<p>Wound up at a Mexican grill called something like Qbodas. Not bad. California boy needed a taco.</p>
<p>Driving was no problem, Easter Sunday is very quite. We found parking, free meter for Sunday, no time limit, right on Garden Street. Spent several hours wandering around.</p>
<p>Good news, S has found a university he likes the look of. Bad news, it’s Harvard:). I want to tell him, yeah, you and every other smart kid in the universe, but I’ve got that duct tape firmly in place.</p>
<p>Thanks for the advice all. Felt like those Verizon commercials where the protagonist is trailing of host of people supporting him. Like, yeah, this may be Harvard but I am on cc so I am without fear!</p>
<p>Same thing happened to us. Harvard was only a vague theory - not really on D’s list until we visited. Then it shot straight to the top of her list. The good news is she is now a very happy junior there.</p>
<p>Hey, it’s just bad news because admissions are so impossible and S is a completely ungroomed applicant who is neither a child math genius nor a teen poet genius. Got nothing against the place except 1. its extreme likelihood to reject my child and 2. all the people taking pictures of themselves against any piece of text that says Harvard…and that’s not necessarily under the institution’s control now is it.;).</p>
<p>Neither was D. The chances of getting rejected by H are pretty much the same as for each of its peer institutions as well - never encouranging but worth a try provided that the stats are in the ballpark. Plus having your S dream of and prepare for Harvard will in effect help prepare him for many other colleges as well.</p>
<p>It is certainly true that the Harvard campus is a tourist destination. Tourists taking pictures are a fact of life.</p>
<p>“Same thing happened to us. Harvard was only a vague theory - not really on D’s list until we visited. Then it shot straight to the top of her list. The good news is she is now a very happy junior there.”</p>
<p>Opposite happened here, so there is an ecology to it somewhere.</p>
<p>opposite happened here as well. D thought she HAD to go to Harvard. When she visited Harvard and JHU, letters of acceptance in hand, she saw very few “happy” smiling students. She said that the “intensity” overwhelmed her. This, coming from a kid who got only A’s, took all the AP’s she could fit in her schedule and got the NMS. She also commented on how many tourists were walking around the Harvard campus…</p>
<p>We took the T a little further up the line to Tufts (her “safety”) and she fell in love with the campus, the students, the IR faculty (several of whom took time out of their office hours to meet with her) and the entire atmosphere. She liked that kids seemed competitive with themselves and not necessarily each other. Guess ya never know 'til you actually visit.</p>
<p>In regard to Qdoba, maybe you should have tried Anna’s- the most popular place for burritos, loved by all college and high school kids (fast, cheap, delicious). They have a sister store- Felipe’s in harvard square (at the garage).</p>
<p>Yes, Felipe is the hangout of choice for Harvard students, especially late at night. S and chums seem to be sinking a fair chunk of money there. :(</p>
<p>Check your son’s school scattergrams when you get home. I’ve never seen H deviate from their scattergram grids(+4.0/+1450/+Top Rank–but maybe your school is different.</p>
<p>It’s good for slacker boys to realize a place doens’t want them if they don’t put in the hard yards. That’s what gets them off their backsides.</p>
<p>Ma Rite’s crummy couch croissants are as flakey as the proprietress and the conversation cannot be surpassed. No overnight stays permitted, unfortunately.</p>