icism to the back of your mind. You tion: drinking, smoking, drugs of know exactly what she would say: every variety and even the hot pur- "You don't know what these people suit of sex that I hoped could cool are capable of. What exactly are you the anger and distress. intending to gain from any experi- Nothing helped. I tried to sup- ence with them? You don't know press the memory of waking up anything about them." But you toss in a strange bathroom, jimmying off that inner voice and skip into the the window to escape and walk- night looking for fun free of a cur- ing across town back to my all-girls few and your parents' scrutinizing dorm. I couldn't remember any- eyes. thing that had occurred on that That voice, which I so easily fateful night after running into ignored at the beginning of college, someone who I vaguely knew on now taunts me on a regular basis. the street and going with my new I can hear it all the time - yelling, friend to a bar. Only the lingering judging and criticizing. As an ado- feeling of something horrible and lescent, I'd heard my mothertalking the edge of expectation was left to about other girls my age, ones who fuel my emotional distress. had been raped or assaulted, with a I found myself trying to blame disdainful tone. To her, these inci- Ann Arbor, the University and my dents were always the girl's fault so-called "friends" for everything. - her stupidity and her inability to I wanted to transfer somewhere make proper decisions. else where I wasn't just a student of course, my mother's world- number or a unigname. I longed to view impacted mine. My first incli- replace the carefree acquaintances nation after hearing about a sexual I had collected with new friends assault was to make hasty assump- and professors, intellectuals who tions. What did she do wrong? How would shield me from my emotions did she bring this upon herself? This and guide me into a world of logic remained my perspective, unques- and reason. tioned and unchallenged, until an This internal campaign came experience changed it entirely. One to a head during this past winter single night gouged my frame of break when I told my parents that self-reference - just three weeks I wanted to move to Seattle. As I U.S. NEWS AND REPORT that beat Michigan in the U.S. News From Page 4B rankings. Still, some statistics do not bode Five percent accounts for gradu- well for the University's rank. Mich- ation rate performance, which the igan had astudent-facultyratio of 15 publication calculates by finding the tot1 last year, while Princeton boast- difference between the year's grad- ed a 5 to 1 ratio and the Massachu- uation rate and the rate U.S. News setts Institute of Technology had a 6 had predicted for that class. The to 1 ratio, according to a North Caro- final 5 percent considers the rate of lina State University website devot- alumni donations. ed to following higher education. Not surprisingly, Michigan Michigan also ranks outside the top boasts statistics justifiable for its 30 institutions concerning alumni not-too-shabby rank: according to donations with a rate of 18 percent. collegeresults.org, the University Princeton, Yale, Harvard and other had a graduation rate of 86.9 per- institutions ranked higher by U.S. cent in 2006, below only that of News claim alumni donation rates UCLA and UC-Berkley, institutions as high as 60 percent. danced around the subject, try- ing to express my distaste for Ann Arbor and feed them the excuses I'd spent so long convincing myself were legitimate, I came closer and closer to the confession I had resist- ed for almost a year and a half. Finally, in what was supposed to be a happy, warm mother-daugh- ter bonding day, I couldn't resist any longer. Sitting in my mother's Toyota, we argued back and forth: why I hated Ann Arbor, what that, did and didn't have to do with my The worst part about being roofied is not knowing for sure. educational experience, how I was drowning in a gigantic student population and could do nothing to battle the bureaucracy. "This is just real life," she said. I broke down. "Reallife?" I said. "I'll tell you about real life, mother. I was raped." I felt the wave of anger sub- side as I paused, awaiting her response. Would she fulfill my pre- vious expectations? Would she yell? Curse? Attempt to break down my psyche for my mistakes? Group me in with the other "stupid" or "pro- miscuous" girls that I had heard FORBES MAGAZINE From Page 4B Although the University mighi not boast the most Nobel Prize winners, how it could fall below schools like Furman University and Maryville College is befud- dling. As already mentioned Michigan boasts an impressive graduation rate, and the num- ber of former Wolverines in the Obama administration should help in the "Who's Who" depart- ment. Why, then, such a deplorable rank? According to the Forbes website, small liberal arts school: her criticize so often before? But it didn't matter anymore. I had said what I needed to express, not only to her but to myself A mother's protective nature always pulls through. She sat in silence, tears rolling down her made-up face. All she said was, "Why didn't you tell me?" in heart- wrenchingconfusion, over and over again. Then she wanted to know how, where, why. She partook in my own epic disbelief. She wasn't judg- mental; she simply had no frame of reference for what I was going through. I'd finally broken the thick, critical exterior and brought to her something to identify with, if only just barely. Apparently, that was all that I needed. I needed to explain to my mother, someone who I know would unconditionally love and care for me, even if she would never be able to comprehend the magni- tude of my situation. Since then, I have been able to re-think the past year and a half of my college experi- ence. Sometimes, all one needs is to cry in her mother's arms. As my perspective changed, hers did as well. Lately,she's beenhound- ing me about getting back on birth control in an attempt to protect us both from something that she has always denied: my sexual activity. She has opened her mind once again to the trials and tribulations of a girl my age, a college student living and learning on her own. I'm not trying to encourage all girls in my situation to speak out, stand up and preach their troubles on some sort of soapbox. It certain- rank higher "due to their quality of faculty and the personal atten- tion they can provide." As Forbes t bluntly puts it: "generally speak- ing, big state schools performed poorly." The University of Texas and the University of Wiscon- -sin, which usually hover around Michigan in the U.S. News rank- ings, were ranked at 215th and - 335th, respectively. Simply put, Michigan, with I an undergraduate community of - more than 25,000, gets the short- er end of Forbes's stick against schools like 12th-ranked Wabash s ("a tiny, all-male school") with a s freshman class of 250 students. ly took me a long time to even com- prehend what had happened to me. What I want is to encourage women on campus to have integrity, under- standing and the capability for rea- son that my mother didn't have and that plenty of other women certain- ly don't have. This isn't something that occurs because of throw- ing yourself at someone and then recoiling after experiencing the emotional results. This isn't *ome- thing that happens after a night of drunk partying and unintentional seduction. This is something that just happens, without a single cause and certainly no solution. Compassion is absolutely neces- sary, and when I overhear people on campus talking about "some slut," I feel sick. I may very well.be that "slut," that "whore," that wicked "she-demon" flaunting her past to gain some sympathy. But I would hate to see those girls who pass judgment on other women have their opinions changed as painfully as mine were. My one piece of advice for girls facing what I have: tell your mother. Just tell her. Regardless of how you think that she will react, don't har- bor that pain inside any longer than you have to. Tell her without expec- tations built up in defense. Regard- less of her reaction to your story, you need to let it out to the woman who understands you the most. Her reaction may surprise you - and trust me, it feels so much better after crying on that shoulder. - Melanie MacEachern is an LSA sophomore. JOIN THE DAILY ONLINE STAFF E-mail graca@michigandaily.com r-, -^ . . . k lI IN THE- EYE OF THE BEHOLDER WHY THE UNIVERSITY IS PRAISED BY SOME COLLEGE RANKINGS AND DISPARAGED BY OTHERS 4B