Anonymous asked: What other colleges did you apply to besides Harvard? What would have been your second or third choice?

Harvard actually wasn’t my first choice, because I thought it was a total crapshoot. I decided to apply three weeks before the early admission deadline and sent in an eleventh hour application that required scrambling to collect a bunch of recommendation letters and pulling several all-nighters. In other words, this wasn’t a very well-prepared effort, nor was I that attached to getting in. In general, I wasn’t one of those kids who aspired to the Ivy League from age 6. Like I’ve said before, my public school was not the type of place where hordes of graduates went on to Harvard, Stanford, and the like. (Not because my peers weren’t bright, but because we didn’t have access to the best resources, nor did many people come from families who could pay for expensive tours through New England schools.)

Still, I knew that I wanted to go to college in the East Coast, and I really wanted to leave Los Angeles (mostly, to become independent from my parents). Northwestern, specifically the Medill School of Journalism, became my first choice when I decided to pursue writing, and I very much fixated on it as my “dream school”. I also thought I stood a good chance of getting in, given my stats and interests, so unlike H-Y-P, it was a realistic aspiration. I applied to all the other schools as a political science major, since none had writing programs.

I sent in the Harvard Common App in October (along with the one for Yale, only because it had essentially the same application, not because I had any particular affection for the school). I then applied to UC Berkeley, UCLA, UC San Diego, and UC Irvine in November, with plans to send in the rest of my East Coast applications by their December and January due dates. After being admitted to Harvard in December, I didn’t apply anywhere else, so I don’t know what options I would have had to choose from. Of the schools I did apply to, I was admitted to all the UCs and rejected from Yale. I also half-heartedly completed the Stanford app the night I got into Harvard and was later wait-listed.

Because I keep meticulous records of my entire uneventful adolescence (no, seriously), these were the schools for which I had semi-prepared applications, in the order of preference indicated by my then-17-year-old self:

1. Northwestern, Medill School of Journalism (IL)
2. Columbia (NY)
3. Georgetown (DC)
4. Brown (RI)
5. Williams (MA)
6. Amherst (MA)
7. Wellesley (MA)
8. Smith (MA)
9. Stanford (CA)
10. Claremont McKenna & Pomona College (CA)

I briefly considered Macalester but then quickly nixed the idea because I wasn’t that enthused about living in Minnesota for four years. Barnard was also a consideration, but with two women’s colleges already on my list, the application fees were starting to get ridiculous and unjustifiable. (I did get a fee waiver to all the Ivies and Stanford, though — lower-income kids should look into these options.)

I admit that most of my preferences were geographic, and in retrospect, I probably shouldn’t have thought about college as a way to “get the hell out of California”. In the end, I chose Harvard because it was Harvard and probably would have done so even if the campus were on Mars. So prestige won out.

But if I could do it all over again and Harvard weren’t an option? I would have still applied to Yale (which, based on my personal experiences with Yalies, seems like a less neurotic version of Harvard), Brown (because everyone seems so happy and chill there), and Columbia (because it would be amazing to live in New York).

But who knows where I’d even be able to get in nowadays given the über-competitive climate?

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