When Anna Mayer ‘10 was asked in her college application to convey something personal
about herself, she rejected the standard five-paragraph essay format out of hand. Instead,
she responded by fusing her two loves—photography and creative writing—in a poetic
collage. Mayer says she struggled to express her quixotic personality at her neat-and-tidy
public high school in suburban Detroit. “I tried to wear fairy wings,” she remembers. “They
thought it was a drug symbol. I had to take them off—suspension was threatened. I haven’t
worn them at Reed yet. The urge kind of passed in junior year.” |