H: Harvard

As an elementary school kid, I told my parents I wanted to go to Harvard. I'm not sure how I even learned about Harvard, but I knew that's where I wanted to go to college. That lasted until I was 15, and I read an article in the Sunday New York Times Magazine about four kids from a high-profile, prestigious private school in California who were all applying to Harvard. Three of the four were top students - valedictorians and mathematicians and geniuses - and the fourth was an athlete, a decent student, but nowhere near the caliber of the other three. Only one of the four was accepted - guess who? The athlete. At that instant, my interest for Harvard completely vanished. Completely. Of course, as mentioned in B: Boston, my dad made me look at Harvard while we were in Boston when I was 16. I hated it. When I applied to college, I applied early decision to Wellesley, which used the Common Application. Harvard also used the Common Application, so dad thought I should apply to Harvard if I didn't get into Wellesley. Thank god I did!

I went to Harvard a few times my first two years of college - one of my friends was dating a guy who went to Harvard (her high school boyfriend) and so I met her there a few times while she was spending the weekend there, and of course, I wandered around Harvard Square a lot, shopping and eating and drinking tea from Tealuxe. During my junior year, my friend decided to spend the year as an exchange student at Harvard - she never said why, but I think it was an attempt to get her boyfriend back after they had broken up the year before. I started spending more time there hanging out with her. And then I went home for Christmas. On my flight back to Boston, a guy that I had met the summer before in my research internship sat next to me on the plane. Small world, right? He went to Harvard and in fact, lived in my friend's dorm! We started dating, so I started spending even more time at Harvard. As I did, I realized more than ever that I had made a great decision to go to Wellesley. I wouldn't have liked it there. Many of the people students had airs of superiority about them - not all of them, I liked most of my boyfriend's friends - but enough of them that I always felt that I didn't quite belong there. After we broke up a few months later, I kept going to Harvard Square to hang out - I had found Anna's Taqueria and Arrow Street Crepes, and they were MY places! I found them before the ex-boyfriend had!  

When it came time to apply to med school, Harvard was on my list, but as more of an obligation than anything else. How can you not apply to Harvard, right? But again, it wasn't where I wanted to go. I wanted to go to Cornell more than anything, and I was devastated when I didn't even get an interview there. Then I fell in love with my current school on my interview trip, and it was off to the Midwest. I didn't get into Harvard, and I didn't even care.

I'm two years away from my Rank List for Residency, and for the first time in my life, I want to go to Harvard. Or at least, it's sure to be near the top of my list. Looks like my elementary school self was right - I do want to go to Harvard. Just not for what I thought I did back then...

links: technorati