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Letters

Keep shelter open

Editor,

The closing of the Palo Alto Animal Services should not even be on the table. In any caring society an animal shelter is mandatory. Please, do not close the Palo Alto Animal Services.

Gale Henshel

Amaranta Avenue

Palo Alto

Beyond tragic

Editor,

My dad and I did a few things at Town & Country the other day, and drove around the city, with its many apartments, hotels and motels, and the area where Palo Alto Bowl used to stand, soon to be invaded by a huge hotel, and it is so sad! Beyond tragic. Way beyond.

I can recall times when Palo Alto had a fair amount of stuff to do for people under the age of 60.

What has happened to this city?

I don't know if anything can be done, but I am going to see if the demolition of Palo Alto Bowl warrants a lawsuit. This demolition has hurt so many disabled individuals. We are in a status quo that favors rich developers.

Daniel Mart

Awalt Drive

Mountain View

College app competition

Editor,

With all of the stress that living in a high-achieving, super-competitive school district has for Palo Alto's students, I was appalled to see the author of this article and the Weekly prominently quote an individual with a very skewed perspective, without providing an alternate point of view. Cheryl Foung claims that students must apply to 10 different schools, and write 50 different essays, on average, to be successful in the college application.

This is patently absurd, and just contributes to an already over-the-top level of hysteria about the college-admission process. My daughter graduates from Paly this year, and has just gone through the experience, applying to a mix of art schools, small liberal arts colleges and schools in the UC system. She did lots of research, applied to schools based on the fit between their programs and her interests, and is very satisfied with the outcome. No school required more than a single supplement to the common app, and those were, at most, a 500-word essay.

We should be showing our children that we value them intrinsically for who they are, not for what school they can get accepted to. I call on the community of parents, teachers and media to send a more supportive message to our students, and not push their levels of stress, or degree of competitiveness, any higher.

Lucinda Abbott

Lincoln Avenue

Palo Alto

Keep decile ranks

Editor,

Since Palo Alto Unified School District's decile ranges have been released publicly, and the grade distribution isn't likely to change much from year to year, colleges will still have a good idea of where future applicants rank. And, since the UC system guarantees admission to the top 9 percent of each high school's class, do we really want to prevent the UCs from delivering this benefit to our children (even if many choose to go elsewhere) by refusing to rank?

Brian Suckow

Southampton Drive

Palo Alto