In this conversation, Linda Li, HBS '21, shares her journey from credit risk analysis at JP Morgan to impact investing at Social Finance, and ultimately to her current role at a mental health startup. She discusses how her unique background in impact investing helped differentiate her application, despite initial insecurities about competing with accomplished colleagues who were also applying to business school.
Linda opens up about her essay writing process, including how critical feedback led her to completely rewrite her application just one week before the deadline. She reads her compelling essay aloud, which weaves together her family's immigration story from China with her daily walks through San Francisco's homelessness crisis to illustrate her motivation for pursuing social impact work. The conversation covers her GMAT struggles (taking it three times to achieve a 710), her decision between Harvard Business School and Yale, and how the COVID-19 experience at HBS unexpectedly strengthened her relationship with her partner while providing valuable frameworks she still uses today.
I was actually born in Beijing, China, but I moved to Canton, Ohio when I was like one and a half, so very much Americanized, very much Midwest upbringing. I went to public school all throughout my life and then went to NYU for undergrad. Specifically, I went to the Stern undergraduate school of business. I thought at the time that I wanted to study finance, not knowing what it was, and then I realized that finance is not what I expected it to be. But that was after a couple years working in banking. I was working in credit risk as a credit analyst for a long time at JP Morgan, and then made a really pivotal shift in my career into impact investing. I worked for a small startup at the time in Boston called Social Finance, not to be confused with SoFi - very different companies. Social Finance worked to structure social impact bonds, and at the time I thought that was just the absolute coolest thing. Then went to HBS and the rest is history.
What was your mindset while you were at Social Finance and you were like, yep, I should actually go through with the application process?
It's definitely very nervous, because at the time we were a pretty small organization, probably like 20 or 30 people, but there were four other associates who were applying to business school alongside me. So it's impossible not to compare yourself with other people, and I was really fortunate to be at an organization where I honestly thought everyone there was smarter than I was and worked harder and were more accomplished. So a lot of my insecurities came from the fact that the people around me were just so awesome, and I was like, well, if they're going to apply, how the heck am I going to even have a chance? But at the end of the day it was a lot of luck, a lot of hard work, and people were really nice. Everyone actually worked together, we really helped each other - I would say we were each other's cheerleaders.
It's funny, I didn't feel like I needed to hide, because I was really close with my direct manager at the time and I had made it really clear a year and a half ago that I was like, hey, business school, I really want to do this, it's one of my personal goals. And he was like, yeah, cool, I never did that route but I'd support you, just let me know when that time comes so that we can make preparations. So I gave them a really long ramp of when I was going to leave, and then it also helped because then three of my recommenders for various schools actually were people at work. So I didn't feel like I needed to hide or be unauthentic, which is so nice.
My finance education at Stern was very much geared towards banking and bulge bracket, and it was really narrow thinking, because we had no exposure to consulting, we had no exposure to startups. At the time people didn't care about supply chain or operations, people just wanted to work at the big banks in New York City. Maybe that was just by nature of the people that I was hanging out with, and I was also pretty ignorant at the time and just followed the flow of the crowd. But going to business school was a very intentional shift to say, there's a lot that I just don't know. I need to broaden my horizons, I need to meet new people, I need to be in uncomfortable situations. Let's give this a try.
How did going to business school first come to your mind? Did you have colleagues and friends who went, and that gave you the idea? What was your inspiration for looking at that as your source of change?
Two fold. One was internally. Growing up Chinese, my family all have graduate degrees, so I feel like graduate degrees weren't really a question almost. It was just, what do you want to go study, what's the next step? My dad had gone to business school as well and he thought he had a great time, and I thought maybe that's the right route. It would give me a lot more flexibility and freedom to do different things. And I'll preface this by saying I may have tailored my application in one particular way to highlight my strength, but I knew going in that that wasn't what I was going to narrow myself into. I actually really wanted to explore.
Can you elaborate a little bit on that? How did you tailor your application, but what were you actually hoping to explore?
