Should you open your decision letter alone or with friends, family or even coworkers? Most students say it doesn’t matter as long as they can open it right away!
Ana McCoy
Roswell, NM
School Leadership
It was a Friday and I had a feeling that decisions were coming out that day since they’d come out around that time every year. I was teaching my wonderful group of third graders in Washington DC all day and my heart skipped a beat every time my Apple watch went off with an email alert. At the end of the day during a grade-level meeting I finally got the email alerting me a decision was available. My principal, who was also in the meeting and had written one of my letters of recommendation, ended the meeting early so I could open the email. With my closest work friends and colleagues standing behind me, I opened the email and we all shouted in excitement when the confetti came across the screen! I got home later and my husband had ordered a Harvard sweater earlier in the week to celebrate my acceptance. The rest of the night was spent celebrating with drinks and Georgetown cupcakes!
Mark Richter
Brunswick, Maine
Higher Education Program
I was sitting on an air mattress at 2am in Bonn, Germany. I spent 2016-2017 as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant in Rheinbach/Bonn, and I went back to visit my best friend during Karneval. I had spent the entire week singing Schlager Music (a kind of folk/pop music hybrid from Cologne) alongside massive parades throughout the region. When I opened the e-mail, I was too tired to react or to confirm whether or not it was real, and I said to my friends, “Hey, I guess I got into Harvard.” We then toasted another beer (Reissdorf Kölsch, to be precise), and prepared for the Rosenmontag Celebration in downtown Cologne. It was an amazing way to reflect on a previous chapter of my life while preparing for the current one.
Corine Rosenberg
Arts in Education
I was visiting Nairobi for a work trip and staying with a friend for a few days before going to Tanzania for a conference. I had gone with a couple of colleagues out to an open air bar that was playing nice Afrobeat and we got home late and sat and talked for a while. Since it was March 1st I had been checking my email throughout the day with half a hope of hearing something. It was about 3 AM and since I had not heard anything, I imagined that I would not receive any news. Nonetheless, before going to sleep, I decided to refresh one last time and saw an email that said I had a change to my application status. I nearly threw the phone I was so nervous, but after about 20 minutes my colleagues convinced me to open it, and when I saw that I had been accepted, I immediately started calling my parents and sister. Despite the lack of sleep I had from the night before spent traveling, I couldn’t sleep all night out of excitement. I spent that night on the balcony of my friends Kilimani apartment.
Janette Barbosa
National City, CA
Higher Education, Ed.M.
I was hanging out by myself at home in my penguin pajamas (that my sister-in-law gave me for Christmas!) when I received my HGSE Admissions email. Before opening it, I called my husband to ask him if he wanted to be present when I opened it, but since he had to work late that day, we chose to FaceTime instead (I couldn’t wait that long LOL). I opened my email and before I could read the text, I saw the confetti! I was in shock, I looked away from the screen, and then looked back to actually read it to see if it was true. I started to cry in disbelief and my husband took a very funny screenshot of me. He was supposed to work late, but instead, he ran home to hug me and congratulate me! We went to our favorite Mexican/Karaoke restaurant in DC, ate and cried more. Somewhere in between, I called my parents, siblings, and my best friends. Even now, I sometimes stop to think about how I have this amazing opportunity and I still can’t believe it!
HGSE Admissions Blog 