Before the new school software was ready to help, the second expansion wave was well underway. As soon as the always demanding Sarah Rivers had spoken out in favour of seeking much more compatible people by looking worldwide, the expansion stopped.
Only a few more people were added, the more easily found locals, for the specific goal of wiring in all the important individuals who had contributed to the school, such as Sarah herself.
Using the technically advanced video conferencing system loosely called video walls, but actually distinguished more by their cameras and signal integration abilities, Sarah spoke with the father of her children, Ken Green.
Devoted to her own goal of expanding the Green family, Sarah had demanded regular insemination from him, producing eight children, though he had similar services to perform for others. The advantages of being a billionaire are not to be underestimated, though Ken claimed he only wanted children, not pleasure.
Ken was always glad to receive a call from his favourite female friend, though she had eventually left him to seek higher education, settling in Manhattan.
“Ken, my dear, would you do me the smallest favour. It is something for the school.”
“Whenever you mention that damn school I feel a sharp pain in my wallet. How many billion is this going to cost me?”
“Well, we want to expand the size our pool of candidates to include the whole English-speaking world. Almost all students will require full scholarships at 30 thousand a year. Within four years we may have three thousand of them, which would be 90 million a year. Round up to 100 million annually.”
“I see.”
“That’s just one percent of the interest on your invested capital.”
“I already use most of that interest to support the silly projects dreamed up by my beloved children. Caroline’s space project alone costs seven percent of that income.”
“Naughty girl.”
“I keep telling her so, but your Ada demands almost as much for her own self-reproducing factories project, and is constantly defending her best friend’s project as the ultimate use for hers, in space ships.
“Another naughty girl. I should have tried harder to make her accept Beth as her role model.”
“Do you really want to know how much Beth spends? Her project to back up her system’s data in multiple locations deep in stable rock formations is ridiculously expensive. Not to mention the new chip fabrication facility she wants.”
“I notice that you haven’t said no, not yet.”
“When was the last time I said no to you, Sarah?”
“I think you said it quite regularly, whenever I objected to you acquiring a new vehicle for propagating the family.”
“OK, aside from that. Hardly ever. You always insist on the right thing to do, which saves me the trouble of thinking for myself.”
“Well, the right thing to do is spend 100 million dollars a year for scholarship students from around the world.”
“OK, OK. Go ahead. Send me the bill.”
In fact the entire English-speaking world was not available directly, since all of the social search and match systems together only covered a tiny percentage of the whole. Sarah proposed to use all of their existing contacts, for a start.
“Between us we have contacts with a cooperating few million people who have given us profiles. I suggest we invite all eligible students from within that population to apply for scholarships. That’s not nearly enough, though, but I am not sure of the next step. Somehow we have to use our contacts to make others.”
Beth Green responded to her mother’s suggestion with one of her own. “Bribery.”
“Expensive.”
“OK, so don’t mention this to Arthur, just do it. If one of our users recruits a scholarship student for us, hand out some money. Good stuff, money. I get a generous allowance, so I never feel the need, but it is supposed to be a great motivator.”
“Your father was just telling me about that chip-fabrication facility you wanted.”
“Oh, that. OK, I guess a good allowance isn’t always enough. Everyone can use an extra buck. So give them some. Everyone who brings us a scholarship student gets, oh, say 10 percent of what a year of the scholarship is worth.”
“That’s too much. Your father would probably spring for $1,000 apiece.”
“Oh, come on, that’s just a drop in the bucket. You probably wouldn’t even mention it to him.”
“Dear, if I even hinted to him about most of the things I spend his money on, he’d be furious. Well, mildly annoyed. It’s Arthur who’d be furious.”
After discussing this with some of the other members of the Social Tech High board of directors, Sarah offered formally on Ken’s behalf to spend a lot of his money on her idea. Not a new experience for her.
Improvising freely as she went along, Sarah announced “Ken Green has agreed to pay for scholarships to expand the school to ten times its present size. These generous scholarships will cover all fees, plus room and board.”
