Today was one of the more unusual ILC days I've ever been a part of. We started off with an attempted tour at Harvard. The tour was scheduled for 11 AM, and we arrived at 10:30, so we were able to watch a Harvard video for the half hour we spent waiting for the tour. I found the video interesting, and was excited to head off on a tour of the campus to see if Harvard was as good a fit for me as MIT appears to be. Obviously, those are both ridiculously competitive schools to get into, but I wanted to understand if I liked MIT for MIT, or if I liked MIT because it happened to be a great school in Boston. I was hoping to either love Harvard for entirely different reasons from why I love MIT or for some bizarre reason dislike Harvard, so I could know for sure that I like MIT for being MIT, not just for being a prestigious Boston university.
Unfortunately, I never got the chance to fully learn about Harvard for myself, since they didn't allow group tours at this point in time. I was disappointed that I wouldn't be able to learn pretty much anything about Harvard, and so was excited to get a chance to speak with the Northern California admissions officer for Harvard, Roger Baker, who graciously gave us an hour of his time just for our group to ask him and a few students and alums questions about Harvard. I found the makeshift info session surprisingly informative, but still wasn't able to get a feel for Harvard, which was a sad way to end all these great college visits.
We ended up heading over to the Paul Revere house after a bite to eat at Quincy Market, and it was amazing to see a house with that much history behind it. My hands-down favorite part of the Paul Revere house (with the musket demonstrators outside a close second) was the air conditioning. While the temperature in Boston never got up to the heatwave I expected after Don sent us a warning e-mail, it did get somewhat humid, and you can never have too much air conditioning. We headed back to the dorm, and after an hour of R&R (rest and redemption; more specifically the Shawshank Redemption) we headed off to our last dinner on the East Coast! We ended up getting to see WaterFire again, which made me want to stay in Providence even more than I already do now. I can't believe I'll be back at my home tomorrow, and I really appreciate the experiences I've had thanks to the ILC.
Nick,
ReplyDeleteI have to hand it to you. Your version of the Harvard snub was very polite--almost as if you wanted to stay on their good side should you apply. That should tell them something about your intelligence. I’m afraid that I would have written a few words that would have been tantamount to slitting my wrists with a rusty razor.
I’ll accept your version the way you’ve written it. I know you well enough to accept the kindness of your words.