Kind of. You can take courses at multiple institutions when they’re partnered (or in Can if you can show equivalency). However, that usually is just credit transfer. For actually graduating, well, if you can handle the course load it’s probably better done on the d/l and succeeding, rather than trying openly and having some administrator making you fail because “it’s not allowed”. I don’t know that different schools do a lot of sharing their student registers.
All that said, I wouldnt recommend it as even a double major at one school can break a person. Doing it at two different places seems a recipe for a major stress breakdown. (which would be why it’s unlikely that an open request would be approved). Then again, if both places offered majors that you were trying to combine to achieve a specifix objective, maybe you could find a prof or department to sponsor you and go to bat to make it happen.
I mean one would think that two schools don’t really care if you’re taking classes at eachother as long as you’re doing good at both and paying the unholy amounts they ask
Main issue is whether or not one campus will accept the transfer credits from the other. When one is a private university, transfer credit acceptance is less likely. And without participating in a program specifically designed for it, very less likely.
I dunno if it’s just my uni but I go to a private uni and we accept transfer credits from the public ones around here. A lot of the pre-med students use this to take difficult pre-med classes at the easier public unis during summer breaks and have those credits transfer in.
You jest, but… Bogus academic conference invite scams are a big deal these days. I can imagine a scam that goes “Congratulations! You’re into Yale! Plese send your first terms fees to Bank Of Nigeria account no 04555 777722…”
Oh shit, I did not see that coming. Dotty is less concerned with getting into Yale than with… what exactly? Is she staying because of Joyce/Walky/someone else?
I don’t think she is reconsidering Yale at all, I think she is worried about how to tell her friends. Things like that are always harder then you think they will be.
I really hope so. I don’t see a good reason for her to reconsider. Her best friend would basically sooner die than lose contact with her, she basically already gave up Walky for this, and everyone around her right now seems adjusted enough from the trauma of last semester where I don’t see her feeling like she’s needed as emotional support. I really hope she’s already accepted and it’s a done deal.
I hope so, too. I turned down an appointment to Annapolis—for what seemed like good reasons at the time—40 years ago, and I’ve been kicking myself for it ever since. On the other hand, a friend decided against an acceptance to Stanford some years back because she realized she’d never be able to cover the cost.
As counterintuitive as it sounds, it’s probably cheaper for Dorothy to go to Yale than to stay where she is. Yale’s insane endowment means they give excellent financial aid, with no loans. If your parents make $65K or under they’ll cover your entire tuition flat out. The only people who pay a lot for Ivies these days are the rich kids who don’t need aid.
(Source: My cousin’s Yale tuition was so cheap that it basically paid for the difference in her sister’s tuition at WashU, which is PRICEY)
I think it’s likely that she Isn’t ready to give up the emotional support from her friends. She’s coping with plenty of her own trauma from last semester that new peers at Yale won’t necessarily understand.
That’s also more what i’m thinking…
She might have started out trying to be unattached to people so she could transfer soon, but…. well that didn’t work for long and now she cares about them a lot. So… i wouldn’t wonder if she wouldn’t maybe consider the possibility of not going.
Been there, not with anything prestigious, but i’ve had an acceptance letter for a masters course in another city and decided to not go because i’d just fallen in love in my city…. (and a few other details).
I don’t regret it, but i remember the ambivalence. Sometimes, it’s so much easier to NOT be offered what you originally wanted, so you can be happy with the thing you have instead, without it being your choice against #1…
Yale only accepts new transfer students during their fall semester and doesn’t stop taking applications until March. This would mean that she’s been accepted to Yale all along. Although I’m thinking its more likely that Willis didn’t bother checking this and just assumed she could transfer for winter semester. Either way having that letter at this time would usually indicate that the semester she was accepted for has already started at this point and would need to re-apply if she still intends to go there.
To be fair, Yale doesn’t typically have AmaziGirl, supervillain hostage situations, or whatever dynamic it is Becky is trying to do,
so she might actually do better there.
Yeah. My first thought was that Dorothy was seeing this on the screen and had just now been accepted. But no. This is a physical letter. Which means that Dorothy had it at least during her conversation with Becky.
Fair enough. But that would likely be sufficient reason for them to defer her enrolement.
Another theory (somewhat flaky): Dorothy got that after applying and including the kidnapling story in her application. Maybe she didn’t want to get in because of the kidnapping being the thing Yale sees as making her extraordinary. Imposter Syndrome can go a very long way to undermining faith in oneself.
And yeah, Willis loves playing with that Psychological Tension dial. Thankfully he hasn’t found the 11 yet. (reviews past years, mike’s death, ag’s status, Billie/Ruth…. hmm maybe if Willis would turn it *down* to 11 would be a good thing.)
Alternate theory: The letter actually says “Next Semme”. Yale is the front for the Semme organization and this is where Willis jumps the shark and reintroduces all the Walky (sorry, I meant wacky) sci-fi and hijinks.
Theory Three: Dorothy is confused a.f. because she didn’t apply. Turns out Becky submitted Dotty’s application in secret, which is why she’s fishing for an update 2 strips back.
Yet another theory: This has been yale all along and Dorothy is the only one who’s figured it out. She pretends to be busy studying but she’s actually collecting proof so she can blow this “pretending to be Indiana university” scam wide open.
It would be a loong commute for Joyce to return to Indiana every time she teleports to Dorothy at Yale. (New Haven, CT to Bloomington, IN is about 13 hours by car, not including stops.)
Huh. Didn’t see this coming. Is it because of someone? Or does she think she couldn’t keep up if she went? She was already having grade troubles at this school…does she think she’d fail out if she did go to yale? And succeeding at a school like this would be better for her longterm plans than failing out of yale?
Even if Dorothy was struggling here, top Ivies tend to be harder to get into than to make the grade at–they want every student to succeed, so they want their graduates to have decent GPAs to show employers, and there’s much less of the “weeding out” other schools do to keep their programs competitive. If Dorothy is so set on Yale, I’d imagine she knows this.
