During the summer of 2008, I
attended a summer program at Brown University. It took me a few days to adjust
to the atmosphere, make friends, and embrace all the freedom I was given. Once
everything fell into place, I grew to absolutely love the campus and the city
of Providence, Rhode Island.
When I came home, I decided that
Brown would be my first choice for my undergraduate education. The application
involved approximately three essays. The first essay was rather short, around
250 words, and asked the applicant why Brown was the right choice for him/her.
In my opinion, I wrote one of the best pieces I have ever written. I impressed
myself by including metaphors and analogies that not only displayed my desire
to attend Brown but also were somewhat amusing, which I thought would be a nice
relief to the reader after going through thousands of similar essays.
One of the other essays I included
was more of a standard essay that I used for multiple college applications. A
few days before the deadline, I submitted my application online.
In accordance with my pessimistic
quality, I poured over my submitted application only to realize that I
submitted an incomplete/unrevised version of the standard essay. I quickly
picked up the phone and called the Admissions Office; while holding back tears,
I explained my predicament. The staff member told me I could mail a hard copy
of the correct version of my essay but he/she could not guarantee that it would
be matched up to my application and replace the unfinished version.
Much to my dismay, I learned a few
months later that I was not accepted to Brown University. I did not know what
to do. My plan had been to attend Brown – I even told an alumnus interviewer
for another, rather prestigious, school that I would choose Brown over her alma
mater, which I am sure resulted in the placing of my name on that school’s
wait-list.
Long story short, a few days before
May 1st (the deadline to accept a college’s admission offer) I fell
in love with Berkeley and felt confident in my decision to attend its Molecular
and Cell Biology program.
In September of my freshman year, I
attended a seminar relating to the College of Letters and Sciences’ On the Same
Page Program, which was about gene sequencing and the statistics related to
certain genes.
During the presentation, I learned
about Dr. Urnov, a Berkeley faculty member, who was involved in gene therapy
experimentation. I sat up straighter and said to my friend, “I need to meet
him.” It took me about a month to muster up the courage to send Dr. Urnov an email,
and I was ecstatic that not only did he reply to my email but that he also
wanted to meet me.
I met with Dr. Urnov in his office
at Sangamo Biosciences (which just so happens to be the original office for
Pixar – AWESOME!) and handed him a copy of my resume as well as a copy of the
evaluation my teacher at Brown wrote.
He poured over the evaluation and
saw the instructor’s signature at the bottom. “You know Donna?” he asked. It
took me a minute to realize he was referring to my teacher at Brown who I knew
better as Dr. Lizotte and replied, “yes.” He smiled and said they attended
graduate school together at Brown. I was in shock.
Dr. Urnov graciously offered to
drive me back to the Berkeley campus after our meeting. During the car ride we
spoke about Brown and Providence. He mentioned that although he received an
excellent education at Brown, he felt that the relatively small town of
Providence did not provide an accurate worldview. Then, he looked me in the eye
and said, “You made the right choice to attend Cal over Brown.” I smiled. I did
not feel it was necessary to share the struggle I experienced in my rejection
from Brown. All that mattered was that I had found my place.
