Harvard coins

It was my senior year and I applied for a few scholarships to get my masters in global health. I really wanted to do it at Duke, so I filled out an application for a scholarship there with more care than I have ever done anything else. In a last minute decision, I decided to apply to a Harvard scholarship too, for kicks. I ended up winning the Harvard one, and I received two gold coins in an envelope with a letter from them explaining how they had a tradition of granting scholarships with these coins - one was $10,000 and the other was $1,000. I don't remember why.

I then proceeded to share this wonderful news for my mom, and instead of congratulating me she didn't even look up from whatever she was doing and said "is that it? Only ten thousand? That's not going to be enough for you to study there."

Upset, I went to find my boyfriend's room. He congratulated me, but then I looked around his room and he has about 10 boxes of chocolate eclairs his parents had sent him as congratulations for getting an internship. I remember feeling very upset.