Meeting with prof while on campus tour

unalove
Fri, 11 Jul 2008 00:49:46 +0000

When I visited one college that had a program I was particularly interested in, I sort of wandered into the office and chatted with the secretary to see if I could get more information (I was looking for a booklet, perhaps).

The head of the program saw me and my parents outside and welcomed us into her office. I should mention that this is the head of a famous program at a famous, non-Ivy League university.

It’s funny that she took me in without having any idea what my qualifications were, and even funnier when I saw her jaw drop when I mentioned a summer program I did. (I had no idea that the summer program I did was so special). It was perhaps even more telling that, at the end of the conversation, she said, “Well, if you are so accomplished, why don’t you apply to Harvard?” I don’t think she got the fact that I liked her institution a lot more than I did the big H.

So this conversation didn’t lead me to change my mind about my academic plans-- the class I sat in on at Chicago sold me a lot more than that conversation did-- but the school was my second choice, a school I would have been very happy to attend had I applied and been admitted.