The ornate domed towers, arched cloisters and fairytale facade of Princess Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns was designed by the architect to impress the outside world with its majestic beauty, and on the inside, to provide a safe and comfortable environment of classrooms, libraries, and spacious gardens, where the students could focus on their studies protected from the distractions of Canterlot city. The main entrance to the school was through an archway made of white stone beautifully carved with pictures of unicorns, trees and flowers, and the school motto: Per Studia ad Amicitia. (Few students had any idea what the old words meant.)

But to gain admission to this academic haven, it was necessary for students to pass a competitive examination. With only a small number of places, the school was heavily oversubscribed. Every year many young unicorn fillies and colts with a love of learning, from all around Equestria, would dream of winning a place. They would sit a written exam to assess their theoretical knowledge of magic, and those who passed this hurdle were invited to the school itself where a panel of examiners would judge their practical magic skills.

Every candidate was given three short examinations by different panels, to help make the process as fair as possible. Hence, on one autumn day every year, the foyer of the school was crowded with nervous little ponies, rushing around, checking schedules, talking with parents, and generally panicking.

“I know I messed up that one,” said a little lavender filly, with tearful eyes, and an untidy indigo, pink and purple mane. “I never thought they would ask me to do a four dimensional metamorphosis. Cadance never said anything about that. And when they asked about the fundamental interactions between unicorn magic and earth spirits, I could only think of five... I know there are more than that... And...”

“Twilight,” said her mother. “You were able to do everything they asked you to. I'm sure you did very well.”

“But I didn't do anything properly,” said Twilight Sparkle, while skim-reading the notes on a set of flashcards orbiting around her head in a pink aura. “And the next test is the final one where they'll ask me something really hard. I've got to get this one right. I need to read some more on the practical limits of infinite incantations.”

She levitated a textbook out of her saddle bag and began flipping through the pages.

“Twilight,” said her mother. “There's a lovely café just across the road. We have half an hour until your final exam. Let's go and get an ice-cream.”

“I can't. I gotta learn this.”

“You can't learn much in thirty minutes,” said her father. “It's better that you try to relax.” With parental authority the two adult ponies led Twilight out of the school doors.

On the other side of the foyer, an ivory unicorn filly with a curly pink mane was sobbing uncontrollably, while her parents tried to comfort her. “I-I couldn't do anything... They-they asked me to arrange the sticks as an octahedron, but I couldn't remember what that was, and my mind just went blank. Then they just asked if I could levitate the sticks, and I should have been able to do it, but I just f-froze up...”

“It's okay Twinkleshine,” said her mother. “It's not the end of the world if you don't get a place. There are lots of other good schools.”

“B-but I really really want to come here. It looks so nice, and I'm sure I'll make friends here.”

Meanwhile in the center of the room, a blue-green filly with a blond mane was confidently spinning an oval hoofball on the tip of her horn.

“I totally aced that one. They'll offer me a place for sure. They'd be mad not to. They'll want a pro like me on the school team.”

She fired the ball at the wall with a high power levitation, then caught it as it bounced off at an angle.

“Hey—catch!” She threw the ball towards Twinkleshine, who froze, staring at the projectile, which hit her square in the face. She burst into tears. Her parents hugged her, while staring at the aggressor with a look of icy hatred, whose elegantly dressed mother and father stood to one side pretending not to notice.

“You certainly should get an offer Sapphire Scrum,” said her mother. “After all the bits we paid that magic kindergarten for extra tuition.”

“'Course I might not accept it,” said her daughter, spinning the ball again. “This seems a bit of an egghead school. Dunno if I want to come here really.”

“You will accept an offer,” insisted her mother. “Even if you are not interested in studying, being a student at Princess Celestia's school will open a lot of doors.”



The parents and foals fell silent as a classroom door opened and four stern-faced school teachers walked out, levitating their clip boards before them. They paid no attention to the public crowd and walked away down a corridor, apparently unaware of all the pony eyes staring at them, scrutinizing their faces for any clue to what they were thinking. They reached the door to the school staffroom and disappeared into this private refuge.

Professor Crystal Clear yawned. It had been a long day, and they still had a final set of candidates to see before they could go for dinner. The candidates may stress out over three tests in one day, but she, and her team, each had to do over twenty. Still, she reminded herself, it was worth it. It made the job of teaching a lot easier if you picked the right students to start with.

No examination process was perfect, and all the teachers were well aware that every year they would make mistakes. Bright foals would crack under the pressure and miss out on a place. And more seriously, in her opinion, they would sometimes admit overconfident fillies or colts, who really did not deserve it. Hence the three-exam system, which made it as reliable as possible in the restricted time.

They had a fifteen minute break before they had to get back to examining. The professor sat down on the plush cushions, poured herself a cup of tea from a large blue-and-white teapot, added a drop of milk, and took a few cookies from a plate. Around her, the staff were comparing notes. At this point in the day, it was clear who the front-runners and no-hopers were, but the last few places were still an open question.

Her colleague Professor Arpeggio was reading the notes of another member of the examination board. “You gave her a ten! Seriously? You're not inflating your marks are you?” he said.

“Wait 'til you see her. Ha, I see you didn't think much of Miss Scrum either,” Professor Empirical Logic replied.

“You gave her a four—that seems generous.”

“She was okay at levitation but couldn't spell her own name, let alone any serious enchantment. It was clear after five minutes that she didn't have a snowball's chance in Tartarus of getting a place, so we just let her talk about Canterlot rules Hoofball for the rest of her time.”