Yeah, so I
Remember this statistic: when I was going through all of the business school "meet the school," "meet the admin team" type of those days, the welcome and intro meetings, one of the statistics was that they had polled their applicants and 70% of people did not end up in the field that they said that they would, or that they wanted to pursue from their essays and from their application. I found that really shocking. So it's not meant to be like - the perspective that I took in my application wasn't disingenuine, it was just at that time this was the strongest field that I could portray myself in and I had the most interest in, knew that there was more that I wanted to explore. Because I was in impact investing, I thought that was a little bit more unique. I came from traditional finance, but because I wasn't coming in from a banking, consulting type of typical business school track, impact investing felt like it was a little bit more unique. Plus I was coming into school from impact investing and I wanted to stay in impact investing, so I felt like I had more to offer in the view of, well, this is why I want to go to school and this is how I want to apply what I learned from school into the industry itself. So that's the perspective that I took, and at the time it was very much so true. Just in the matter of the two years though, people change, COVID happens, which we'll definitely get into later.
Would you mind just taking a minute to quickly describe what impact investing is, in case any of the listeners haven't heard of it?
Yes, I still very much love what impact investing is, and now there's a whole spectrum of what that terminology entails. A lot of it is just taking really traditional finance means, like raising money, or good business acumen and good business practices, and you're applying it into spaces that have impact on people, on lives. Specifically, we would raise capital similar to any kind of investment bank, but instead of funding for-profit companies, the money that we raised from investors funded social programs, and we tracked outcomes that were linked to positive human outcomes. A great indicator of early childhood reading and education is being able to read by the third grade, because by that time, by the third grade, you stop learning to read and you start reading to learn. So it's actually a really strong indicator of how well students will perform later on in their more formative years. Our investors would only get paid back if our social programs that we invested in also improved on the outcomes for these kids.
Now there's a lot of complicated things involved. It's like, oh, well, that's so strange, what if you game the system and you force these kids to get better scores? The nuances there are really complex, and that's why I loved working in this space. There are just so many really bright, smart, passionate people trying to make impact and trying to do good and trying to use different means to do that. So that's just one example, but there are so many other things. The industry now is so strong, like even any ESG funding, anything - I would say even just startup funding but in very rural areas, or in Southeast Asia or sub-Saharan Africa. All of these are such cool projects that both have a lot of monetary gain but also human impact and positive impact gains.
My GMAT score was a 710. Mind you, I had to take the GMAT three times, and it was so miserable, because the first time I took it I got a 590, the second time I took it I got a 610, and then finally I was just praying to God, "Oh my goodness, I just need something above like a 680 and I'm good." And then I got, I don't know how, I was very lucky, got the 710. But I will have to say, it doesn't come naturally to everybody. GPA-wise, I think I was a 3.5 rounded up. And then my title at Social Finance was an associate director.
A director in your title sounds very impressive. What does that actually mean?
It's in a similar vein of being tracked: it's like analyst, then associate, then associate director, then director. So I would say associate director was probably somewhere in a manager level or a senior associate type of a role.
How many schools did you apply to, and which ones were they?
I had -
It was really clear from the get-go that HBS and Yale were going to be at the top of my list. Both at the time had really outstanding social enterprise and social impact programming at the business school itself. Yale is really well known for a lot of their nonprofit management, and HBS at the time had just rolled out their impact investing course and had the impact investing club. So I really felt like there was a lot of attention placed on the industry, and it wasn't just going to be like, oh, nonprofit, that's such a nice to have. It really felt like there was a concerted effort at the school to focus on that industry.
Stanford was on my list because at the time I was living in San Francisco, my family's out here, my partner was out here, and so I wanted to stay closer. But the organization that I was at, Social Finance, we were a startup, and I really loved that culture and couldn't help but feel that there were a lot of ways that small companies and small organizations could make a big difference. Stanford has such a great startup-y program, and the people that I talked to there were really mission oriented, whatever that mission would be. So I knew that being with that type of a cohort would also be really beneficial to my education and experience.
How was it applying to school with a partner, especially schools on the other coast?
I might have misled you there. I met Garrett probably the week before welcome weekend for HBS, so he didn't even know, when we had just started dating, that his potential girlfriend was going to be gone for the next two years. At the time I was seeing a different person, also didn't tell them, mostly because I didn't see a long future with this individual and was like, you know what, it's a great exit strategy.
How long into the relationship did you tell Garrett?
Probably like a month, a month and a half. It was at the point where I couldn't hide it from him because I made the decision to back out of my lease a little bit early and I didn't have a place to stay, so I needed to stay with him. I effectively moved in with Garrett for like two months, and then at that point I needed to tell him: surprise, I'm living across the country, but I also need to live with you. Two years later you guys are living together in Oakland, so it all worked out. Really, really happy endings. I even dragged him over to Boston. He was able to spend a year and a half in Boston with us. It was fun, it was all worth it.
