I’m still reading applications by Jeremy W.

5 years ago on November 28, 2020, it felt like my entire world was 15 steps wide. In the throes of the pandemic, I spent every day inside my cozy 600-square-foot one-bedroom apartment in Cambridge, measuring my days by the number of applications read during the Early Action cycle, and by how many cups of coffee I could consume until it was physiologically irresponsible. That year we were met with a historic number of applications…and I had nothing but time to read them.

Scarce hours of daylight were punctuated by Zoom calls and Slack huddles with colleagues—digitized attempts at recreating our in-person lunchroom banter. Daylight would fade around 4 PM (perhaps the worst aspect of living at the far edge of the Eastern time zone), and I would eventually wander a few steps into the kitchen to take a break. Was it a late lunch? An early dinner? I shouldn’t make another coffee, should I? I usually would.

I’m not sure I saw it as clearly then, but reading applications during quarantine was something of a blessing. It offered the opportunity to escape the monotony of my own life by living vicariously through the stories of others.

Today, my world is bigger. I live in a different apartment now (still in Cambridge) but with twice the space. Choosing to move here was likely a reaction to the pandemic; ironically, despite now having more space, I rarely work from home. Even on reading days, I usually opt to leave and head to campus to work instead. On the rare days that I do stay back, like today, I appreciate the quintessentially Cambridge view from my living room window.

But regardless of where I am sitting, the practice of reading applications remains a familiar habit, largely unchanged by the setting. Each fall, as the November 1 deadline approaches, I slip back into my strange monastic ritual. I activate Reading Mode, enter an industrious fugue state, and emerge weeks later with all my files read. Every admissions officer has their own system, a personal set of idiosyncrasies that govern how we approach the bizarre, intimate task of spending all our waking hours learning about the lives of others. I’m hardly as efficient as I ought to be; it feels almost sacrilegious to prioritize productivity when peering into the lives of others, gaining proximity to their aspirations, and making sense of their stories.

Such a task is both an immense honor and a weighty responsibility. While my routine feels well-worn at this point, the job never seems to get easier. After closing my laptop, I often need time to decompress before I can do anything else. Maybe that’s why I choose to go into the office—my 15-minute walk through Cambridge serves as the perfect salve, a requisite transition between your worlds and mine.

Perhaps the thing I resent most about reading season is how it robs me of the ability to read for pleasure. After spending all day consuming what is (mostly) non-fiction in applications, my eyes hardly allow me to indulge in a novel at night. This summer I finally finished In the Distance by Hernán Díaz, a novel I had attempted to read last year during application season. The book follows the journey of a young Swedish emigrant, Håkan, traveling across the harsh mid-1800s American West.

“A year and an instant are equivalent in a monotonous life,” Diaz writes of Håkan’s life.

In reading applications, it is my goal to understand the world an applicant comes from, how they shape their world, and how they are shaped by it. But I’ve come to see how I am shaped by these stories, too. If Díaz is right, then this season, despite its exhaustion, is my ritualistic resistance against time slipping away, my rejection of sameness.

These files, in their thousands, prevent my days from blurring together. So, while I wish I had the time and energy for more socializing friends, reading more novels, and getting more sleep, I gladly accept the trade. What a privilege it is to resist monotony thanks to all of you.