#AtoZChallenge- Eye-Opener

“I wouldn’t recommend this!”, stated the consultant pointing his finger at one of the bullet items on the list. “Why not?!”, Robin exclaimed. “Your scores are no where close to the minimum scores for such a reputed school. Carnegie Mellon is too ambitious”, the consultant brushed off. “Hmmm, fine. I’ll do some more research on the list of schools you recommended for my profile. Will get back to you in a day or two”, Robin sighed and walked away.

Robin is a hardworking, ambitious kid who just passed out of high school. His SAT scores were pretty good, but he realized not good enough to get into his dream school. Robin wanted to go to Carnegie Mellon. After all he has been hearing wonderful stories about it since childhood from his uncle, who graduated from CMU. His uncle’s tales made him develop a fascination about life at a grad school.

“Hey Bud! Wassup?!”, his uncle answered over the phone. “I just came to know that I can’t get into CMU”, Robin said softly. “What? Why not? Who told you that?!”  “The consultant. He says my scores are low”, Robin paused.  “I think I’m not good enough”, he added. “Hey! Listen Bud… Never criticize yourself. There is nothing you cannot get into. A great statement of purpose would do wonders irrespective of scores. So focus on writing a good SOP, on why you’re passionate about technology and why you want to go to CMU”, his uncle replied. “So you think I got a chance? Should I apply?”, Robin asked. “Of course! You should”, his uncle assured.

After the pep talk from his uncle, Robin swiftly went to his computer and started browsing Carnegie Mellon University’s official website. He spent hours browsing through the pictures, the facilities, their innovative research, their course catalogs, events and life at CMU posts from alumni for hours. As days passed, he expanded his research outside their website and scrolled through blogs on life at CMU, about student groups and activities, the opportunities, everything and anything related to CMU on the internet!

He also browsed through websites and course catalogs from the list of recommended schools by his consultant. No matter how many schools he looked at, he wasn’t really eager to get an admission there. But since he had to apply more than 1 school, he started putting together applications for four recommended schools and Carnegie Mellon. He wrote a strong Statement of purpose about his passion for technology and why he badly wanted to get into CMU, based on his uncle’s advice. His good research on the school made it easier for him. Thus he sent out applications for five schools.

The next few weeks, he spent day and night and dreaming about his life at CMU. Robin couldn’t get the different images of CMU he saw on the internet out of his mind. He imagined himself walking through the campus, playing his favorite sport on their fields, having a great time with friends, listening lectures in the very classrooms his uncle described and doing lab work in their state of the art research centers. His visualization was so clear that he could really feel and recognize his happiness of enjoying in the campus of CMU, though he was lying on his bed at home.

Two months later, letters regarding his applications started coming in. Though he got into two of the schools he expected, he got reject letters for two other schools, which came as a shock! They were neither as reputed as CMU nor were they ambitious enough for his profile. Robin began feeling the heat with this, though he never felt like attending those schools, he feared the thought of not making it to CMU either. But at the same time he could not stop himself from imagining himself in CMU. He preferred the temporary comfort he felt in imagining himself in his dream school rather than the panic he gained from worrying about the ‘what-if-not’!

A week later, “Robin, looks like you got an update from CMU!”, his mom called out. Robin ran down the stairs, snatched the envelope and ran back to his room. His heart started pounding as he swept his fingers through the words ‘Carnegie Mellon University’ on the envelope. He quickly opened the letter to read the first line:

‘Congratulations! We are pleased to inform you that you’ve been granted admission to join Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science in Fall 2017′.

Robin was elated! He yelled his heart out! Though the program offered in his admission letter was different from the one he applied for, he couldn’t help but overlook, as he was extremely joyful to realize that he got into his dream school, irrespective of the program! This admit letter was an eye-opener for him, that anything is possible, as long as you believe and see yourself in the place you love!

Law of Attraction Takeaway–  The universe favors the brave! People who are brave enough to imagine themselves in places others tell they can never get to or doing things that others say they can never do! Imagination is not day dreaming, it is a powerful way to send out vibrations to the universe on how bad you want something.

The universe favors the brave! Be brave enough to imagine what you want, even when the world reminds you on how impossible it is!