Did you get into Yale as well?
I did get into Yale, I was very happy about that. My ultimate decision to go to HBS was based on two things. I had such a great experience during my visit and during my interview process at HBS. I was so impressed with the people that I met there, Julia included, and just the conversations that I had with people. I thought everyone was so interesting and so fascinating and so kind. People were so nice, and that kind of blew me away. And then I felt like that's probably a good place to be.
I really approached the whole application as a whole. It was really helpful to think of everything as complimenting each other, but you didn't want to be redundant in the different pieces. So your resume, your recommendation, your actual essay, and then the short answers. I wanted to highlight different things, and I mapped it out thematically that way first. I probably started around the summertime because work was pretty slow and I had some more time, and I was like, okay, I feel like I have months of time, this is great. So thematically I had planned it out and decided that in my essay I really wanted to showcase my motivations for doing things, the motivations for why I wanted to be an impact investing, the motivations for why I wanted to stay in impact investing and go to school to help me do that better. Because I don't think my short answer or my recommendations could showcase that. My recommendations could really showcase analytical ability, my leadership ability, my ability to lead teams. The short answers are just like, oh, here's what you learned, here's why I did what I did to some degree, but each box you had 50 characters or something, so it was pretty limited. I felt like the essay is definitely a place where you're supposed to show them you.
You started the application process in the summer. How many versions of your essay do you think you wrote?
When I looked it up, this was v15. But I will say I had a really bad version of this essay that was pretty different, and probably the week before the application was due, I trashed 80% of it and then rewrote the whole thing, pulling two all-nighters and actually just working off of frantic energy, like, I'm not going to finish, this is so bad. But that's just - I tend to work better under pressure. I'm more of a procrastinating type of a person, and so I think that's just what I needed. So it was a kick in the butt, and it really stemmed from - I had talked with a friend who had read the essay and she was kind enough to say this sounds a little dry. I was like, oh, what do you mean? She was like, it just reads a little boring, and I don't really get it. All the words sound nice, but I just don't get it. Knowing you, I don't understand why you would say this and why this is meaningful to you. That was at the time so hard to hear, but ultimately it was very helpful. That friend could have made the difference between the yes or the no. I owe her a lot.
How would you describe the changes that you made - was it a full topic change, and how many friends did you have read it?
I would say the biggest part that changed from my essay was what my drivers were to go into impact investing to begin with, and my own personal experience. There was a lot that I had leaned on - a lot of immigrant children will talk about their immigration story and their families coming over and the hardships that they experienced, and I feel like I leaned on that. But for me, it didn't come off as super authentic, because I was really fortunate and my family really loved living in the US. My family came here because my dad got a scholarship to study in Ohio and they were really excited. Yes, it was really hard, but it was also the tone of my childhood - it was very hopeful and we were always working really hard to do more and achieve more. Now that I'm saying that, that sounds like a great intro to an essay, but the way that I had written it out, it just felt really contrite and rehearsed. It was like, people want to hear this story, so you're just writing it. That part was probably the most awkward. The last half of the essay was kind of there, it just needed a little finessing.
I had asked really good friends to read the original version and they were all like, oh, this reads good, and had edited certain sentences, grammar and certain words, but no one did the overhaul and was just like, well, this is okay, it's kind of dry. At the time, when you get that feedback, you're like, okay, well, what do you want me to do? I've already spent so much time on it. But what was really encouraging was after I'd written the newer version, and it was still really rough, I gave it to one of my coworkers, who's now one of my very close friends. She read it and there was a certain part where she was like, I know exactly what street you're talking about when you describe walking down this street. Because we work together, she walks on that street too, and so she was like, this is so real. I absolutely see you and why you would be here. That was really meaningful to me. I feel like that really captured what I was trying to convey.
San Francisco fog still lingers from the morning. It's a perfect day for a hot bowl of lamian, also known as Chinese hand-pulled noodles, a favorite of mine since childhood. Lamian actually originates from Lanzhou, a metropolitan city near my father's village. That distinction is really key, because my father isn't from the city of Lanzhou but instead from a rural region directly south. And it's because of that distinction that my father's opportunities, through no fault of his own, were limited since birth. The Chinese hukou, or citizen registry system, systematically segregates rural and urban citizens, barring the former from accessing education, jobs, housing, and social programs available only to its city residents. To circumvent those barriers to career and social mobility imposed by Chinese law, my parents immigrated from China to Cleveland when I was about two years old. In those days, Ohio's bolstering manufacturing industry was itching to attract foreign talent and offered my father a rare academic scholarship to Cleveland State.