Honestly, I think the whole “Becky got her foot in the door in the world of politics before I did” did a number on her psyche. She had a concrete plan- start at this school, get superb grades, switch to Yale, graduate with honors, become an assistant to a politician, run fir office herself, run for president, become president- but she worked herself into exhaustion to be within striking distance of her first goal. Then Becky, seemingly out of nowhere, comes in and becomes Robin’s campaign manager without (to her) really trying, or even asking for it, and her view of the ladder to the presidency cracked. Add to the fact that her escape plan when Blaine kidnapped everyone, carefully thought out, backfired spectacularly, leading to Ross dying and Joyce almost getting abducted and used as a hostage (it was dumb luck that Sal arrived as Blaine was leaving) and I think Dorothy is really doubting herself and her leadership skills. If she couldn’t lead her friends to freedom, how would she able to lead THE ENTIRE COUNTRY?
That’s a good description of what’s going through her mind. I’d add in that she’s now realizing that politics really is a lame popularity contest, not a competence contest. The americans had a choice between a zero-experience celebrity and quite possibly the most competent candidate they ever had, and they went with the celebrity! What’s worse, when said zero experience celebrity’s incompetence trashed the country and even threatened the wealth and health of the 1%, (which is totally unprecedented), he almost got reelected!
DOA isn’t set in any specific time, but I think some of that has to factor in with Willis’s writing of Dorothy. I think she may be realizing that her original plan may be pointless given how off target it is.
Or maybe she doesn’t know how to tell her friends. I don’t know. In any case, switching schools is usually something you do between semesters, not during them.
All we know is that she has an acceptance letter on her desk, covers it up, and keeps typing on her computer into the night. She had the letter out, so her typing might have to do with the acceptance. Or it might not. This thread will advance as our author finds it dramatically useful.
Yes…that’s how stories work? They unfold as they are released. I don’t need to be explained how comics work. I *wrote* a comic for 4 years.
You have this tendency to explain things in the comments as if you’re the only one who’s aware of them. The whole point to the comment section is to react and speculate.
No, it’s just a condition of their scholarship that the three occupants of the dorm room will be hot racking, aka “This may be your bed from 00:00 to 08:00, but it’s mine from 16:00 to 00:00.”
I thought he had said something about the end of the first semester, but that was apparently mistaken? If so though, he might well change his mind, who knows.
First semester hasn’t ended, I don’t think. They had midterms and winter break… so this should be the second half of the first semester. Second “quarter” of the school year.
Also “next semester” that’s good news for the Dorothy. She’ll have roughly ten years to break this to her friends and for them to except it. Also whose to say that’s the “Yale” as in the university and not uh…I don’t know “Yale” as in the “Young American League of Entrepreneurs!” Maybe Dorothy’s been making some business moves on the side and has a few patents. We don’t know!
I did. So come summer semester (as if Dorothy would take summers off) she’ll be off in Yale. That’s 10 more years of comic at this rate, and “this rate” involved Willis timeskipping about a dozen weeks. She’s not going anywhere for a while.
But it also says transfer students don’t find out the decision until May, so I don’t know how strictly DoA’s version of Yale follows the real world version’s rules.
What is happening here?! Why is Dorothy wasting a chance to study at her college of choice?! Is she dissappointed about the academic world? Does she feel guilt about something? Is it because of Joyce?
Timeskip reset a lot of plot threads, so the days can be shorter. This is basically a new introduction day, so it can mostly breeze through with lighthearted jokes. The heavy stuff comes later and takes more strips.
One more thing here, but even though Dorothy hasn’t technically lied to Becky about being the first to know she got into Yale since she hasn’t told anyone yet, but she still didn’t tell her! She had the opportunity and didn’t! Dorothy is Becky’s nemesis! 100% confirmed! Her whole polite shtick is just a smokescreen!
That’s the way I read it too. But technically, during our cut away to Joyce, Dorothy could have left the room, gone down to check on her mail, come back, opened her mail, told Becky the news, turned the lights out so Becky could sleep because she’s considerate that way, and is now updating her Russian handler. I mean, it’s possible.
I don’t understand. Has Dorothy been accepted for transfer to Yale at the beginning of the next academic year (which won’t be until about 2030)? Or was she supposed to start there instead of here today?
I was confused by this too so I looked up early acceptance Yale letters and turns out there’s a bunch of photos of them online.
1. The text in the comic is literally the same wording used by Yale so nice attention to detail there.
2. I saw one letter with a date as early as December 2004 for a letter stating the person got in through the Early Acceptance program for Fall 2005. The wording on that one is different though.
I didn’t realize Yale’s Early Acceptance program was only for high school students. Some colleges do an early round of admissions for everyone who applies by a certain date.
Different schools have different dates as to what constitutes early acceptance. When I was in high school, I got early acceptance in all three schools I applied to. As in, the letters themselves said ‘Congrats on your early acceptance’ or otherwise used the phrase ‘early acceptance’. When I posted about it on Facebook because I was excited but didn’t want to individually text everyone I knew, somebody was like ‘It’s March, it’s not early acceptance anymore’. I told them the letter itself said early acceptance and radio silence.
Mike dies and the entire fabric of the DOA universe starts to unravel. Dorothy is accepted into Yale. Ruth is fired. Joyce marries Jacob and Rachael marries Joe as Amber finds God and becomes a missionary. Robin is elected president and Dina is selected to study the dinosaur fossils recently discovered on Mars, which means she survives when the asteroid hits.
I… Was honestly not expecting this to come up either way before the end of the comic.
She’s my favorite cast member, but seriously, going to Yale is what’s best for her and her vision of her future; I can’t really think of a better ending for her.
Especially since she’ll be able to relax a bit there instead of constantly burning out her candle.
This happened with one of my friends back at uni. He left but he kept in touch. Didn’t tell us beforehand though, he just dropped it on us 2 months before the year was over. We threw him a big party.
She has a choice to make.
She has friends here, people she cares for and who care for her. And if she stays here it may not be as easy to progress her career.
IF she goes to Yale she might or might not find the same type of connections, but she knows Yale will help her future ambitions.
So what does she want?
A good avenue for her career with an unknown probabiluty for friendship?
Or a good avenue for friends but leaving her future career in a more uncertain place?
I mean, she could always leverage Becky/Roz’s hate-friendship to get introductions to a Congressperson. And work from there…..
She started at this school with no friends and found some. The same will happen at Yale. There are always more people to meet. Relationships come and go, people enter your life and then leave it again. That’s how life goes. Turning down a great opportunity because you don’t know anyone there is a terrible reason to do so.
I have to note that Yale costs a goatload of money and depending on if Dorothy got any kind of scholarship, she might have gotten accepted and then realized she can’t afford it.
Though Dorothy being Dorothy, I would expect her to have figured that out before she ever applied.
