I sat at dinner the other night with my mother and a friend and checked off the litany of reasons for not liking Harvard: Section sizes are too big, professors care only about their research, safety precautions are ineffective to nonexistent, the advising system is lousy--and don't even get me started on the weather.

After I went through the list (and I suspect it would be hard to find many undergraduates who disagree with me), I asked my mother for the umpteenth time why I hadn't gone to Stanford. Her response: "Because you wouldn't be as happy there as you are here."

She is right, of course; I am happy here. But that's a fact which is easy to forget.

I remember the day the Harvard acceptance letter came. My dad stood on the porch, nervously holding a very thin envelope (we were both too scared to realize early acceptances wouldn't come in fat envelopes).

When I opened the letter, Dad and I jumped around the house screaming. It's a minor miracle we neither broke anything nor scared the neighbors.

I was proud of what I had accomplished, proud to be going to HARVARD. This fact was announced to anyone who listened.

Soon, though, that excitement gave way to the following conversation, as I tried to avoid "dropping the H-bomb":

Politely Inquiring Person: So, where are you going to school in the fell?

Me: Massachusetts.

PIP: Where?

Me: Boston.

PIP: Boston University?

Me: No, actually in Cambridge.

PIP: Where?

Me: Uh, Harvard.