My parents' story exemplifies how, for countless people in China, the ability to advance their life is determined by factors completely outside of their control. I do not take for granted how fortunate my family is to have achieved a prosperous life here in the United States, and I've committed my career to creating positive social impact to honor the opportunities my parents gave me.
But I don't need to travel back to China to see why this work is important. I actually just go out for lunch. My walk for a bowl of lamian takes me straight through the heart of San Francisco's homelessness crisis. Down the block is a substance use detox center where the residents amble on the sidewalk in many stages of dishevelment. Many are in walkers or wheelchairs, often without shoes. Sometimes I sidestep around a stranger face down on the street with a bright orange cap of a hypodermic needle beside his ankle. This tears me in two. I want to help the stranger on the street, but most days I can't help but sidestep around him. I work hard at my job to specifically address issues such as homelessness and substance use disorders, but I also work really hard to avoid eye contact. And maybe you felt that way before too.
I can share this one comfort: I am also full of hope. I'm hopeful because there's been tremendous growth to support social impact in the impact investing field. In just three years, I've witnessed monumental milestones: financial giants like BlackRock and TPG creating impact platforms and raising impact funds, federal policy acknowledging the place for environmental, social, and governance factors in investment decisions, and even Harvard Business School spearheading the inaugural Investing for Impact elective course and the creation of a student-run impact investing club.
I'm hopeful because I can help that field continue to evolve. Take, for example, the definition of impact. Today there's enough sophistication in the industry to map impact across a spectrum, from screening out negatives to generating positives. I currently spend my days developing projects on the extreme end of the positive, where returns are linked to measurable human outcomes. My definitions of social impact include things like housing stability for the chronically homeless, more students reading at third grade literacy benchmarks, and keeping a family together. As an impact investor, I hope to drive higher standards for impact definition and measurement to move industry norms further down the spectrum.
A Chinese idiom comes to mind. Its translation is, "A single stick will not prop up a whole building." And that reminds me that I cannot accomplish these goals alone. At Harvard Business School, I hope to develop the leadership skills to galvanize diverse individuals toward a common goal. I want to challenge myself by experimenting with different leadership styles and wearing hats I'm not naturally comfortable in. This practice may help me hone the right tools to bring uncommon allies together. There are many things I don't know, and even more things that I don't yet realize I don't know, so I'll also embrace my education both inside and outside the classroom. Surrounded by peers from multicultural backgrounds bringing expertise across different sectors, I can exponentially expand my scope of learning. Acquiring breadth will allow me to draw from a study of multidisciplinary strategies to apply to my future work as an impact investor. I look forward to learning from and engaging with my peers while contributing my own unique perspective, in the classroom and in conversation. I think I'd start by asking everyone if they'd like to go grab a bowl of lamian together.
Part of me is feeling very awkward, because some parts you're just like, "Oh, of course you would say that, you're trying so hard." But part of me also still feels really proud of that essay, because so much of it embodied a lot of how I felt at that moment and things that I was really proud of. It was really real, and it was the culmination of a lot of hard work. So I was delighted to have the opportunity to read it out loud. I don't think I've ever done that before, so some of it was just like, "Oh, is this awkward?" But part of me is also like, I'm so excited to be able to share that story and that perspective.
You talk about your family, and in particular your father's experience, so eloquently. Have you had him read it? Has he seen this before?
I think they've seen versions of it. I don't know if I've actually shared with them the actual final version. It's so funny, I was very upfront with co-workers about my application, but I was very hesitant to share with my family because I didn't want to get their hopes up or disappoint them. So they knew that I was applying to schools, but I didn't really keep them up to date on what stage I was at or what I was doing. I just constantly assured them, "Yeah, I'm working on it, just working hard." And so I feel like maybe it's worth shooting it to them.
I remember not just feeling like I had to compare myself to the people at work but also any past individuals that had been accepted, and also all the profiles on the blogs, on Poets&Quants, on that MBA blog. I remember just scouring them and being like, do I even have a chance, am I just totally out of my league? And half of those you're just like, yeah, what am I, I have no right being here. At some point I felt like I just had to shut that off. I went with my gut and felt like, I might not be the best or the strongest candidate here, but I do have a reasonable chance and I do have a good story. And if not me, then who, was ultimately what kept me going. It was validation from really good real friends, and just trying to shut everything else off.
