I don’t believe in dream schools. 

Correction.

I didn’t let myself believe in a dream school. 

As a senior in high school, it just seemed so incredibly stupid. Why was I getting so emotionally invested in a school that could flat-out reject me in a couple of months? This was about to be a horrific one-sided relationship. I would not waste my heart on a dream that had a minuscule chance of realization. 

And so I didn’t. 

But I still abandoned a collection of Berkeley merch in my closet when I moved to Stanford this fall. 

My reason for this irony is that my dad was a Berkeley Bear. Therefore, by genetics or association, a piece of my heart will always belong to the Golden Bears. I visited the Berkeley campus as a kid, I saw the pictures from my dad’s college days, and I gazed at the diploma proudly framed in our house. Naturally, that would have some sort of influence on me. 

Confession. 

My dad chose Berkeley over Stanford. 

He said it’s a decision he doesn’t regret. That there’s no point in focusing on the past when there is a future. To me, that sounds an awful lot like regret. 

But it makes logical sense for him to have done so. As an international student from Singapore, would you choose the school that gave you a scholarship or the one that didn’t? It was also specifically the Regents Scholarship that swayed my dad towards navy blue. At the time of his college admissions, getting the Berkeley Regents Scholarship was significantly more selective than a regular Stanford admission. 

So it was the prestige that drew him to Berkeley. That same prestige kept him there for many more years: a bachelors, master’s and doctorate — all ground out from one single institution. My dad is what many might call a “die-hard fan,” though he never went to a football game or repped Berkeley merch. His resume is more of a reflection of his love for a school that gave him so much. 

Growing up, my sister and I used to consistently remind my dad that he could have just gone to Stanford. Our lives would have been so much easier if we had the small safety blanket of Stanford legacy. But, we didn’t. 

Confession. 

My sister chose Stanford over Berkeley. 

She says Berkeley wasn’t even a consideration. 

The lustrous Regents Scholarship that had lured my dad in didn’t even interest her. Stanford, by definition, was the better school. 

To her, Berkeley was the land of competition. It was a college where there were too many students and too little resources — a classic economics supply-and-demand problem. Hence, trying to get into research labs or clubs was basically just forcing students to fight with each other.

There was possibility for her at Stanford, open niches that could be filled. And she went and filled them. 

Confession.

I didn’t know where to go.

How are you supposed to know at 17? When I opened that letter on Dec. 15, it seemed like a done deal. I got into the school I had prayed so desperately for in the preceding months. A school with prestige, community and resources. 

But then I didn’t know. 

This was a decision regarding more than four years of my life — a decision that was about to shape the very person I would become. The job I was going to get. The lifelong friends I was going to make. 

Maybe I just have commitment issues.

There’s a version of me, though, going to Berkeley in some alternate universe. I can see her clearly now, strolling to her class a whole mile away from her dorm. 

I wonder, if I went to Berkeley, would I still be friends with those kids from high school? All 20-something of them that go there together and now occasionally run into each other? The select few that decided they were going to room together? Would there be more security knowing that so many people from my past were here in my present? 

Above all, would I struggle less if I went there?

There’s a certain sense of exclusivity that comes with the roughly 4% Stanford acceptance rate. At times a badge of pride and honor, and then at other times a daunting number laughing in my face. I mean, how could I ever think I was part of that elite group? Maybe if I went to Berkeley, I would feel a little less like I slipped through some crack in the Stanford admissions system. Perhaps the weight would feel less severe. The name “Stanford University” slapped onto me feels like an expectation to keep on achieving at the same level I once did. There can be no such thing as a stupid Stanford student. And, I refuse to be the first no matter the cost. 

It’s easy to imagine Berkeley as some fantasy, a respite from the bubble of success Stanford is. But maybe that’s all it is — a fantasy. 

In time, I believe I will see Stanford as more than just a name or an expectation. It’ll be the place I grew tremendously, where I made friends who cared deeply about me and how I learned more about the world outside of my bubble. 

It’s just about getting there. 

Confession.

I chose Stanford, but beneath all the Cardinal Red, there will always be remnants of a Golden Bear.