Today was Yale day

In the morning I got an invite to a Yale SOM Winter Break Social. The students are home for the holidays, so they host chats with applicants. What a great idea! Plus it’s at the Brickskeller, which I think is a super cool hang-out bar.

This afternoon I got a call on my cell phone. I saw the 203 area code, so I pretty much knew what it was. So now I’ve been accepted at Yale too. I’m happy that people want me at their school. It makes me feel, well… wanted, which is always pleasant. But I also feel bad for Yale. I think that it’s an awesome school, and I’d agree with the students that it doesn’t get the respect that it deserves. But I’m going to Columbia. Columbia fits my goals better, and I pledged to go if accepted when I applied ED.

I think of Yale SOM as a great woman, and I’m breaking up with her. “It’s not you, it’s me.” I had hoped to let her down easily after the new year. I never expected her to pop the question so quickly. I mean, she’s great, she tries so hard to make me happy (winter break socials, cell phone calls; Columbia, you could learn something...) but I’m already promised to someone else. If she could have waited until January, the way I thought she would, I could have asked her to stop considering me. Now I’ll hurt the yield number. Always a bridesmaid… SOM, I never wanted to do this to you.

Well, I’ll keep up appearances until a bit after the new year. I’ll go to the social and maybe see some of the folks from the school information sessions. Then I’ll send the dear john letter. That might free up a spot for the folks on the YALE Round 1 board.

In other news, I got the Columbia admit fat envelope today. Some people have written that they don’t want coffee mugs or t-shirts. I am not one of them. I want everyone who sees me to know that I’m going to Co-LOOM-Bya, without me having to brag about it. I want to sleep in and wear a CBS t-shirt until it falls in tatters from my body, which by then would be tatooed with the symbol of Hermes. I would never wear a shirt with my company’s logo, because that’s lame. But this isn’t, at least not quite yet.