<p>"They must be, simultaneously, a bold leader and an easygoing follower. They must consume gossip mags and classic novels with equal ferocity. They must enjoy spending countless hours holed up in the library–if and only if they spend the same number of hours at a sweaty dorm party afterward in order to forget what they studied.</p>
<p>They must be equally comfortable dining in evening wear at a Michelin three-star French restaurant and wolfing down Oreos and peanut butter as they sit, pajama-clad, on a lumpy and off-kilter futon mattress.</p>
<p>In other words, they must be superhuman.My roommates and I teased each other mercilessly every time (and there were many, many times) that we failed to live up to this paradigm of utter perfection. It was a running joke to label yourself “the admissions mistake” if you fell short in any area, whether it was the classroom, on the intramural playing field, in the newsroom of the college newspaper or in a romantic relationship.</p>
<p>If it’s any comfort, we do grunt and huff and execute frustrated hip-thrusts when we push doors clearly labeled “PULL”–and then (laughingly?) bop ourselves on the noggin afterward. And while all of this ribbing is in jest, beneath the bravado and the chuckles and the one-liners there is a not-insignificant core of vulnerability. Fretful about failure, we harbor a deep-seated fear that we won’t live up to our own expectations and those of the people we love. After all, we won the admissions game. So we have to make good on our potential.</p>
<p>[How</a> To Get Into Harvard - Forbes.com](<a href=“http://www.forbes.com/2009/03/27/get-into-harvard-college-opinions-contributors-harvard.html]How”>How To Get Into Harvard)</p>