I’m a first-gen, low-income Yale undergrad. While Yale’s financial aid is by no means perfect, they do partially make good on their promise to meet each student’s need. Yale was by far more affordable than my other options.
We don’t actually know she wasn’t initially accepted, iirc. We know she didn’t get to go – financial issues, something from her past, etc. could be anything.
I’m both happy for Dorothy getting accepted to Yale, and at the same time sad that she’ll be leaving all her friends next semester, assuming she decides to transfer there.
Panel 1 — Dorothy appears to be typing away on a laptop, illuminated only by the backlight of the LCD screen
Panel 2 — Still on the laptop, Dorothy appears to look to her right.
Panel 3 — Now she is looking at what appears to be a acceptance letter, on paper, which I assume is on the desktop just to the right of the computer.
Panel 4 — Dorothy pushes the envelope over the text of the letter as if she has just made a very difficult and weighty decision.
Panel 5 — Dorothy continues to type on the computer.
I’m suspecting that Dorothy received the letter earlier, and is now on the computer composing a letter back to Yale declining the acceptance — as someone else noted, unless she’s getting a full-ride scholarship, 3 years + post-grad work at Yale or any other Ivy/big-name school ain’t gonna come cheap, so that’s as good a reason to change one’s mind as any. She;s in the process of burning bridges, hence the reason for pushing the envelope over the “you have been accepted” part of the text; level-headed as she is (at least compared to the majority of the cast), she realizes that she may be making an irrevocable decision and one that will alter her life forever.
Or is this just wishful thinking on my part to keep Dorothy around as part of the cast?
This is very well timed. If she does go to Yale she’ll be transferring there about the same time that David’s twins start attending Yale and can send him lots of photos.
I guess the real question is… How long has she been sitting on this? She just lied (knowingly distorted the truth) to Becky. Having positioned herself as an academic leader, I don’t know who Dorothy will go to for advice. Leslie maybe? If she’ll even seek any advice… Either way, change is a’comin’.
Ah, now that’s interesting. This is one of the outcomes that I have long imagined: Dorothy has got in to Yale but seems to be choking on it a bit, based on her hiding the acceptance letter so she doesn’t have to look at it.
Does she still even want to go? Has she found things that are more important to her right there at IU?
I know this is Dumbing of Age, but Dorothy is the less dumb character and she has still 10+ years to keep appearing in the strip at the usual pace, she will do it right. Go on girl! America needs you!
The amount of interpretation this strip has gotten is impressive, and I hope intentional. That letter could be referring to the fall semester, in which case Dorothy seems reluctant to acknowledge it but has plenty of time to get over that, or to the current semester, in which case Dorothy has wasted the opportunity she’s spent the entire series fighting for and OH GOD WHAT ARE YOU DOING, DOROTHY, YOU DUMBED OF AGE, OH NO NO NOOOOO
In either scenario, we may have been given hints about the reason for her reluctance. She’s struggled more than she was expecting to in this college that, in her first week, she nearly described as “full of hicks,” and that struggling has come at both the academic and the social levels. It’s possible that after that one traumatic test score and all the murder and near-murder (Ross, Blaine, Ryan) she no longer feels like “Yale material.”
Strikes me as just as likely that we don’t yet know the reason. It’s been months, and things are allowed to happen when we’re not paying attention. It could be that her family has had financial setbacks, and she doesn’t want to enter college-debt hell, which could limit her options more than not attending Yale, in the end.
(I mean, if I were Dorothy I’d be taking my Yale fund and investing in political internships instead because I really question whether its enormous fees make it the best investment for a future president in an America that increasingly resents those who seem too “elite.” But that’s very unlikely to be the reason she’s pumping the brakes.)
At least the reason probably isn’t Walky-related. I mean, I was pulling for those two as much as anybody for a while, but there comes a time when one needs to leave things in the past.
CONGRATULATIONS DOROTY!!!! Honestly, I never thought she could ever get admitted. Now, she will really have the chance to form that base of friendship and knowledge that will be able to make her become President of the United States. Joyce will be so happy for her ♡
Remember a few strips ago? “I may never get in.” That’s not something Dorothy would have said a few months ago. She’s saying it not because she’s considering not going.
Dorothy is a smart woman but she doesn’t neglect the emotional side of things. She is indecisive, a side of her we didn’t see much of before, partly because she hides it so well. If she planned to go, she’d tell her friends. They expect these news, there’s no reason to believe it would hurt them. If she decided to stay, she may or may not choose to tell them, but I don’t know why she would keep the letter. As proof she got in? As a souvenir? Dorothy doesn’t seem the kind of person to look back at what might have been. Once she makes up her mind, she commits. Plus, it makes for a more interesting story if she didn’t make up her mind yet.
She’s upset that she’s going to have to turn down Yale because she’s still on her observation mission for HAII, who is deligted to have found a martianless universe where he can do whatever he wants without having to power up his enemies.
Looks like Dorothy may be suffering from Big Fish syndrome. Here at IU, she’s The Smart Girl, The Overachiever, The Bright Future. At Yale, she’ll be just another chunk of grist in the mill. She’ll have to work VERY hard to stand out, in a school where EVERYONE is working to stand out, and where the teachers and alum are VERY jaded towards students trying to stand out. It’s enough to intimidate even a born-to-overwork-herself type like Dottie.
We are given very few details about the acceptance letter (yes, I can confirm that Yale’s letterhead logo is, in fact, simply the word ‘Yale’, in a fairly plain font, so Willis nailed that part) – no date, no details on a scholarship or any funding support. Yale’s an Ivy League school, so I doubt it’s cheap. She may be intimidated by more than the academic challenge.
And yet, to refuse this challenge? This goal has practically defined her since day 1 at IU. To many, she is “That Girl Who’s Going To Yale, Someday”. To say No would mean to throw away everything she sees herself as being, to become a completely new person. And we think _Joyce_ is struggling with her identity?
You apply to university before graduating high school most of the time. I applied in November for mine – they check your grades at the end of the relevant semester and in the US there’s apparently a bunch of other bullshit like extracurriculars, interviews, etc. to do so there was probably also that.
Ya but it would be completely pointless to _accept_ IU and then IMMEDIATELY apply elsewhere. She would have applied to Yale and IU concurrently, and received acceptance or rejection nearly at the same time, a year ago (in universe). There’s no benefit to having done it the way portrayed. She wouldn’t see any benefit to admission likelihood, and would have expended about $20,000 (in mandatory non-refundable boarding fees) at IU.
