Stanford and Cornell

Greybeard
Fri, 18 Apr 2008 16:40:26 +0000

If you like ping pong, and want to get together with other people who like ping pong in order to play with them, and talk about ping pong, and get better at ping pong, then by all means start a ping pong club.

If you’re thinking of starting a ping pong club because you believe starting a club would impress an admissions officer, then I’d recommend skipping it.

One of the best things about high school is that you have a chance to do things you really like doing. I was on my high school newspaper staff thirty-plus years ago because I was was interested in becoming a better writer, because I thought it would be really fun, and because the other people who were on the school newspaper staff were people who I thought I would enjoy hanging out with.

There’s a group of ten of us who are still close friends a third of a century after we joined that staff together. We email each other every week, and discuss our lives, and current events. We had a big reunion a year ago, and most of us are getting together again in a couple of months.

As it happened, I did end up attending both Cornell and Stanford. But if a thunderous voice were to resonate from the hills today, and tell me I had to relive my life, and would have to give up either the high school newspaper experience, or Cornell and Stanford, I wouldn’t hesitate for a second. The time I spent with my friends on the school newspaper, and the friendships I have enjoyed ever since, would win hands down.