The Harvard Roller Coaster

This is a story I haven't told in full to anyone outside of my immediate family, who were with me every step of the way. It's a story of a roller coaster of emotions: apprehensiveness, excitement, stress, nervousness, disbelief, elation, heartbreak, acceptance and gratitude. All in all, I chose to get on, buckle in and hold on tight as we twisted, turned, rushed and drew to a halt in one single second. I'm so glad I did.

You know when you see one of these emails in your inbox that you usually delete without reading because it's probably got nothing to do with you anyway? You anticipate it'll be a waste of your time. I saw an email from an unfamiliar name within the university, titled 'Invitation to Apply for the Frank Knox Memorial Fellowship Scholarship' on the 11th of October, 2019. Being over halfway through my Masters, specialising in assessment, I didn't think I'd need a scholarship. Nevertheless, I clicked on it.

The first thing I noticed was that it said, 'Dear Jackie,'. Okay, so maybe this does have something to do with me, I thought. I kept reading.

I am writing to you regarding the Frank Knox Memorial Fellowship to Harvard University. With a current course-weighted average of above ** in your course, you have demonstrated academic excellence. If you are considering further study at the end of your degree, you may be interested in applying for this prestigious Fellowship program.

Was I thinking of doing further study? No way. Did I ever think for a second I would receive and email about Harvard? Heck no! I am, however, a believer in finding and pursuing opportunities and chasing dreams, I just didn't know this could be one of my dreams until I was faced with the option. The Frank Knox Memorial Fellowship Scholarship was a full tuition to a masters degree of my choice, in Boston. BOSTON! Keep in mind I'm a girl from the country. I grew up on a farm, 20km out of a small town, at the end of the Great Ocean Road in Victoria. I moved to Melbourne at the beginning of my teaching career and love both the city and country life. Apprehension was prominent in the beginning. The chance of this actually happening seemed so slim and I really couldn't see how I could take on the amount of work required for such an application. The butterflies arrived and wouldn't go away. The possibilities and slim chance of making it to Harvard ignited something inside of me.

The scholarship application was due on the 1st of December, 2019 which included many many documents, three letters of recommendation and a 1000 word essay. I also had to apply directly to Harvard for acceptance to the masters course of my choice. I liked the description of Instructional Leadership: Mathematics. The two applications were separate and equally MASSIVE! I also had to book in a time to sit the GRE test as part of my application.

All of this was happening in Term 4 on top of a job application that involved key selection criteria. Yep. I was already stressed. So many times I felt totally overwhelmed and just cried. Doubt crept in constantly. Me at Harvard? Ridiculous. My jaw literally hit the desk when I read the profiles of successful applicants who were now 'Fellows' and came from a variety of disciplines, from all over the world. They were like, super human and did incredible things for our world. Teaching is one of the most important roles in every society across the globe, but I felt like I couldn't even slightly compare to these people. Nevertheless, I decided that I had two choices: give up on the assumption that I didn't stand a chance, or go all in, work bloody hard and submit an application to the best of my ability. I chose the later, pulled on my blundstone boots and rolled up my sleeves, so to speak.

Blood, sweat and tears. Poor Simon (my partner) definitely got to see my ugliest crying face. I crawled to the due date. I submitted the application only an hour before it was due. This alone nearly gave me a heart attack. I never leave things to the last minute, especially very important things. Exhaustion and relief flooded over me when I received the email of receipt.

How to describe the feeling I was holding? I guess I felt nervous and proud about my application at the same time. Was it going to be good enough? Did I cover everything? After countless revisions and edits, I did feel proud of my essay but was unsure how it would be perceived by the panel.

I cherished the breathing space over a few weeks as reports were finished and Term 4 wound down. Spending time with my class and reflecting on the fun times we had, our strong class community bond and the astounding growth (that is extra special with preppies) seemed to bring me back to earth and remind me of what truly matters.

Downtime over! It was time to study for the dreaded GRE test. I downloaded the practise test. I failed, failed and failed again. I was way out of my depth with the numeracy component. I don't think I had ever even seen equations like the ones that were on the test. Doubt came in overdrive. Time was against me. YouTube tutorials, watching the working out to the practise questions on Magoosh, trying to find a tutor and more YouTube tutorials. I did improve over time but my confidence was shot. Here is the part that I've held close to my chest . . . It flooded back memories of primary school days where I had totally slipped through the cracks in maths and used to rely on my friends to get through. There were no friends to help this time. Thinking back, I often wonder how my teacher didn't know, or maybe she did. I don't know. Of course, the major gaps in my knowledge followed me to high school. Same story, really. Friends and the back of the book were my crutch. At my first job, I remember freaking out when someone opened the till before I had the chance to see the change amount. I could not figure it out for myself. It was busy and my manager saw me standing there staring at the money. '$12.30', she snapped as she rolled her eyes. I was mortified! I ended up failing my Year 10 maths exam by 2 marks because my calculator wouldn't turn on and the supervising teacher wouldn't give me a spare one because it was my responsibility to check the batteries before the exam. I'm not complaining here. It's true - I should have double checked. However, I feel that I would have helped a student in this situation. With my teenager attitude hijacking my brain, I was done with maths. No more. I didn't have to do it in VCE anyway. I remember thinking strongly, what was the point? When would I ever need to use VCE level algebraic equations or trig in my life? I could say so much more but I think this might be a story for another blog. Thankfully, I really scrubbed up on my maths in my Bachelor degree. I worked hard. It was funny, I pretty much assessed myself and filled in the gaps, because I was too embarrassed to speak up at this point in my education. A few fundamental concepts, and strategies helped me connect the dots! This joined with two great lecturers who were incredibly passionate about mathematics was the recipe I needed.

