Notes from Harvard
April brings campus visits, as well as showers (and May flowers)
Veronika Bordas
Claes Nobel Academic Scholarship Recipient
Harvard College
It’s hard to believe that Admitted Students Weekend will be here in a couple of weeks, for it was then, a whole year ago, that I first came onto Harvard’s campus knowing that I would actually be here.
Not that I hadn’t visited Harvard before I applied: my dad and I drove along the East Coast visiting most of the 12 or so schools on my list the summer before my senior year. It was a fun and useful trip, and I would definitely recommend it to all juniors pondering their summer plans--isn’t applying to a place you have never seen before rather disconcerting? I mean, you must, at some point, wonder how much the pictures of the campus appearing on the many brochures you get in the mail have been Photoshopped. Although a picture might be worth a thousand words, an extra few dimensions are added to its content when you are there live--the weather, the ambience, the general feel of the place that you can’t get even from a video. It’s worth the visit, since after all, you will be living here for a few years. And if you visit and decide you don’t like the place after all, you’ve managed to save yourself the application fee.
In each of the places we visited, my dad and I made mental notes to ourselves. I tried to be very objective; after all, what if I really did set my heart upon a school, loved it, and then got a waitlist or rejection letter? When my dad asked me whether I wanted a T-shirt at some of the places we visited, I declined each one, for what if it turned out I wouldn’t be going there? I would rather get a shirt once I had mailed in that postcard confirming my place in the school’s class of 2010.
Visiting Weekend, or “Prefrosh Weekend,” was very exciting for me because I knew that when I went, I did not have the “what if” question on my mind; I had already sent Harvard confirmation that I would be coming to school here. Upon getting to campus, I was overcome by a feeling of pride--no longer was this a prospective school, one among a dozen--this was where I would be. When I had received my acceptance letter I immediately recalled the positive aspects from my visit there the past summer, and I no longer needed to be neutral in my preferences.
It was a rather icky weekend: pretty chilly, despite its being late April (and moreover, I was coming from 80-degree weather in San Antonio, Texas), with some rain. It was a festive weekend, though, with multitudes of student groups putting on performances especially for the enlarged audience. There was no “boring night” --as the calendar I received the first day I got onto campus indicated, there was a plethora of activities to choose from, whether it was the Wind Ensemble concert or the 80s Dance. During the day, there were talks by administrators, general campus and library tours, and activities fairs. Of course, to be expected was the long line at the dining hall (there we stood, in the cold!), since it was trying to accommodate the 1,600 freshmen as well as the 1,000 or so visiting students. What I took much enjoyment in was just walking around and exploring the campus. I stayed with a freshman who, like many other freshmen, had signed up to host a visiting student.
It’s strange for me now to get emails from the administration asking whether I would like to host a student. Or getting ready with my musical group for the extracurricular fair, putting together posters and pamphlets for prospective students to see. It is very exciting for me, since it was only a year ago that I myself was in the position of visiting students, and have an idea as to what they might be feeling. For me, it was a fun “so this is where I’ll be!” experience, but I know many of you may be torn between a few schools. I think going to as many visiting weekends as possible is a good idea to make the final choice. You must have found something exciting to have applied to the schools in the first place, right? Visiting weekend is a good time to rekindle good feelings (and bad ones…) about each school you’ve gotten into, and visiting them in a short timeframe will best enable you to compare them. Also, you’re looking at each school with a different perspective: you can go to any one of these schools! It’s like having stared at the window display of a candy store, but unable to afford anything, yet now being able to buy any of the sweets you wish. You have no reason to restrain yourself.
I hope choosing the college you want to attend is fun and exciting. Enjoy what little is left of your senior year--you will be a college student in no time!