Skybridge: The Found and the Conquered: Goal 91: Into Stanford

I've always done well in school, A's and B's. Mostly driven by a perceived obligation to my future self, I just did what I was told to, nothing special. Through high school, my attitude could be summed up in the adage, 'good, not great.' So I didn't worry about where I went to college. That apathy paid off big time by sending me to a college that gave me freedom, financial and pathwise.

I could probably write a book on all of the fabulous things New Mexico Tech has enabled me to do, and how that has gotten me here, but it would probably be boring, so I'll summarize.

Goal 91: Get Somewhere that was Hard to Get to

Here's the summary:

Boy goes to UMass and realizes there's quite a world out there

Boy goes to Disney World and realizes that there's quite a bit of competent competition out there

Boy comes home and starts to go to conferences, lead clubs, and go on more trips

Boy starts to work towards a goal of free graduate study at an excellent university

Teaching, research, design projects, and an internship at a national lab all set me up to be a pretty admirable candidate for graduate study. I found this out when I started getting travel grants to visit grad schools. I visited Purdue's Grad School Expo, then USC, which I must say, was truly necessary to understand the whole process. After all that, I tidied my resume and story up and sent it all off like a fisherman's net, and hoped that I'd get some good stuff.

I was pretty confident in my applications, but when it really came down to it, I didn't actually know at all. I had done lots of work, and had even mustered some last minute teaching experience. I had won a national competition and third place for a research poster, and I maintained an above-average GPA while I was at it.

Now, after you send off the applications, there's quite a bit of waiting involved. Some people get stressed over it, I never did. The first thing I heard was an email from the University of Michigan, inviting me to visit the school. Then Georgia Tech did the same. I was quite excited, because I took this as a good sign.

Then the rejection letter from USC came, and I was deeply perturbed, as I thought USC was my safety school. The other two, better ranked, harder to get admitted, were flying me out, but had not made any offers... This made me feel very uncomfortable about my top schools, Berkeley and Stanford.

I visited Michigan, and the next week booked a plane ticket to visit Georgia Tech. With such short notice, I was hard pressed to get a ticket under $400 (my reimbursement cap). I used Priceline's "Name Your Own Price" feature, and managed to slide a ticket right under the cap at $393.

The next day I get an e-mail from Stanford: They want to fly me out the next week; the week I had just bought a plane ticket to Atlanta for; the ticket that was totally non-refundable or changeable. But even if I had to eat the $400, how could I turn down a trip to Stanford? That was a good sign; an exciting sign. I make all the proper arrangements, and head to Stanford the next week on their dime.

Arriving in San Francisco, I was welcomed by a very good omen sign

This is one of those situations where you want to be careful to not get too excited. Who knows what happens from here, sure it's a good sign, but that doesn't mean much more than that. I take a tour and eat dinner with some other students, I meet Ibraham, whom I met previously at the UMich visit. The next morning we meet with the admissions chair before meeting with each of the professors.

"Soooo, are you comin!?" He asks.

"Well, what's the process from here? When will we find out?" I respond.

With a look that is but slightly blindsided, "Well, look at the fact that you're here as a good sign."

This is the church. Pretty beautiful, especially on the inside.

I meet with a few professors, then with Dr. Noe Lozano, the diversity admissions dean, who I had met at many conferences before. He tells a Stanford undergrad student that I had recently been admitted, and then tells me that he's putting my name in for a fellowship. BAM. How about that? I hear from students who have email on their phones that their acceptance email arrived.

The dinner at the end of the night, after the walking tour, and after a day of meetings, required that we stand for an hour, listening to people speak to us.

I'm in. I was accepted to Stanford, one of the most renowned schools, and the number one place in the world to study design. Not many people get in, even fewer are flown out. It was hard to get to Stanford for free.

So the rest of the time was used to tour San Fran, and Berkeley. My fellowship to Berkeley is second round, and will be based on whether a friend of mine accepts or denies. So I made my way over for a self-guided tour. I'll give you a hint at how much I liked Berkeley:

That's right, THREE SKYBRIDGES! I drooled.

The campus was also very lively compared to Stanford's campus. There were lots of people, street performers, and it was butt up against the city of Berkeley, where Stanford has it's own little bubble away from Palo Alto.