accepting your final offer!

 

Now this is the fun part, once all your acceptances start rolling in, the ball is on your side of the court now! Finally! All of your hard work over the past year (and your entire life) has culminated to this point!

So here's the story of how I decided on my final program of choice. I hate to say this, but the minute I received the email that I got into Harvard (I was actually mid-workout at the gym with my coworker), it was as if my brain and body forgot that it was from sunny California, and I sort of just knew I was never going to be able to turn down Harvard (despite having to spend 4 more years in the cold). I still remember calling my parents after I found out I got in - they were basically crying tears of joy and telling me that I fulfilled all of their immigrant parent dreams. But USC was a close #2, just because their program was honestly a better research fit for me, since they had many more professors doing exactly the kind of research that I was interested in. So I justified my decision of going to Harvard as an opportunity to expand my horizons before I hunker down and just focus on one area of adolescent substance use. Now looking back, I can never say for sure that I made the 100% correct decision, but I will say that I have been able to forge many really strong research mentorships (both within Harvard as well as in the greater Boston area) that are specific to my research interests, despite not having some of those immediate connections I may have gotten at USC. And these mentorships have led to some really amazing research projects and publications. 

I have to say, it was REALLY difficult for me to say no and turn down some of these programs, especially since I had made some strong connections with many professors across all the schools I applied to. So in addition to just submitting their standard "I'm not coming" form via the application portals, I personally emailed all of the professors I had networked with throughout the application process to thank them for their time and to be on the lookout for me when I graduate!