Harvard and My Daughter

My daughter, who is a senior in high school, is anxiously awaiting next month's notices from all the colleges she has applied to. I spent last year taking her to all of them (except Princeton). We saw and toured: MIT, Harvard, Stanford, CalTech, UC Berkeley, UCLA and UC San Diego. Her top choice is MIT, of course, but she realizes that she has to consider the other options.

Now, a year or so ago, Harvard's president made a ridiculous remark about women not being as competent in math and science. Because that is exactly the areas my daughter excels in (well, she excels in everything, but likes those areas better), she staged an informal "boycott" of Harvard. This consisted of her never wearing the Harvard sweatshirt I had bought for her, even though we still toured the school and she had applied there.

Harvard schedules interviews for its applicants, and she finally had hers yesterday afternoon. While she looks up to and admires Lisa Randall (physicist at Harvard), she still wasn't so sure because of that stupid president. Anyway, when I opened the paper yesterday morning, I saw that the president was resigning! I rushed upstairs to show my daughter the article. I think it made her feel better about considering Harvard as a choice, and I'm glad she went into that interview knowing about his resignation.

Her interview was supposed to be an hour, but it was over an hour and a half. He loved her! (Well, who wouldn't?? Ok, mom brag time here. She has a 4.32 GPA, takes tons of AP classes, has taught herself the second year of Calculus since her school didn't have enough kids sign up for it, volunteers at a local hospital, plays the piano, tutors fellow students, takes an engineering class at Fresno State, can speak fluent Spanish.....ok, you get the idea. She is absolutely brilliant and super self-motivated!) He commented on how much he admired her numerous times and said how she was just like what Harvard wanted in its students.

She was really excited when she got home from the interview, and I was excited for her. Just a couple weeks ago she was saying that they would never accept her and why should she bother. Anyway, I thought it was really cute this morning when she came out of her room because she was wearing her Harvard sweatshirt! :)

As a mom, it is a weird time. On the one hand, I'm excited for her and can't wait to see which schools accept her. On the other hand, I dread losing her and not having her at home anymore. She and I are so much alike, in personality, likes, etc., that selfishly I love having her around because I feel we understand each other like no one else can. I love her so much and I could never want anything more in a daughter. It is going to kill me to let her leave. Yet, again, I'm so excited because I KNOW she will accomplish so much and be successful. I guess that means I've done my job.

On the practical side, it's also all the wondering.....is she going to stay in CA, or are we all going to be traveling to the east coast often? Are we going to spend $40K a year (plus travel expenses) for a private school, or $20K a year for a UC? If she stays in CA, we will actually get to see her any more than if she was back east? I just want to know NOW! These last few weeks until she gets her letters are going to make me crazy!

Ok......enough of that. I forgot to mention that I had my appointment with my Contracts professor last Friday before leaving for Vegas. He is extremely easy to talk to, and I ended up spending 45 minutes with him! He loved my midterm because I was very organized and stuck, strictly, to using the IRAC format. Honestly, I couldn't see doing his exam any other way. It is so helpful that he thinks in the same way I do, because other than it just making sense, it gives me an edge on the exams, because I naturally do what he likes. I wasn't sure, beforehand, why my grade was an 81. I had looked over his sample answer, and I had spotted all the issues. After meeting with him, it was clear to me that to get higher, I need to beef up my statements of law. Not that mine weren't adequate, but the more you put, the more thorough you are, the higher the score. So, it looks like I need to add to all my law statements that I memorized and pack in as much info as I possibly can. He also repeated a tip about scoring extra points that he had mentioned early on in the semester, but that I had not acted on. I'm going to try that too! :)

The next week and a half is going to be kind of crazy. I have my second Civpro midterm on Tuesday, my next paper is due next Friday, and my second Torts midterm is the following Monday. Ugh. I NEED to do really well on the CivPro test because if I better my December score, this one will replace that one. I don't expect to do anything this weekend, other than study for it (and attend my Lexis training).

I feel like once these midterms are over, it's kind of going to be the home stretch into finals, which are the beginning of May. It's unbelievable that it is all coming up so fast. Kind of scary, but yet exciting.....kind of like my daughter going away to college.