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School does

Before going into great detail about how I ended up being admitted by Stanford a year later, rising from the misery of being "rejected" by Geogia, it's important to recall why I applied to those schools I chose. Speak of the style, we know Harvard, Yale, Princeton are known for being tough, uptight, Stanford being highly competitive across the board but it's also quite laidback. So school does have personality. You will find it from their students: students from Stanford normally looks casual, maybe a little careless, they often sit on the steps outside their dormplaying guitar or just talking on the cell phone. What aobut Students from Harvard? no way, you will find them talking on the phone while catching a bus, they look uptight, maybe interesting, but a bit aggressive. They don't sit outside their dorm and play guitar in a sunny afternoon. In fact, that's the last thing you may find. That told me something when I applied to schools: Harvard is not my style, since I often appear to be doing nothing. Most importantly I know myself as laid back kind of guy who is very individualistic. I have a rather wide opened interests that allow me to be flexible when it comes to choose career, friends, hobbies. I can not deal with academia. I find a good combination of academic excellency and flexibility in Stanford by reading through her website, students' websites, published materials, and word of mouth. You may ask why not Berkeley? No! Berkeley is a bit too hippy for me, I have a bit of conservativeness inside of me although I can be quite wild. Berkeley is way too liberal, and it has less reputation than Stanford or other top ivy leagues: yes, brand is important to me, I will pay for the brand but I only pay for what I think it worths. Besides, Berkeley is no less tough than Stanford, why should I mistreat myself if I know for sure I am not scholar type of guy? How about Caltech? People might think, man, if you can go to Stanford, you must be genius: NO, wrong! If you go to Caltech, you have much better chance of being a born genius than people like me. My grandfather went to Caltech for his phd, but Caltech is out of my reach. IQ wise, if you have an IQ in between 130 to 160, you are well suited for Stanford, but not Caltech, you need to be above 160. I find MIT intimitating but not as hard as Berkeley to get in, after all, it is still a private school. I applied Dartmouth who rejected me within two weeks. I guess Dartmouth is too "Ivy" for me, much more so than Harvard or Yale. I met some people from Dartmouth, they are super smart but seem not the "cool" type. Harvard boys have that traditionally rich, conservative looks. Yale girls seem to envy Stanford people too much. That's just some impression I had. How come all of a sudden, I have become an all private school type of guy? I do not know, the urge came in strongly after I decided to take GRE to beat second tier schools like Geogia, it just took off without looking back. I guess if some family tradition runs through your mind, it might as well functions unconciously for you. My grandpa's Caltech's phd in physics definetely reminded me that I might be able to do better, although his talent and mine are in different territory. But alas, I found where I belong: Stanford fits me perfectly. If you are facing the dilemma of choosing school, look to yourself first, then look to schools you are interested and do a comparison study, just like choosing others to date: you have to find a compatible one.

posted by Road less travelled @ 11:27 PM