“I have heard something about this already, but would you please spell out why you want to do it?”, board member Ellen Smith asked.
“Increased pool size. A larger pool of candidates will mean much higher compatibility levels. We could go from Level 5, the best student out of 100,000 applicants, to Level 7, the best out of 10 million applicants.”
“Measured by both academic performance and compatibility with an existing school member”, Sally explained for the unenlightened. “Neither attribute by itself is good enough for admission.”
“How could we possibly get 10 million applicants?”, Paul Grey asked.
“The penetration of Tech Fantasies, Project Match and Beth’s system into the English-speaking world may be nearly one percent of the billion or so individuals in it. If we reach those people and offer them a suitable incentive for finding scholarship students, they will get us applicants.”
Ann Kelly said, “Actually the numbers may be higher than that. We do have a significant penetration into places not considered English-speaking. But their best students most often choose English as a second language.”
“Right. So by offering rewards for getting scholarship students into the school, we would have a lot to choose from.”
Sally had another idea. “We routinely find educational opportunities for the people we keep profiles on. It is part of our service. Yours too, I think. If we got a large influx of new users, people hoping to get one of our scholarships, we could recommend other educational opportunities for the ones we don’t accept. For example, we could help the academically gifted who are just not compatible with any of our students or teachers — we could find them scholarships at other institutions.”
“Good idea, Sally. I think we must do this”, Sarah responded. “Ken has offered, well, will offer, when I say so, to pay an incentive of $1,000 as a finder’s fee, for each scholarship student accepted.”
“We might do better if we spent a bit of that money to reward people for just bringing us a qualified applicant. Someone we could send to another school, if not right for ours”, Ann Kelly suggested. “But I am not any kind of expert in this area.”
Ellen Smith was more concerned with the legitimacy of applicants and the identification of the people who actually deserved the finders fee. “If we paid any kind of fee for for valid applicants, I think there would be a lot of fake ones. And even for the real ones, there is the problem of identifying the real person who did the finding. The unscrupulous might try to claim finder’s fees they don’t deserve.”
“Not a problem, according to Beth”, Sarah assured them. “Consistency checks in the questionnaire or generated questions can verify that the people who applied are really people who applied, not somebody’s fabrications. Asking suitable questions of the applicant and supposed finder can verify if the identification of both are correct.”
“If that’s true, we should go ahead.”
Sarah said with a smile, “I believe that Ken is going offer the $1,000 for each accepted applicant anyway, plus, oh, say, $10 for each qualified applicant. That will get us more applications than just offering the larger sum. A lot of people just won’t understand our selection criteria, but if they get some money for kids they don’t think stand a chance of selection, they might help us find them anyway.”
“Such a kind gentleman”, said Sally.
“Always kind to me. And to many others, the damn man.”
It was agreed. Then agreed to again, once modified by Beth.
“Do it in waves. The first wave will draw in a lot of kids, who will go out to recruit others, next time around, hoping for the finders fees. One more iteration, you should get full coverage.”
This would take a while, but the process was begun.
After much consideration, Sally restricted the acceptance rules to strictly guarantee that girls who were too young would never be matched to boys or male teachers, even when parents tolerated the resulting illicit activities. She also applied this rule to girls who according to the customs of their cultures must remain virgins until marriage.
It seemed at first glance that this would damage the structure of the school by creating long chains of girls radiating out from a central core. This worried Sally at first, until she realized that some cross-linking would occur naturally and more could be induced with a careful selection of students.
Expansion began again as students fitting the revised standards were added. It would be gradual until a lot of room was created by the departure of the school’s second graduating class, in June.
As that day approached, many standardized tests were taken, especially by the senior class.
Their performance on tests like the SATs reflected what everyone associated with the school knew. It was not just an intimately linked network of students who shared a wonderful social environment. Social Tech High was an academic success as well.