? I don’t think I get what you’re saying. This letter is most likely for next semester. Of course that means she accepted IU and then applied elsewhere – she’ been clear from the start she wanted to transfer. People do that before they finish a year.
Well, she finally achieved her childhood dream, well, that was before she met Joyce. Now, she has to decide which is more important, that Law Degree, at Yale, or the friends she has made here. Funny, all it takes is one or unexpected connections to throw a spanner into your well thought out plans.
Plot twist: This acceptance letter actually from before their first semester. She could have gone to Yale her first semester but wanted to do her first year closer to home for reasons we don’t know yet.
Yes, folks, you can apply to transfer before completing even one semester. It won’t help your chances of acceptance MUCH, but it’s not disallowed or anything.
Also, Yale College is the undergraduate school of Yale University.
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DOTTY NO
I MEAN YES
I MEAN… shit, can you double major but one major is at a different school where you’re taking remote learning classes
Kind of. You can take courses at multiple institutions when they’re partnered (or in Can if you can show equivalency). However, that usually is just credit transfer. For actually graduating, well, if you can handle the course load it’s probably better done on the d/l and succeeding, rather than trying openly and having some administrator making you fail because “it’s not allowed”. I don’t know that different schools do a lot of sharing their student registers.
All that said, I wouldnt recommend it as even a double major at one school can break a person. Doing it at two different places seems a recipe for a major stress breakdown. (which would be why it’s unlikely that an open request would be approved). Then again, if both places offered majors that you were trying to combine to achieve a specifix objective, maybe you could find a prof or department to sponsor you and go to bat to make it happen.
I mean one would think that two schools don’t really care if you’re taking classes at eachother as long as you’re doing good at both and paying the unholy amounts they ask
Main issue is whether or not one campus will accept the transfer credits from the other. When one is a private university, transfer credit acceptance is less likely. And without participating in a program specifically designed for it, very less likely.
I dunno if it’s just my uni but I go to a private uni and we accept transfer credits from the public ones around here. A lot of the pre-med students use this to take difficult pre-med classes at the easier public unis during summer breaks and have those credits transfer in.
Plot Twist: Dorothy throws it out because she keeps getting them and they’re all signed “Mecky BacIntyre, Dean of Admissions and Queen of Ponies”.
You jest, but… Bogus academic conference invite scams are a big deal these days. I can imagine a scam that goes “Congratulations! You’re into Yale! Plese send your first terms fees to Bank Of Nigeria account no 04555 777722…”
Isn’t the real one Yale University not Yale College?
Yale College is the undergraduate focused subdivision of Yale University.
Oh shit, I did not see that coming. Dotty is less concerned with getting into Yale than with… what exactly? Is she staying because of Joyce/Walky/someone else?
I don’t think she is reconsidering Yale at all, I think she is worried about how to tell her friends. Things like that are always harder then you think they will be.
I really hope so. I don’t see a good reason for her to reconsider. Her best friend would basically sooner die than lose contact with her, she basically already gave up Walky for this, and everyone around her right now seems adjusted enough from the trauma of last semester where I don’t see her feeling like she’s needed as emotional support. I really hope she’s already accepted and it’s a done deal.
I hope so, too. I turned down an appointment to Annapolis—for what seemed like good reasons at the time—40 years ago, and I’ve been kicking myself for it ever since. On the other hand, a friend decided against an acceptance to Stanford some years back because she realized she’d never be able to cover the cost.
Turned down Annapolis? Come over here and I’ll kick you.
ohh, yeah, I suppose it’s possible she got accepted but didn’t get enough financial aid? I don’t remember what Dorothy’s financial situation is like…
As counterintuitive as it sounds, it’s probably cheaper for Dorothy to go to Yale than to stay where she is. Yale’s insane endowment means they give excellent financial aid, with no loans. If your parents make $65K or under they’ll cover your entire tuition flat out. The only people who pay a lot for Ivies these days are the rich kids who don’t need aid.
(Source: My cousin’s Yale tuition was so cheap that it basically paid for the difference in her sister’s tuition at WashU, which is PRICEY)
WOAH what since when does ANYTHING in capitalism make rich people pay and poor/average people can go for free?!
One does not simply walk away from Annapolis.
I assume there were repercussions. People who recommended you that were, um, mildly annoyed.
What the hell is Annapolis? All I get on Google is the capital of Maryland.
Naval Academy; path to being bigshot officer type
Naval equivalent to the Army’s West Point.
I turned down an acceptance at RMC (Canadian military college, our version of West Point), but for me it was the correct decision.
I think it’s likely that she Isn’t ready to give up the emotional support from her friends. She’s coping with plenty of her own trauma from last semester that new peers at Yale won’t necessarily understand.
That’s also more what i’m thinking…
She might have started out trying to be unattached to people so she could transfer soon, but…. well that didn’t work for long and now she cares about them a lot. So… i wouldn’t wonder if she wouldn’t maybe consider the possibility of not going.
Been there, not with anything prestigious, but i’ve had an acceptance letter for a masters course in another city and decided to not go because i’d just fallen in love in my city…. (and a few other details).
I don’t regret it, but i remember the ambivalence. Sometimes, it’s so much easier to NOT be offered what you originally wanted, so you can be happy with the thing you have instead, without it being your choice against #1…
Yale only accepts new transfer students during their fall semester and doesn’t stop taking applications until March. This would mean that she’s been accepted to Yale all along. Although I’m thinking its more likely that Willis didn’t bother checking this and just assumed she could transfer for winter semester. Either way having that letter at this time would usually indicate that the semester she was accepted for has already started at this point and would need to re-apply if she still intends to go there.
She may think she can’t actually pass at yale. She’s having trouble with grades at this school already.
To be fair, Yale doesn’t typically have AmaziGirl, supervillain hostage situations, or whatever dynamic it is Becky is trying to do,
so she might actually do better there.
It looks to me like it says “next se” which I’m thinking might mean “next semester”?
Here’s a thought; She got that letter LAST semester and past up her opportunity because her friends all got kidnapped/had loved ones killed.
Yeah. My first thought was that Dorothy was seeing this on the screen and had just now been accepted. But no. This is a physical letter. Which means that Dorothy had it at least during her conversation with Becky.
This is what is known as psychological tension.
Fair enough. But that would likely be sufficient reason for them to defer her enrolement.
