I applied to exactly three colleges. I got into all of them. As a senior, writing my “Why College?” essays, I thought I had the perfect idea of what I wanted for my college experience. Yet, choosing between MIT, Stanford, and Harvard was easily the hardest—and most important—decision I’ve made in my short 20 years of life.
For a while, I deeply regretted it. I applied to Harvard early because my college counselor believed it would be my best shot at leveraging “sibling legacy” to get in. Yet, for much of my senior fall, it had not been my first choice. Getting in had relieved me of much of the stress that college applications would have brought, and so I appreciated Harvard for that, but I still wasn’t convinced I wanted to commit that early on. Even after I did commit, I wasn’t so sure. Less than a month after I submitted my enrollment decision, I found myself breaking down in the front seat of my car after soccer practice, convinced that Harvard wasn’t the place for me. I almost withdrew to take a gap year and enroll elsewhere.
Now, after nearly two immensely impactful years here in Cambridge, I can’t imagine a better life anywhere else.
As soon as I told my college counselor that I’d been accepted into MIT regular decision, he assumed I’d immediately say yes. Despite my school’s reputation as a sure-fire way to get your “gifted” child into a top 10 university, MIT acceptances were regularly limited to one or two students a year. I was the only one from my class. When I told my counselor I was seriously considering my other options, he laughed and said something that I’ll never forget: “When you tell people you go to MIT, they ask, what do you know? When you tell people you go to Harvard, they’ll instead ask, who do you know?”
As someone who had grown up constantly underestimated in academic and professional spaces, that distinction resonated deeply. I wanted to be seen as someone who knew a lot—someone who deserved the opportunities she received. According to my counselor, I wouldn’t find that at Harvard.
Meanwhile, the rest of my school assumed I’d pick Stanford. I went to a classic San Francisco Bay Area high school—of the 110 students in my class, nine ended up going to Stanford. Harvard was seen as preppy, stuffy, and not a cultural fit. Sure, it’s the oldest school in the nation and among the most “prestigious” (whatever that means), but Stanford had innovation, novelty, and all the buzz of a hackathon with an obscene prize pot. Also, the weather in Boston sucked.
While my opinion on the weather hasn’t changed, my appreciation for the “old school” feel absolutely has. Legacy, tradition, and history are what make Harvard the storied institution it is—and that’s what I’ve grown to love. Traditions like River Run, Housing Day, and May Day (a Lowell-specific event), bring the community together and make me feel like I’ve joined a great legacy of brilliant students. Even with the national controversies that have shaped my first two years here, Harvard has remained a pillar of stability. Students here care deeply about our institution and aren’t afraid to be vocal about the change we’d like to see, even if it means national headlines. We’re constantly in the spotlight because we are the example of higher education: student activism, lawsuits, groundbreaking research, Nobel prize-winning professors, and all.
Senior-year-me, however, didn’t care about the legacy or the prestige or the fact that my Korean family was already bragging about me every Sunday in church. I wanted to attend a school where I knew I could “find my people.” I wanted a college experience that would force me out of my comfort zone and push my boundaries until I had no choice but to grow. It was exactly this desire that led me to ultimately choose Harvard—and that exact fear that made me think I wouldn’t be able to make it. Pushing limits is all fun and games until it’s the dead of winter, drowning in work and social obligations, and you’re 4,000 miles and a six-hour flight from home.
When I went to Visitas, I loved my experience. I bonded with strangers in the Widener atrium, sat in on fascinating global health lectures, did my time at Tasty Basty, and even found myself in an Uber to an MIT frat. However, speaking to my brother—a junior at the time—and scrolling through admitted students’ Instagram profiles made me fearful of the shark-infested waters I was throwing myself into. I kept hearing that in order to get into Harvard, many of my peers had needed to be cutthroat in high school—that they were always going to be looking out for themselves first. I disregarded these claims as over-exaggerations, having met so many seemingly wonderful people at Visitas, until I experienced it first-hand.
When I got my freshman rooming assignment and learned that we would have to figure out how to sort five girls into four shoebox-sized Canaday rooms, I assumed we’d all try to figure the situation out as fairly as possible. What type of person would try to cheat someone whom Harvard had hand-picked to be your new friend for the next year? Instead, to my surprise, one of my suitemates immediately claimed an absurd medical excuse to avoid being in a double. Caught off guard, we accepted her claims and made no assertion that she should approach the situation more fairly.
When I told my mom about this, she told me that this was just the beginning of the new types of people I’d meet on campus—I suddenly believed that the easy-going way I lived my life would be immediately taken advantage of at Harvard. I was a pushover, and pushed over I would be. I knew then that something needed to change.
My decision to come to Harvard, then, was based on my fundamental need to learn, but not in the typical academic sense. All three schools were academically comparable and had individual pros and cons: MIT had the perfect major for me, whereas Stanford would allow me to explore multiple Study Abroad opportunities. Harvard, though, had it—the X factor. I’d have the classic “mid-sized East Coast liberal arts college” experience, and I’d be thrown into a world that was completely different from the one I’d grown up in. The Bay Area had bred me with its bootstrap mentality, emphasis on risk-taking, appreciation for the “new,” and everyone’s generally laid-back lifestyle. I wanted to expand my limits, prepare myself for the “real world,” and build a backbone. That’s exactly what Harvard has given me.
On campus, I’ve thrown myself into unfamiliar extracurriculars and taken classes that I would’ve never dreamed of enjoying in high school. More importantly, though, I’ve learned how to navigate complex social situations. I’ve become comfortable with inane small talk and connecting with dozens of people within minutes. I’m no longer nervous to talk about myself. I don’t downplay my achievements. I understand the unspoken dos and don’ts of throwing parties, layering sweaters in 40-degree weather, inviting friends to birthday dinners, cold-emailing professors for research, and deciding which seven people I want to spend my next three years living with.
I knew I found myself a real home when I could walk seven minutes from my class to Annenberg and always have a friend in view. After the tenth “Hi Mia!” and the third mid-walk stop to have a short conversation, I could feel in my gut that I’d made the right choice. I had found my people, and I hadn’t been eaten alive.
Not all of the lessons I learned are Harvard-specific, but the intense environment that defines this campus has pushed me to recognize how each of these seemingly mundane experiences can prepare me for my future. On Sidechat, people liken “punch” to real-world networking in the workplace. Personally, I know the skills I’ve honed to successfully throw a Lowell House Formal are as applicable to any high-stress, detail-oriented career as the experience I’ve gained interning at the San Mateo County Superior Court.
Everyday occurrences like navigating through tourists, comping a pre-professional organization, and optimizing my schedule so I’m not always in class when the d-hall is open, have all prepared me for being successful as an adult. I ended up finding a combination of respect for both my intelligence and my social skills; I’ve learned to appreciate the importance of having balance in every area of my life—that the relationships you build in your four years on campus are just as important as the classes you take.
The “who” you know has become just as important as the “what.” For me, the “who” are my lovely roommates, my perfect friends (many of whom are in the Indy), the professors I’ve connected with, the upperclassmen who have mentored me, and the alumni who have offered advice and help without hesitation. I’ve learned as much from my conversations with friends in the d-hall as I have from my Chem 160 textbook.
Coming to Harvard hasn’t just meant rigorous academics and mediocre dining hall food. It means joining a brilliant, driven, supportive community—a place full of people who constantly push each other to become better. I intentionally hurtled myself out of my comfort zone, and now, two years in, I can confidently say I’ve never been more satisfied with that choice.
Mia Tavares ’27 (miatavares@college.harvard.edu) always knew she looked good in crimson.