The other place I felt a little bit like I couldn't compare was there was a section where they were like, highlight your achievements and awards and accomplishments. And I was like, apart from getting most fun at Tuesday night trivia, apart from really ridiculous awards, I am not a Forbes 30 Under 30, I don't have any accolades for my nonprofit abilities or being on the board or any lifetime achievement awards. And that part I was really just scratching my head to try to put something in, and ultimately just left it blank because I just didn't have anything and everything I put in just sounded ridiculous.
I just really lean heavily on my charming personality.
Probably not the answer you were looking for, but because we had our glorious HBS time during COVID, I did not expect to spend so much time with my partner and uniquely fell more and more in love with him. I really credit school to finally giving me the time and priority to say I'm really going to prioritize my partner for a little bit. Garrett had just moved to Boston January of 2020, and Lally had one month, one glorious month, of hanging out and going out into Boston and exploring, and then everything shut down and it was just us. You don't learn more about an individual than when you spend 24/7 with them in a small bedroom apartment.
One of my favorite relationship therapists and researchers, Dr. John Gottman, was quoted I think from like three different professors of ours. Three of them had cited this relationship researcher talking about fulfillment and happiness and having a life of success not just based on your career, your accolades, your awards, but really about family and personal relationships. I really took that to heart, and so in addition to focusing on my partner, I also focused on a few very, very good friendships. I'm not the type of person to have a ton of friends, but I have a couple of very, very good friends that I know will go miles for me and I would do the same, and I really appreciate that.
Classes also were fine. They were very good, very instructive. I learned a lot from negotiation and I continue to use those tactics today. Those are things you're going to get out of the program. You're going to get a great experience and education from the case study method, you're going to be challenged. I didn't expect some of the other things.
You alluded in your essay to wanting to stay in social impact, and now you're working for a mental health startup. How did your time at HBS help you make that shift in where you wanted to go with your career? What were some of the resources or opportunities that helped you get there?
I leaned heavily into how people build businesses and build organizations, how do you take a concept and an idea from scratch and actually build a company out of it. I really admired founders. To a certain degree, I do not want to be a founder myself. I will be your first joiner, the first non-founder joiner. I love being in that role, but I really love building alongside a team towards something that's really meaningful to me. There were a couple of classes that really stood out. Founders Journey was really enlightening. Some of those stories were not always positive and ended in a giant IPO and people being rich; some of it ended up in a million-dollar divorce settlement between a husband and wife going and doing business together, which was totally shocking and horrifying. So that class really helped open my eyes to the environment and the ecosystem that was startups. LTV, Launching Tech Ventures, was really instrumental to that. And then I also think the class on building and keeping a sustainable enterprise. I really loved that class. The concepts that you learned there about building innovation into your company, like when do you actually become obsolete and need to change course - a lot of really great concepts there, and then Jobs to Be Done.
A lot of the times people think that there's a big gap between academics and then the practicalities of the job that you have, and while not for all classes all the time, there were so many nuggets and frameworks and things that you could take directly from the classes and content, and even now we're less than a year out, apply them. So it is very practical knowledge. And even if I can't pinpoint which case or which class it was in, I feel like there's suddenly a pattern recognition that you develop after reading so many cases and reading so many stories about companies and businesses that you're like, wait a second, this feels familiar, I feel like I've been here before. That's kind of helped me. It's given me better instincts.
What was an HBS interview question that took you by surprise?
The first question that they asked me, I had put that I played the ukulele on my resume, and the woman's first question was like, so how did you get into the ukulele? I was like, what, how did you know that? Oh wait, you read my entire application package and I included that in there. They do not miss the tiny details. It was just kind of like, oh okay, well it's just so cute.
What was the best piece of advice that someone gave you for your application?
My friend Shelly was a year before us and was so instrumental to my process. She told me that there is a separate Consulting service for the HBS interview and I didn't know that. I didn't use Consultants, but instead I only paid for that one interview service, and I actually think that just gave me so much peace of mind and made me feel like I was prepared. Otherwise I think I would have been so nervous, just a ball of nerves.
What stereotype about HBS would you say is true, and one that proved to not be true?