The algebra GRE practise questions were well beyond the level of math I had encountered. I had that sinking feeling that I was defeated. I felt that I simply didn't have the time or the resources to get my maths up to scratch before my test date. I did what I could but I doubted that it was enough to score highly enough for Harvard. I felt sick. Test day came in February. I dragged my feet to the centre at 1pm knowing I was in for an intense 4 hours.

The literacy component was fine. Maths was as I expected it to be. Let's just say there was lots of crossing fingers and choosing an answer after a process of elimination with little confidence in what I was doing. The familiar feeling of exhaustion and relief flooded over me when I finished the test, and walked to the tram that evening. We had booked a celebratory dinner for 6.30. It felt good to know that I had done everything I needed to do for the application.

Fast forward a few weeks, while I was distracted with my gorgeous new prep class. By this stage It was getting close to the time where we expected to hear from Harvard. I had just received my GRE test scores back. Literacy was good, maths was not good. No surprise there. When I say literacy was 'good', I mean good - average. Let's be clear, my scores were not great. Certainly not to, what I thought to be, 'Harvard standard'.

One Saturday in March, I was waiting for a takeaway coffee from our local cafe. I was checking the socials and my emails as I waited. My stomach dropped and I started to sweat when I saw an email from Harvard Graduate School of Education sitting in my inbox. My mouth went dry. I couldn't open it. I got home in a blur and told Simon that the answer was sitting in my inbox. I was f-r-e-a-k-i-n-g o-u-t. I prepared myself for disappointment and reminded myself that I was grateful for the opportunity regardless of the outcome. I braced myself and opened the email, only to find a link that I needed to click on to create an account to be able to read the letter. Urgh - really?!

Finally. I re-prepped myself for disappointment. 3, 2, 1 . . .

You can't see it in the picture but confetti was going crazy all over the screen. That's all I could see for the first few seconds. Then, the text came into clear view. I had no words. My body went tingly. I tried to say something but the words didn't come out. I tried again and this time they came out really bland. "I got in". Simon was great, super excited and supportive.

Then, there were all these links. I had to sign up to the HGSE community. I watched sooooo many welcome videos. There were webinars to explain everything I needed to do. More forms. Forms, forms, forms. There were housing lotteries I had to sign up for. Everything, you name it. I'm actually looking up at my yearly calendar now and I can see all the due dates I had written in. By the 9th of April I had to accept Financial Aid. By the 15th of April, I had to respond to my letter of acceptance. On the 22nd of May, my visa application was due. 12th of June was immunisation documents and my transcripts had to be in by the 1st of July. And orientation day was at the end of August. I had to write a paragraph about myself which was used to connect me to my mentor who was there to chat and answer any questions I had. It was all about community and almost instantly, I felt engulfed by HGSE. I was in! All I had to do was accept.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ES4XKCWLkB4

I couldn't believe it. Then came all of the other emotions. I felt nervous at the thought of uprooting our life in Australia for a year. I had terrible guilt thinking about the fact that I would need to leave my prep class just after mid year, if I did accept. I was so nervous thinking about being at Harvard. Could I really manage it? Would I make friends? So many thoughts.

Emails were flooding into my inbox. One day, I saw one from the scholarship department. I was home alone. I clicked on it thinking that I would have to create an account, log in and all that jazz. No. Two sentences. "We regret to inform you that your application for the Frank Knox Memorial Fellowship Scholarship has been unsuccessful. Thank you for submission and we will you all the best with your future endeavors'.

That's it. Two sentences.

We couldn't cough up the 85K USD for 10 months at Harvard. With two sentences that took 1.5 seconds to read, my Harvard journey was over.

I was okay. Disappointed but okay.

I am so fortunate to be blissfully happy where I am, who I'm with and being part of the amazing community right here. My school is fabulous. The leadership team were by my side the whole way. Two of them wrote letters of recommendation as part of my application. I will be forever grateful for their unwavering support and kindness.

It really was a wild ride. I felt pushed to the limit on a few occasions. Personally, I think such experiences only teach you more about yourself and tend to prove we are capable of more than we think. I'll keep my acceptance letter to Harvard forever, as a reminder.

So, here I am. In the classroom with my gorgeous students, and with my wider school community, which is exactly where I should be. I am home with my family and my dog, which is exactly where I should be.

What now? I want to reflect on my journey so far, keep learning and use it to give back and support our teaching community. I want to help teachers stress less, save their precious hours and enjoy their other great loves in life. I will do this by producing assessment products that support teaching and learning, making sure our children won't slip through the cracks.

<3 Jackie