[97fan]

My older brother was always smarter than me, so from a young age I internalized the idea that I was a good student but not necessarily top-of-the-heap.

When it came time to apply to college, I decided to apply to a list of very good but not top-of-the-heap schools: Northwestern, Penn, Georgetown and Duke.

I wrote away for application materials, and for whatever reason, I never received anything back from Duke. So one day I was complaining to my Dad about this annoyance, and he responded, "Why don't you just apply to Stanford instead?"

Turned out, all I needed was a little encouragement, a simple assurance that I could apply to the very best schools. I never applied to Duke, rejoiced when I got accepted to Stanford, and had the same kind of love-at-first-sight moment that others have described when they first pulled onto Palm Drive.

[97fan]

My older brother was always smarter than me, so from a young age I internalized the idea that I was a good student but not necessarily top-of-the-heap.

When it came time to apply to college, I decided to apply to a list of very good but not top-of-the-heap schools: Northwestern, Penn, Georgetown and Duke.

I wrote away for application materials, and for whatever reason, I never received anything back from Duke. So one day I was complaining to my Dad about this annoyance, and he responded, "Why don't you just apply to Stanford instead?"

Turned out, all I needed was a little encouragement, a simple assurance that I could apply to the very best schools. I never applied to Duke, rejoiced when I got accepted to Stanford, and had the same kind of love-at-first-sight moment that others have described when they first pulled onto Palm Drive.