After being deferred from my dream school a few months ago, I wrote back a “letter of continued interest” to express why I feel I should be chosen from the general admissions pool. This usually includes any new material to add to your application for its next consideration. This is what I decided to send:
Hello Harvard,
My name is Ananya Cox and I have won many awards since we last corresponded. I have also been doing a lot of soul searching lately and I think we would be perfect together.
After planting an entire forest of endangered trees in Chapel Hill, delivering a baby at a town council meeting where I advocated for closing the gender pay gap and coughing up a library with my last name stamped on it, all I can say is that I am extremely qualified to attend this institution. If you don’t accept me, I will be bringing my talents elsewhere.
Someday in the future, maybe at a university you don’t like, let’s say Yale, I will give a commencement speech once I have both saved the failing government and cured at least four genetic diseases. My fame will follow me as I say “Harvard wishes they had accepted me; then we wouldn’t be in this situation right now.”
Someday I will be advising people, and they’ll ask, “Where did you go to college?”
“Not Harvard,” I’ll say. It’s a threat: if you don’t let me in, you don’t know what will happen, but if you do, all will be well.
Sincerely,
The Winner of Many Awards,
Ananya Harvard
P.S. My father founded the university.
Photo by Hammond Cole Sherouse/The ECHO
