“His friends will call me ‘little Stanton,’ but I don’t just want to be seen as Michael’s little sister,” Alex says. “I think it is important to make sure people see me as a different person.”
Petra shared the same concern. “I guess the worst thing about having a sibling at Harvard is that a lot of people know me as ‘Niall’s little sister’,” she says. “It doesn’t bother me that much, but it gets annoying if that’s the only way people know me.”
But Niall and Michael say that having their younger sisters on campus has its benefits for them.
“If I ever really need to talk to someone I can call Alex and she can come over and just chill, whether I’m bored, anxious, upset, anything,” Michael says. “Last year I would call her occasionally, but this year she is literally right there.”
Niall shares similar sentiments. “When you hit that low, or better yet that all-time high, there is someone there to congratulate you,” he says. “It hasn’t happened to me yet, but it is just comforting to know that my sister is here for whatever happens.”
—Staff writer Rachael E. Apfel can be reached at rachaelapfel@college.harvard.edu.