Thanks for posting. I just sent this to my parents who were also in the Soviet Union until we all emigrated to the US.
Here's the response from my mom:
Yes, it's typical. The only thing which surprises me that the dad's dad insisted on military in 1970 - there was an antisemitic campaign in military in 1961 and grandfather could not miss it. Usually families knew which colleges accept Jewish kids, which did not and usually there was a "plan B". There was a category of "top" colleges which ran exams in July, while all others ran exams in August, like this guy who failed in top choice in July still had option to take exams in August (like my mom who failed with Institute of mechanics and Optics in July applied for Pedagogical Institute in August, or Alik [her uncle] who was not admitted in Moscow university applied in Kharkov in August etc.) And some people who were fighting actually succeeded (like Alena [her aunt] whom they gave either 4 or 3 in math said she knows well enough to get 5, so the examiner said, "I will have to call a head of the commission", Alena said, "So call him." And started all over again. Vitya, my cousin, had the same experience: they told him his solution is wrong, he gave them another one, and one more, and they also called for the head of admissions, and she showed him the right solution - then he showed her his first solution, etc. So it's a little weird that for this family this all sounded as a surprise. It was every family experience ;-( and one of the reasons of emigration (same situation with jobs.)
I mostly concur, except that I am not surprised it could be a surprise for many whose minds were filled with an ideological view of the society they lived in. I remember how difficult it was for me to get used to the idea that I do not live in the best country, the beacon of hope for the world. And I was far from alone.
My close friend's mother could not believe it until her son, a straight-A student from K to 12, was given a failing grade at an entrance exam in physics which he knew and understood very well. Oh, it's funny to remember now, by the way. They would give him a problem, then come back before he would finish the solution, say "you did not solve it" and mark it with a minus. Several times he was faster than them. Still, after a while they got a sufficient number of minuses and said good-bye to him. He expected it would be a losing battle, but still was a little shocked at their arrogance.
Interesting. I was pretty young so I can't really chime in but I know my parents were in Leningrad (now St Petersburg) so urban areas may have had more awareness? They were also part of some underground Jewish study groups which would have given them a different perspective.
I guess you're right. The Leningrad, Moscow and Kiev were different from most of the USSR in many aspects, including official anti-semitism in universities. And Tashkent was yet another universe altogether.
I haven't yet shown this to my mom (native russian, emigrated in early 1980s) But she told me that she basically had to blackmail the head doctors of the Moscow Medical School to get accepted because they officially were not allowed to accept any Jews, though about 10-15% of the school was still some how Jewish.
She also had trouble because she applied for a visa to Israel before she finished Med School and was of course denied, but once you have that on your record no one is allowed to hire you so she had to do some more blackmail to get into residency when she completed residency she was finally given permission to leave. (Which was nice because she had no idea how to get a job once she finished residency after being a refusenik)
Yea - there's a good documentary called "Refuseniks" that covers this in more detail.
An interesting story from there is that as so many educated Jews were fired from their jobs they started filling in other positions. Someone tells a story of applying to be an elevator operator and being asked if she had a PhD.
Here's the response from my mom:
Yes, it's typical. The only thing which surprises me that the dad's dad insisted on military in 1970 - there was an antisemitic campaign in military in 1961 and grandfather could not miss it. Usually families knew which colleges accept Jewish kids, which did not and usually there was a "plan B". There was a category of "top" colleges which ran exams in July, while all others ran exams in August, like this guy who failed in top choice in July still had option to take exams in August (like my mom who failed with Institute of mechanics and Optics in July applied for Pedagogical Institute in August, or Alik [her uncle] who was not admitted in Moscow university applied in Kharkov in August etc.) And some people who were fighting actually succeeded (like Alena [her aunt] whom they gave either 4 or 3 in math said she knows well enough to get 5, so the examiner said, "I will have to call a head of the commission", Alena said, "So call him." And started all over again. Vitya, my cousin, had the same experience: they told him his solution is wrong, he gave them another one, and one more, and they also called for the head of admissions, and she showed him the right solution - then he showed her his first solution, etc. So it's a little weird that for this family this all sounded as a surprise. It was every family experience ;-( and one of the reasons of emigration (same situation with jobs.)