Another theory (somewhat flaky): Dorothy got that after applying and including the kidnapling story in her application. Maybe she didn’t want to get in because of the kidnapping being the thing Yale sees as making her extraordinary. Imposter Syndrome can go a very long way to undermining faith in oneself.
And yeah, Willis loves playing with that Psychological Tension dial. Thankfully he hasn’t found the 11 yet. (reviews past years, mike’s death, ag’s status, Billie/Ruth…. hmm maybe if Willis would turn it *down* to 11 would be a good thing.)
I don’t think the letter is old. Dorothy is too organized to keep something in her mail pile that long.
Alternate theory: The letter actually says “Next Semme”. Yale is the front for the Semme organization and this is where Willis jumps the shark and reintroduces all the Walky (sorry, I meant wacky) sci-fi and hijinks.
Don’t tease me with what can never be. Sob!
Theory Three: Dorothy is confused a.f. because she didn’t apply. Turns out Becky submitted Dotty’s application in secret, which is why she’s fishing for an update 2 strips back.
Yet another theory: This has been yale all along and Dorothy is the only one who’s figured it out. She pretends to be busy studying but she’s actually collecting proof so she can blow this “pretending to be Indiana university” scam wide open.
Dorothy, gooooo, you can Skype with Joyce and see her on school breaks and stuffffff
>using Skype in 2020
ok zoomer
I will go to my grave using Skype as a generic for video chat software and I refuse to compromise
It would be a loong commute for Joyce to return to Indiana every time she teleports to Dorothy at Yale. (New Haven, CT to Bloomington, IN is about 13 hours by car, not including stops.)
So wanna bet that Becky finds it and causes a whole scene?
I’m guessing such a scene will either be about not telling them and/or her not actually accepting
Huh. Didn’t see this coming. Is it because of someone? Or does she think she couldn’t keep up if she went? She was already having grade troubles at this school…does she think she’d fail out if she did go to yale? And succeeding at a school like this would be better for her longterm plans than failing out of yale?
Probably just doesn’t want to break the news to her friends. Joyce will be crushed at the least.
Joyce won’t be crushed by anything. That triangle on her face is magical.
Even if Dorothy was struggling here, top Ivies tend to be harder to get into than to make the grade at–they want every student to succeed, so they want their graduates to have decent GPAs to show employers, and there’s much less of the “weeding out” other schools do to keep their programs competitive. If Dorothy is so set on Yale, I’d imagine she knows this.
Honestly, I think the whole “Becky got her foot in the door in the world of politics before I did” did a number on her psyche. She had a concrete plan- start at this school, get superb grades, switch to Yale, graduate with honors, become an assistant to a politician, run fir office herself, run for president, become president- but she worked herself into exhaustion to be within striking distance of her first goal. Then Becky, seemingly out of nowhere, comes in and becomes Robin’s campaign manager without (to her) really trying, or even asking for it, and her view of the ladder to the presidency cracked. Add to the fact that her escape plan when Blaine kidnapped everyone, carefully thought out, backfired spectacularly, leading to Ross dying and Joyce almost getting abducted and used as a hostage (it was dumb luck that Sal arrived as Blaine was leaving) and I think Dorothy is really doubting herself and her leadership skills. If she couldn’t lead her friends to freedom, how would she able to lead THE ENTIRE COUNTRY?
That’s a good description of what’s going through her mind. I’d add in that she’s now realizing that politics really is a lame popularity contest, not a competence contest. The americans had a choice between a zero-experience celebrity and quite possibly the most competent candidate they ever had, and they went with the celebrity! What’s worse, when said zero experience celebrity’s incompetence trashed the country and even threatened the wealth and health of the 1%, (which is totally unprecedented), he almost got reelected!
DOA isn’t set in any specific time, but I think some of that has to factor in with Willis’s writing of Dorothy. I think she may be realizing that her original plan may be pointless given how off target it is.
Or maybe she doesn’t know how to tell her friends. I don’t know. In any case, switching schools is usually something you do between semesters, not during them.
I’ve thought this for some time. “Dorothy is a young Hillary Clinton” certainly hits quite a bit differently in 2020 than it did in 2010.
Holy crap holy crap holy crap
Dorothy. What are you doing?
All we know is that she has an acceptance letter on her desk, covers it up, and keeps typing on her computer into the night. She had the letter out, so her typing might have to do with the acceptance. Or it might not. This thread will advance as our author finds it dramatically useful.
Dang you Willis.
Yes…that’s how stories work? They unfold as they are released. I don’t need to be explained how comics work. I *wrote* a comic for 4 years.
You have this tendency to explain things in the comments as if you’re the only one who’s aware of them. The whole point to the comment section is to react and speculate.
DOTTIE!
Has an expression that is impossible to read. No joy. No distress. Just hidden in darkness, lit by a computer screen.
Sooooo, that’s why Willis hid her face behind that furniture the last couple of strips.
I wondered where he was going with that. Good stuff.
Okay but what if we shipped Malaya and Rachel to Yale instead
End that sentence three words earlier and you could drive people mad with it.
That would rank pretty high on Most Garbage Ship ever possible for this series.
And when they get there their dorm room only has one bed?
Oh, wait. Wrong kind of shipping.
No, it’s just a condition of their scholarship that the three occupants of the dorm room will be hot racking, aka “This may be your bed from 00:00 to 08:00, but it’s mine from 16:00 to 00:00.”
I’d actually be okay with Dorothy moving to Yale? I mean she’s a great character but this opens up some room in the cast.
A new character with vague physical similarities but a polar opposite personality will be written in for Season 3.
Isn’t that already Amber?
Dang, that’s going to be a big change in the comic. In 2030.
Didn’t Willissay something about ending the strip at the end of freshman year?
I thought he had said something about the end of the first semester, but that was apparently mistaken? If so though, he might well change his mind, who knows.
First semester hasn’t ended, I don’t think. They had midterms and winter break… so this should be the second half of the first semester. Second “quarter” of the school year.
They’ve been there from September to January. Unless they have a 20 month year, they are in the second semester of a two semester year.
^this is correct.
…But normally winter break comes between fall semester and spring semester? How do/did your semesters work?
They may still be in highschool (or alternate system) and not realize the post-secondary system in North America works in a particular way.