“What did she get in the written test?”

“Seventy-one. But that's not a surprise. She went to that prep school where they cram them with the answers to every past paper for the last five years. She reminds me of that hilarious one we saw last year. You remember Miss Lulamoon.”

“How could I forget?”

Crystal Clear stared over Empirical Logic's withers and read her notes. “You only gave Miss Twinkleshine a three—what went wrong?” she asked.

“We couldn't get anything out of her. She burst into tears after a few minutes and never recovered.”

“She was probably just nervous. Liberal Art and Square Cap seemed to like her. They gave her a seven.”

The elderly professor at another table, on hearing his name, called across, “Yes, she showed us a lovely demonstration of the florentibus cristallum charm. She got the colors almost perfect.”

“And what did she get on the test?”

“Sixty-eight percent—not bad. Let's see what Rhetoric and Apple Polish make of her. I'd say she's still in the running.”

Professor Clear pushed her glasses further up her muzzle and sipped her tea. “Are there anymore we need to discuss? Any other big discrepancies in the scores?”

The unicorns all levitated their papers in the air in front of them and scanned the tables of marks.

“I see you gave Mr Sky Blue a five,” said Liberal Art, “We also found him a little lackluster. For all his enthusiastic talk about being inspired to study magic after watching Princess Celestia raise the sun—don't they all say that?—he struggled to perform the most basic levitation. I think we can dismiss him. I think the ranking of the others is pretty clear now.”

“We need to tell you something about Twilight Sparkle,” said Square Cap.

“Miss Sparkle?” said Crystal Clear. “What is there to discuss? She's through. She got a hundred percent on the written examination—nopony's done that since Sunset Shimmer. We said yesterday that with a score like that she would have to turn the examiner into a pot plant, or something, to not get a place. And, let's see, you gave her a ten didn't you?”

“That's not what I meant. The problem is you can't give her any of the standard exercises in her final test. We got through them all in the first exam.”

“What all of them? Even the tesseract transfiguration?”

“She configured the full family of magical hypercubic figures before we had finished asking the question,” said Square Cap.

“And the illusion projection?”

“She produced a full size image of Starswirl the Bearded in the air in front of us. In color, with all the details. She even got the bells right.”

Professor Clear sucked in a breath. Most new students could barely manage to produce a likeness of a simple shape.

“What about the list of reserve exercises?”

Professor Rhetoric spoke up. “We got though those ten minutes into her second exam. We then had to search through our old notes to find something from last year which hadn't been reused. After that we had to improvise. I looked around the room searching for ideas, and my eyes fell on the door, so I asked her how she would go about cracking a magical lock. In two minutes she had deciphered the encryption spell and gave us a list of suggestions on possible improvements to school security.”

The professors turned to the door with a worried look. Could a candidate have sneaked into the staff room?

“And I must say, she was also extremely polite and modest, and altogether a very sweet little filly.”

“But what are we going to do?” said Arpeggio. “We don't have time to think up some new problems.”

“We could just tell her she's got a place, and doesn't need to go through a third test,” suggested Empirical Logic.

“We can't do that. That would be totally unprofessional,” said Crystal Clear.

“Well then, we just need to set her something really difficult,” said Arpeggio.

“That's what we've been doing,” replied several of the professors in unison. “She just throws back perfect answers to everything.”

Professor Logic pondered the problem. “Maybe we could ask her what question she would ask herself in an examination.”

Crystal Clear pointed out the flaw in this logic. “She might think of something which we don't understand.”

“What if we set her something impossible? Tell her to do an age spell, or raise the moon, or predict the future or something.”

“But she would know that she can't do that,” said Arpeggio. “I'd rather not see another filly in tears today. It has to be something that she doesn't know is impossible.”

“I've got it!”

Professor Apple Polish turned her head and focused her magic on a cabinet at the end of the room, which contained a selection of ornamental curiosities. She levitated a large oval object, covered with purple spots, over to the coffee table. It was an ancient dragon egg, recovered from an archaeological dig some years before.

“What's the game? She has to guess what it is?” asked Empirical Logic.

“I thought we could ask her to hatch it.”

The examiners all fell about laughing.

“That's perfect,” said Crystal Clear. “She won't know how old it is. She'll try to hatch it using spells for birds’ eggs, or maybe a power fracture incantation, or who knows what? It will be interesting to see what she tries. I guess it is even theoretically possible to hatch it—not very likely given its age—but there's no way a single pony could generate the magical energy to activate it. That's brilliant.”

She set about clearing a tea trolley of cups and plates, then placed the egg in the center. Meanwhile Apple Polish took a piece of paper and crayons and drew a simple sketch to show a little dragon inside a broken egg. She stuck this onto the side of the trolley.

“Okay everypony,” she said, getting to her hooves, adjusting her glasses and clipping fresh sheets of paper onto her clipboard. “Remember—professionalism—we can't show Miss Sparkle any sign of our decision, or what we expect of her.”

Adopting their most professional faces, the four examiners walked towards the door. Crystal Clear addressed a school porter. “Give us a few minutes to get settled, then wheel in the trolley.”

The stallion nodded.

“Okay, let's go and meet Miss Sparkle.”

They walked out through the staffroom door with the passive determined look of professional examiners. But the professor permitted herself a small smile.

“She's going to be a fun one to teach.”