The stereotype that everyone there is very smart and motivated and hardworking, I absolutely think that that is true. But the stereotype that people are very pompous or arrogant, I felt like that was just proven so wrong. There were absolutely individuals like that, but in a class of 900 people I just steered clear of those folks. Not everyone's your person, that's okay, you find your people.
Is there anything that you would do differently if you had to go back and do it again?
I would have tried to do more a little bit earlier. Maybe trying to put some pressure on myself would have been really helpful. The last week before the deadline was just so exhausting. I don't think I actually did any work, I was just doing my application. It just takes a lot out of you, and I honestly thought that I would get ready in time for the GSB application and I just didn't, and was just like, oh, I'm just not gonna do it, I can't.
Who is the coolest alumni or class guest that you got to meet or hear from?
Joanna Gaines, I don't think they're alumni though, I think they were just guests, but I just really love Fixer Upper, it's so fun. It was really cool to talk to them, they were really sweet. I also thought that one guy, oh gosh, the French watch guy, John Clappier, oh what a gem, what a gem of a man. Love that man, great man. And Toby Johnson, Toby Johnson was just like an amazing Superstar, like an Idol.
Would you describe yourself as an introvert or an extrovert?
I am an introvert with extrovert Tendencies. I like to be around people, I gain a lot of motivation and energy from people, but then I really do have to sit back and recharge.
Would you say you're analytical or creative?
I'm much more analytical but desperately, desperately want to be creative.
Cautious or bold?
100% cautious, very cautious. I can be bold in confined and structured scenarios, where it's very safe.
If you were going to Hogwarts, what house would you be in?
Hufflepuffs forever.
When asked in a formal setting such as a job interview or business school interview, what do you say your biggest weakness is, and what is your biggest weakness actually?
I typically say that I am quite deferential in meetings and in settings, it's very hard for me to push back or say no immediately. In reality that is somewhat true, only because in my mind I'm just like, hell no, but what I'll say is, oh well, we'll try to make that happen, but I'll have to let you know whether or not that's realistic. So in my mind I'm pretty like, there's no way we're going to do that. So I actually don't think in reality that is a weakness. What I actually think my weakness is, is I have a desire to be liked by the people I work with. I really did like my colleagues in the previous firms that I was at, and more and more I'm coming to realize that I do not have to be friends with my colleagues, I do not have to be best friends with my direct reports, and in fact that might even be frowned upon to a certain degree. That's been a little bit difficult. I do want to be friends and liked by people, but sometimes you just can't do that, you just got to get things done.
Is there anything that you regret about your business school experience?
I think I played it pretty safe. I knew what I really liked and I knew the things that I wasn't really interested in, and there were things that I was just kind of like, I'm not going to go to that, I'm just not interested at all, or I don't like those people, I'm not going to hang out with them. And I drew lines pretty quickly, both as a way to prioritize, there's just so many asks of your time at school, it was a way to prioritize the things that were really important to me. But now looking back there were things that I'm like, oh wow, I kind of wish I had that opportunity, maybe I should have just given her a shot, should have just tried it. What's the worst that could happen, maybe have a real embarrassing moment. There's just so many resources, and now I wish I had all of those again. It's such a unique time, you're living across the street from your best friends. Some of my really close friends lived in my building, you guys lived less than 5, 10 minutes away, and now you're across the country. I really wish I would have just did like, hey, it's Tuesday, I'm bored, I'm coming over, let's hang out, because now I just miss those times so much and wish we could do that more.
If you had to pick a new mascot for HBS, what would it be?
Maybe it would be like something red. All the mascots are like really ferocious animals, like Bobcats, I think that was the NYU one. We were the NYU violets, and then only for basketball games or something we were like the Bobcats, because violets aren't aggressive. Maybe we could be like the HBS hippogryphs or something. They're kind of aggressive but likable once you get to know them. Don't cross them, we will destroy you, but once you're friends, we'll pick you up and we'll go for a fun ride.
Just go for it. It's so exhausting, but even just the exercise of going through it. I told myself before, and it's easy to say that now once you've gotten in, but I honestly think if I had gotten into any of the schools that I applied to, I would have been so grateful and so happy and felt so validated, because I'd gone through the process of applying and really being hard in terms of who am I really, what do I really want. So much of that introspective process has stayed with me today: what are my priorities, what do I really want, what is important to me. So building that practice was really valuable. It's so grueling and it's so hard, but just grab a big glass of wine and get through it.