I think he said it would continue indefinitely, but he didn’t expect to get past the end of freshman year.
thx
Oh snap
Gimme a ticket for an aeroplane
Ain’t got time to take a fast train
Lonely days are gone, I’m a-goin’ home
My baby, just a wrote me a Letter…
*following up with Chris DeBurgh’s “Fatal Hesitation”*
GOOD FOR HER!
I wonder how this will effect her going forward till it’s time for her to part ways.
Does it mean anything that when I first looked at the last frame I saw an evil rabbit?
It’s foreshadowing that Dorothy will tell Joyce the news around Easter time, of course.
Har-de-har.
Oh good, so at least 8 years our time then.
It means Dorothy is wearing an evil rabbit shirt.
People out here worried about Billie or Ethan but Dorothy might actually be the one leaving the comic. Hah!
Also “next semester” that’s good news for the Dorothy. She’ll have roughly ten years to break this to her friends and for them to except it. Also whose to say that’s the “Yale” as in the university and not uh…I don’t know “Yale” as in the “Young American League of Entrepreneurs!” Maybe Dorothy’s been making some business moves on the side and has a few patents. We don’t know!
It’s the lock manufacturer
It’s the real university, but Becky, still using lame duck Robin’s cell phone, pulled strings to get her in.
See ya, Dot! Have fun!
Yes, I’m secretly hoping this means Sierra joins the main cast.
Yes!
Bright millennium indeed…
Y’all caught the “next semester” part, right?
I did. So come summer semester (as if Dorothy would take summers off) she’ll be off in Yale. That’s 10 more years of comic at this rate, and “this rate” involved Willis timeskipping about a dozen weeks. She’s not going anywhere for a while.
I looked up the process for transferring and apparently transfer students have to start in the Fall: https://admissions.yale.edu/transfer
But it also says transfer students don’t find out the decision until May, so I don’t know how strictly DoA’s version of Yale follows the real world version’s rules.
We don’t know how old this letter is. For all we know, she got it months ago and has been sitting on it this entire time.
If she got it months ago and decided to go back to IU, I doubt it would be sitting on her desk. This just arrived.
She takes it out to inspire her every time she works into the night.
Nah, she just got it and is writing to tell her parents.
Commentninjastclairsayswhat.
what
that’s a shock
What is happening here?! Why is Dorothy wasting a chance to study at her college of choice?! Is she dissappointed about the academic world? Does she feel guilt about something? Is it because of Joyce?
Wait, I just read the full letter. You can ignore my rant. She is just hiding what she will do.
CAN YOU BE KIDNAPPED AT YALE AND RESCUED BY A POSSIBLY-PSYCHOTIC SUPERHERO, THOUGH?
Only one way to find out!
It’s like typing a comment in all caps. It’s possible, but why?
To sound more presidential? (too soon?)
Holy shit it happened. She probably now feels conflicted but she made the cut!
Well, she has until about 2025 to decide.
More like 2030, unless Willis does another time skip of a few more months.
‘end of storyline’
That was quick.
Timeskip reset a lot of plot threads, so the days can be shorter. This is basically a new introduction day, so it can mostly breeze through with lighthearted jokes. The heavy stuff comes later and takes more strips.
You mean lighthearted jokes like this very strip.
Two more strips in this chapter would’ve been nice.
Interesting that we made it through introduction day without revealing the last silhouette.
It’s either Billie, or the as-yet-unnamed character in the ad to the left of the strip title.
I still assume Billie, but I was surprised they weren’t revealed in the first storyline.
One more thing here, but even though Dorothy hasn’t technically lied to Becky about being the first to know she got into Yale since she hasn’t told anyone yet, but she still didn’t tell her! She had the opportunity and didn’t! Dorothy is Becky’s nemesis! 100% confirmed! Her whole polite shtick is just a smokescreen!
That’s the way I read it too. But technically, during our cut away to Joyce, Dorothy could have left the room, gone down to check on her mail, come back, opened her mail, told Becky the news, turned the lights out so Becky could sleep because she’s considerate that way, and is now updating her Russian handler. I mean, it’s possible.
Interesting.
I don’t understand. Has Dorothy been accepted for transfer to Yale at the beginning of the next academic year (which won’t be until about 2030)? Or was she supposed to start there instead of here today?
I was confused by this too so I looked up early acceptance Yale letters and turns out there’s a bunch of photos of them online.
1. The text in the comic is literally the same wording used by Yale so nice attention to detail there.
2. I saw one letter with a date as early as December 2004 for a letter stating the person got in through the Early Acceptance program for Fall 2005. The wording on that one is different though.
So…I’m still not actually sure which one it is.
Dorothy is applying to transfer, which is a different from applying in high school for early acceptance.
I didn’t realize Yale’s Early Acceptance program was only for high school students. Some colleges do an early round of admissions for everyone who applies by a certain date.
Different schools have different dates as to what constitutes early acceptance. When I was in high school, I got early acceptance in all three schools I applied to. As in, the letters themselves said ‘Congrats on your early acceptance’ or otherwise used the phrase ‘early acceptance’. When I posted about it on Facebook because I was excited but didn’t want to individually text everyone I knew, somebody was like ‘It’s March, it’s not early acceptance anymore’. I told them the letter itself said early acceptance and radio silence.
It says next semester so presumably September of next year.
The question is whether she got it midway last term before the break, or she just got it.
Given that it’s only the first day of the new term… hm.
I mean, if she got it before, I’m assuming it wouldn’t still be in her room and/or she wouldn’t have brought it if she wasn’t going.
Oh well, time to make a theory flowchart on how this will go.
This bright millenium, so far, is paved with “uh oh”s and one gaping hole in the cast picture, and I’m looking straight ahead at it.
Do not stare into the abyss That way lies madness.
((peeks))
Wow! I was not actually expecting her to get in!
‘Course she probably won’t be able to transfer until next year, so she can still be in the story for another decade.
The author holds the power of time skips.
Mike dies and the entire fabric of the DOA universe starts to unravel. Dorothy is accepted into Yale. Ruth is fired. Joyce marries Jacob and Rachael marries Joe as Amber finds God and becomes a missionary. Robin is elected president and Dina is selected to study the dinosaur fossils recently discovered on Mars, which means she survives when the asteroid hits.
What if the asteroid hits Mars? Eh? Didja think of that? Eh? Didja?
I… Was honestly not expecting this to come up either way before the end of the comic.
She’s my favorite cast member, but seriously, going to Yale is what’s best for her and her vision of her future; I can’t really think of a better ending for her.
