Priya Gets Into Stanford
The best moments are the ones you experience through someone you love.
Priya || Stanford || Achievement || Joy
The letter arrived on a Thursday in March — well, not a letter, an email, because it was 2024 and admissions decisions came by email and portal, but Priya treated it with the gravity of a physical letter, which was appropriate because getting into Stanford was the gravity of a physical letter, was the gravity of every hour of work she had put in since she was old enough to understand what work could produce. She called me the moment the decision loaded — I heard her scream before she said a word, the specific scream of someone receiving something they have wanted more than they could admit — and then she said: “Alex.” And I said: “Tell me.” And she said: “Stanford.” And I said: “PRIYA.” She was crying and laughing simultaneously, which was a state she almost never allowed herself and which was therefore the most complete expression of joy I had ever seen in her. I told her to stay exactly where she was and I ran three blocks to her house, which I had never run before, and when she answered the door her face was the fully unguarded one — nothing managed, nothing organized, just Priya Sharma at the moment of everything working out, and it was one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen.
We sat on her porch, because she needed air and movement and she always processed things best with her feet on solid ground. The March afternoon was tentatively warm. She told me about opening the email, about the specific moment it loaded, about calling her parents who were at work and who had — her mother had apparently started crying immediately, which Priya described with the complex expression of someone who understood that her mother’s expectations had always been the complicated backdrop of her ambitions, and that this moment was both a relief of those expectations and something that belonged to Priya separate from them. “I did it,” Priya said. Not to me specifically. To the fact of it. “Yes,” I said. “You absolutely did.” She leaned against me and I put an arm around her and we sat on the porch in the March afternoon and she cried properly for about three minutes, which was exactly as long as she needed. Then she sat up and wiped her eyes with the specific efficiency of a person who had allowed themselves the appropriate amount of emotion and was now ready to process the logistics. “Zara got into Oregon State,” she said. “We talked about long distance. We’re going to try.” “Good,” I said. “Yes,” she said. She looked at me. “Where are you applying?” she said. “Reed, probably,” I said. “For the debate program. Or U of O. Maybe Whitman.” She looked at me. “Jamie?” she said. “Jamie has Northwestern,” I said. “And Reed and U of O. We’ve talked about it. We’re — we’re handling it like adults.” Priya nodded. “You are genuinely more mature than I expected you to be about this,” she said. “I’m evolving,” I said. She smiled. “Yes,” she said. “You really are.” We sat on the porch a little longer. Then she stood — the decision to be in motion again, to carry the news forward into the rest of her life. “Come on,” she said. “I have to call my grandmother before she hears it from my mother and has to pretend she already knew.” I followed her inside. I thought: this is what it feels like when a plan works. When the plan is someone else’s and you are there for it. When the people you love get the things they deserve. I thought about my own plans, which had changed significantly since September. The ones I had now were better than the ones I’d started with. More honest. More real. More mine.