Nine? Nein!

Nine has always been my favorite number. And, sure, I’m as superstitious as the next slightly obsessive-compulsive, lucky-underpants-wearing, wood-knocker with her own quirky brand of good-fortune dancing, but that isn’t why I chose to apply to nine colleges. Applying to nine schools gave me flexibility, options, an arrant aversion to the Common Application website, and this prolix chronicle of my search for higher education.

Most of my applications I finished fairly quickly, or at least well before they were due. My standard essay about Pride and Prejudice’s Elizabeth Bennet was, if a little cliché and pontifical, something I was proud of. Submit buttons were clicked and electronic signatures tapped out across the bottom of web pages for Florida State University, Flagler College, UNC Chapel Hill, Macalester College, American University, Arcadia University, and even Dartmouth College and Brown University, daunting and involved as the latter two were. However, I still had one application to go.

Now, we all love a bit of procrastination here and there, myself included. Accomplishing often-grandiose tasks just in the nick of time is nothing short of thrilling, and something I considered myself quite adept at. But ah, how the mighty fall, plummet, and sink until they are sitting in front of their computers at 10 minutes until midnight on New Year’s Eve, fingers flying furiously across keys to finish, within deadline, the undergraduate application to Yale University.

This is a pretty accurate depiction.

In hindsight, I realize how much I built up applying to Yale. It loomed, formidable, on my to-do list, rising on the fortifications of fear, prestige, desire to get in, and what schools call “legacy.” My paternal grandfather studied at Yale, class of 1946.  A truly wonderful man, I credit him with instilling in me fervor for learning. To follow in his footsteps would have been a dream come true. But as fireworks burst out across the night sky, ringing in 2011, and I sat hastily typing my 16-letters-long name into the Common App’s electronic signature (Why, oh, why couldn’t I be called “Pat Smith?”) I doubted seriously if continuing that legacy would ever be possible. The worry nagged harrowingly on my conscience until just around six days later, when I got a phone call from a New Haven alumna inviting me to interview for a place at Yale.