Especially since she’ll be able to relax a bit there instead of constantly burning out her candle.
I don’t think that Dorothy is capable of relaxing, at least not without feeling guilty about it.
But at least she’d be capable of sleeping when she needs to again, instead of stressing out over extra credit work to get into Yale.
She will be surrounded by overachievers, so she will have to work even harder in Yale.
Plot Twist: Dorothy IS only staying here to get a rise out of Becky. It IS her evil plan and she takes great joy out of it.
What a twist!
Fuuuuuuuuu-
I’m not sad. She wouldn’t be leaving until the end of the semester. Do you remember how long it took to get through this first one?
OOP.
Insert ‘good for her’ gif here.
This happened with one of my friends back at uni. He left but he kept in touch. Didn’t tell us beforehand though, he just dropped it on us 2 months before the year was over. We threw him a big party.
Hah! Called it.
Poor Dotty. Even her wins are filled with stress.
Isn’t that what going for the things you want is, anyways?
Not if you go for non-stressful things.
Just look at Walky. No stress in his life. Nothing at all. No sir.
Is that going for what he wants? Sounds like wholesale avoidance to me..
LALALALALALALALALALA
she got in woo
Don’t turn that down.
OH
Wow, end of storyline already?? Seems like Dorothy wants to still be there for Joyce, Yale be damned.
She has a choice to make.
She has friends here, people she cares for and who care for her. And if she stays here it may not be as easy to progress her career.
IF she goes to Yale she might or might not find the same type of connections, but she knows Yale will help her future ambitions.
So what does she want?
A good avenue for her career with an unknown probabiluty for friendship?
Or a good avenue for friends but leaving her future career in a more uncertain place?
I mean, she could always leverage Becky/Roz’s hate-friendship to get introductions to a Congressperson. And work from there…..
Decisions decisions. And sometimes they’re not as easy to make as you think they’ll be.
She started at this school with no friends and found some. The same will happen at Yale. There are always more people to meet. Relationships come and go, people enter your life and then leave it again. That’s how life goes. Turning down a great opportunity because you don’t know anyone there is a terrible reason to do so.
Mixed… FEELINGS… AAAAGH
Wait storyline over? Was it that short or is time moving faster
I have to note that Yale costs a goatload of money and depending on if Dorothy got any kind of scholarship, she might have gotten accepted and then realized she can’t afford it.
Though Dorothy being Dorothy, I would expect her to have figured that out before she ever applied.
It’s about $55,000 per year before grants and scholarships.
Not counting the cost of housing, clothing, books, software, transportation, entertainment, meals and drugs.
I’m a first-gen, low-income Yale undergrad. While Yale’s financial aid is by no means perfect, they do partially make good on their promise to meet each student’s need. Yale was by far more affordable than my other options.
Her parents were prepared for her to attend Yale. She just wasn’t initially accepted.
We don’t actually know she wasn’t initially accepted, iirc. We know she didn’t get to go – financial issues, something from her past, etc. could be anything.
She could’ve just intended to do some gen ed classes at IU as a stepping stone, then transfer to Yale to finish her degree and grad school.
I’m both happy for Dorothy getting accepted to Yale, and at the same time sad that she’ll be leaving all her friends next semester, assuming she decides to transfer there.
Dorothy, here’s what you do: you get a bottle of champaigne, walk into Joyce’s room, spike it into the ground and yell “HELL YEAH”.
She’ll know what you mean
Congrats, Dorothy!
Goddammit Dorothy don’t self sabotage
Oh no Dorothy.
Don’t not go to Yale for…. reasons.
I only hope this is for the next semester, and we will have her leaving in the next semester (in DoA season 3 :P)
CONGRATS DORTHY! YOU GO TO THAT YALE!
Choosing to stay where she’s made ties isn’t necessarily self-sabotage.
Panel 1 — Dorothy appears to be typing away on a laptop, illuminated only by the backlight of the LCD screen
Panel 2 — Still on the laptop, Dorothy appears to look to her right.
Panel 3 — Now she is looking at what appears to be a acceptance letter, on paper, which I assume is on the desktop just to the right of the computer.
Panel 4 — Dorothy pushes the envelope over the text of the letter as if she has just made a very difficult and weighty decision.
Panel 5 — Dorothy continues to type on the computer.
I’m suspecting that Dorothy received the letter earlier, and is now on the computer composing a letter back to Yale declining the acceptance — as someone else noted, unless she’s getting a full-ride scholarship, 3 years + post-grad work at Yale or any other Ivy/big-name school ain’t gonna come cheap, so that’s as good a reason to change one’s mind as any. She;s in the process of burning bridges, hence the reason for pushing the envelope over the “you have been accepted” part of the text; level-headed as she is (at least compared to the majority of the cast), she realizes that she may be making an irrevocable decision and one that will alter her life forever.
Or is this just wishful thinking on my part to keep Dorothy around as part of the cast?
She won’t be leaving until next semester and we’re almost certainly not going to get there.
This is very well timed. If she does go to Yale she’ll be transferring there about the same time that David’s twins start attending Yale and can send him lots of photos.
Dorothy is not going to make any irrevocable decision without talking to her parents and her therapist.
But… But… Damn you, Willis! I have no idea whether to be happy for her or sad for the decision she has to make and the fall out that will follow.
Duh, duh, duh.
You can hear the ominous music can’t you?
I guess the real question is… How long has she been sitting on this? She just lied (knowingly distorted the truth) to Becky. Having positioned herself as an academic leader, I don’t know who Dorothy will go to for advice. Leslie maybe? If she’ll even seek any advice… Either way, change is a’comin’.
I think she is going, that decision is already made. She is just delaying the moment when she will tell other.
If she doesn’t go, you know who’ll probably want to have words about that?
Danny.
Ah, now that’s interesting. This is one of the outcomes that I have long imagined: Dorothy has got in to Yale but seems to be choking on it a bit, based on her hiding the acceptance letter so she doesn’t have to look at it.
Does she still even want to go? Has she found things that are more important to her right there at IU?
I know this is Dumbing of Age, but Dorothy is the less dumb character and she has still 10+ years to keep appearing in the strip at the usual pace, she will do it right. Go on girl! America needs you!
