I got in, but still didn’t think there was any chance I’d go all the way across the country for school But, I when I visited Harvard & asked why I should go there, basically everyone said “because it’s Harvard” That left the door open
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Senior year I had 10 absences due to (1) stomach flu & (2) when we didn’t pay tuition on time they would send me home So when I requested days off to visit Stanford, my teacher threatened to lower my grade. Plus he said I was going to Harvard, no need to visit elsewhere
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So no Stanford visit. On the other hand, some people I had met at LEAD & UVA visited Stanford & made a really strong case My friend’s brother had played b-ball there (shoutout to Brevin Knight) & said at graduation people sit in inflatable pools (my kinda place)
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People at HS were all about Harvard My sister told me that as a black man, I was going to face so much discrimination that I couldn’t afford to not go to the highest ranked school My mother told me I’d make the right choice So I chose Stanford, sight unseen
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But that’s not the end of the story Part of the reason I chose Stanford was b/c of the financial aid package Little did I know this was a projected aid package
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Later in the summer, a different offer came with a higher family contribution, higher than what we had to pay for my HS As I mentioned above, my mother struggled to pay for my HS, one winter we had no heat, sometimes the phone was cut off
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So me again, in the driver’s seat, decided I shouldn’t go I went to my literal rolodex (it was ‘99) and looked up the honors program at UVA My plan was to take a semester or year off & maybe try to take them up on the full ride
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Now my mother was hands off, but luckily she talked me out of this plan that I was fully prepared to implement It could have easily gone a different way, since I was handling all the paperwork
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Anyway, I’m fully aware I had great options & am not trying to brag about them Just saying there were some very random turns along the way I was also *this* close to going into poli sci & not an econ PhD, but that’s another story \end{thread}
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PS: did those of you who went to college, or didn’t, have any randomness? Were your parents running full court press?
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Decided not to go to Stanford because tuition is so expensive. Had no idea it would have been free because my parents didn’t make enough.
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