Hey guys,

I got my rejection letter from Stanford today and don't feel up to much posting. I'll get to it soon, if I owe any posts, but I'll be a little slow from now until like ... a little while, because I'm sort of lost at the moment. I was really hoping I'd be accepted.

Sorry, and I'll be around but not immediately. ~Icy

Oh sweetie, I'm sorry. Eat ice cream and go for long runs, or whatever equivalent makes you feel better on the short term. Rejection stings, I know it well. Should I ever become an axe-wielding maniac, the people who were in charge of admissions for Swarthmore College back in 2001 shall be first on my list.

On a selfish, happy note, this means that of course you must now apply to Colgate or Vassar, because they're close to me and we could hang out. *huggles*

I'm thinking Stanford would accept a sophomore transfer applicant perhaps from Harvard, Yale, or Princeton, which are first on my list of I-should-apply-to colleges. Come to think of it, my friend wants to go to vassar, so I could possibly apply there.

But then again, I really don't want to go to college in the east, which was why stanford was perfect for me. So that means in the west I have USC, U of A, and Westminster (only because I went to campus visit, they keep calling me to try to get me down there and my sister goes there, and they offered me a full-ride undergraduate, respectively). But I don't /want/ to go to any of those places... so... I have to think about it. =\

*cough*Berkeley*coughcough*

Actually, I've visited the left coast enough times (southern Oregon, southwest Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, California) to know that if I'd grown up out there, I wouldn't want to go to school back east, either. I did pick an undergrad school that at least lacked the general snobbishness of the New England seaboard, but instead I found a lot of Southern bigotry, which I hated, mixed in with tough mountain folk, whom I liked.

Stanford's admissions are notoriously tough. I salute you for giving it a go, and definitely encourage you to transfer. Not kidding about Berkeley, either. Should you get in there, it's hard to imagine Stanford turning you away as a transfer. Of course, get into Berkeley and you might not even want to transfer...

Anyway, as far as Ivy Leagues go, I'm not so sure half of it isn't a load of hype. I did my graduate program at Penn, and there were certainly professors I ran across who preferred to rest on their perceived exalted laurels rather than offer insight and challenge to their students. There weren't many, but they were there. So was the attitude among students, in spades: "I go to Ivy League; that makes me better." Fardles, as Anne McCaffrey would say. Dunno though; maybe Penn's the poor relation compared to Harvard, Princeton, or Yale. We sure pounded 'em in basketball though. :P