The amount of interpretation this strip has gotten is impressive, and I hope intentional. That letter could be referring to the fall semester, in which case Dorothy seems reluctant to acknowledge it but has plenty of time to get over that, or to the current semester, in which case Dorothy has wasted the opportunity she’s spent the entire series fighting for and OH GOD WHAT ARE YOU DOING, DOROTHY, YOU DUMBED OF AGE, OH NO NO NOOOOO
In either scenario, we may have been given hints about the reason for her reluctance. She’s struggled more than she was expecting to in this college that, in her first week, she nearly described as “full of hicks,” and that struggling has come at both the academic and the social levels. It’s possible that after that one traumatic test score and all the murder and near-murder (Ross, Blaine, Ryan) she no longer feels like “Yale material.”
Strikes me as just as likely that we don’t yet know the reason. It’s been months, and things are allowed to happen when we’re not paying attention. It could be that her family has had financial setbacks, and she doesn’t want to enter college-debt hell, which could limit her options more than not attending Yale, in the end.
(I mean, if I were Dorothy I’d be taking my Yale fund and investing in political internships instead because I really question whether its enormous fees make it the best investment for a future president in an America that increasingly resents those who seem too “elite.” But that’s very unlikely to be the reason she’s pumping the brakes.)
At least the reason probably isn’t Walky-related. I mean, I was pulling for those two as much as anybody for a while, but there comes a time when one needs to leave things in the past.
CONGRATULATIONS DOROTY!!!! Honestly, I never thought she could ever get admitted. Now, she will really have the chance to form that base of friendship and knowledge that will be able to make her become President of the United States. Joyce will be so happy for her ♡
Oh no, guys. we only have another 10 years of Dorothy
She is having second thoughts.
Remember a few strips ago? “I may never get in.” That’s not something Dorothy would have said a few months ago. She’s saying it not because she’s considering not going.
Dorothy is a smart woman but she doesn’t neglect the emotional side of things. She is indecisive, a side of her we didn’t see much of before, partly because she hides it so well. If she planned to go, she’d tell her friends. They expect these news, there’s no reason to believe it would hurt them. If she decided to stay, she may or may not choose to tell them, but I don’t know why she would keep the letter. As proof she got in? As a souvenir? Dorothy doesn’t seem the kind of person to look back at what might have been. Once she makes up her mind, she commits. Plus, it makes for a more interesting story if she didn’t make up her mind yet.
Letter go!
She’s upset that she’s going to have to turn down Yale because she’s still on her observation mission for HAII, who is deligted to have found a martianless universe where he can do whatever he wants without having to power up his enemies.
And then there’s a plot twist: she got mixed up and was accepted to the wrong Yale.
That would be one way to Welsh on her commitment. Sorry, I meant to apply to the other Yale.
Hilarious how that other Yale has courses in landscaping. The whole Four Seasons thing with Giuliani just came to mind.
Looks like Dorothy may be suffering from Big Fish syndrome. Here at IU, she’s The Smart Girl, The Overachiever, The Bright Future. At Yale, she’ll be just another chunk of grist in the mill. She’ll have to work VERY hard to stand out, in a school where EVERYONE is working to stand out, and where the teachers and alum are VERY jaded towards students trying to stand out. It’s enough to intimidate even a born-to-overwork-herself type like Dottie.
We are given very few details about the acceptance letter (yes, I can confirm that Yale’s letterhead logo is, in fact, simply the word ‘Yale’, in a fairly plain font, so Willis nailed that part) – no date, no details on a scholarship or any funding support. Yale’s an Ivy League school, so I doubt it’s cheap. She may be intimidated by more than the academic challenge.
And yet, to refuse this challenge? This goal has practically defined her since day 1 at IU. To many, she is “That Girl Who’s Going To Yale, Someday”. To say No would mean to throw away everything she sees herself as being, to become a completely new person. And we think _Joyce_ is struggling with her identity?
I think Dorothy herself said as much back in limitations.
*casually sailing on my sinking Walky X Dorothy ship*
Go, Dotty. This is a “the rest of your life”-moment.
How tf would you get accepted at Yale without even completing one semester at another university?
Given acceptance rates, this may well be the most unrealistic thing we’ve seen yet in the comic.
She did. This chapter was the beginning of her second at IU.
Yep. One semester done. And she kept great grades *and* was kidnapped which makes her an extraordinary candidate.
Yes, one semester was JUST completed, but if she JUST received her acceptance letter, then she applied before she’d finished one semester.
She was accepted at Yale without completing even one semester at university.
You apply to university before graduating high school most of the time. I applied in November for mine – they check your grades at the end of the relevant semester and in the US there’s apparently a bunch of other bullshit like extracurriculars, interviews, etc. to do so there was probably also that.
Ya but it would be completely pointless to _accept_ IU and then IMMEDIATELY apply elsewhere. She would have applied to Yale and IU concurrently, and received acceptance or rejection nearly at the same time, a year ago (in universe). There’s no benefit to having done it the way portrayed. She wouldn’t see any benefit to admission likelihood, and would have expended about $20,000 (in mandatory non-refundable boarding fees) at IU.
? I don’t think I get what you’re saying. This letter is most likely for next semester. Of course that means she accepted IU and then applied elsewhere – she’ been clear from the start she wanted to transfer. People do that before they finish a year.
Well, she finally achieved her childhood dream, well, that was before she met Joyce. Now, she has to decide which is more important, that Law Degree, at Yale, or the friends she has made here. Funny, all it takes is one or unexpected connections to throw a spanner into your well thought out plans.
I mean… there is a non-zero chance that Joyce has applied to go to Yale “just in case”…
She meant to apply to Yale University. What an oopsie-doodle!
Plot twist: This acceptance letter actually from before their first semester. She could have gone to Yale her first semester but wanted to do her first year closer to home for reasons we don’t know yet.
Goddamn!
Dorothy, I say this in all seriousness: DO IT. DO IT NOW. GET OUT OF THERE NOW. DO. IT. YALE TIME GO GO GO GO GO
She’s not going because she secretly doesn’t want Becky to win
Yes, folks, you can apply to transfer before completing even one semester. It won’t help your chances of acceptance MUCH, but it’s not disallowed or anything.
Also, Yale College is the undergraduate school of Yale University.
Interesting… maybe she’s not so keen on going to Yale, anymore.
It happens… nothing wrong with it. Find your own path.
You’d think an institution such as Yale would have a classier letterhead than that…
Possibly she decided to get her undergrad degree here, then do grad school at Yale?
Good for her. I hope she goes. She deserves that chance at life.
-gasp-