[Roberton3]

I was totally unaware of Stanford when I was applying to colleges.  In hindsight, that seems strange: my father was born in Oakland and grew up on the west coast, my grandfather went to Kal, and my great-uncle went to Stanford, and yet I didn't even think about California schools.  I'd grown up on the east coast, and had never been west of Chicago.  And I only thought about schools in a narrower area than that: every college I applied to was in either New York, New Jersey, or New England.  So while my undergrad school's teams are named after a shade of red that begins with "C", I spent those years in Cambridge, not Palo Alto.

But during a summer when I was about halfway through college, I joined my parents on a vacation to California, and while staying with family friends in Los Altos, we made a quick visit to the Stanford campus.  The campus was empty for the summer, but it was still gorgeous, and not at all like any college campus I'd seen before.  And I discovered that Stanford has one of the top PhD programs in my field.  So when I applied to grad school, one of my applications went to Stanford.

My grad school decision came down to MIT or Stanford.  Staying in Cambridge would have been easier, and my undergrad professors were all encouraging me to go to MIT.  But my senior year of college was the snowiest year on record in Boston.  The Boston Globe ran a graphic each day showing the total snowfall so far, superimposed on a picture of Robert Parish (the Celtics' 7-foot center).  After the snow completely covered him, they switched to a picture of him dunking.  And when the snow got past the top of the backboard, they gave up and stopped running the graphic.  My decision was made. 

[Roberton3]

I was totally unaware of Stanford when I was applying to colleges.  In hindsight, that seems strange: my father was born in Oakland and grew up on the west coast, my grandfather went to Kal, and my great-uncle went to Stanford, and yet I didn't even think about California schools.  I'd grown up on the east coast, and had never been west of Chicago.  And I only thought about schools in a narrower area than that: every college I applied to was in either New York, New Jersey, or New England.  So while my undergrad school's teams are named after a shade of red that begins with "C", I spent those years in Cambridge, not Palo Alto.

But during a summer when I was about halfway through college, I joined my parents on a vacation to California, and while staying with family friends in Los Altos, we made a quick visit to the Stanford campus.  The campus was empty for the summer, but it was still gorgeous, and not at all like any college campus I'd seen before.  And I discovered that Stanford has one of the top PhD programs in my field.  So when I applied to grad school, one of my applications went to Stanford.

My grad school decision came down to MIT or Stanford.  Staying in Cambridge would have been easier, and my undergrad professors were all encouraging me to go to MIT.  But my senior year of college was the snowiest year on record in Boston.  The Boston Globe ran a graphic each day showing the total snowfall so far, superimposed on a picture of Robert Parish (the Celtics' 7-foot center).  After the snow completely covered him, they switched to a picture of him dunking.  And when the snow got past the top of the backboard, they gave up and stopped running the graphic.  My decision was made.