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I remember my guidance counselor, when I told her I wanted to apply to Harvard, she paused and said, 'That's in New York, right?' The funny thing is, I didn't really know. It was a few weeks before I was like, 'No, I think it's in Massachusetts.'

I went to school in Massachusetts at Hampshire College.

Never say 'I went to Harvard.' Say 'I schooled in the Boston area.'

I thought I should go to New York because it was the place to go to study. I went and tried to get an application from the Juilliard School but they wouldn't even give me one because I didn't have my high school graduation.

At this point I was strongly advised that I was too young socially to go to college so I took a second senior year at Andover, another boarding school.

I'm sure that being an applicant from the American School in Vienna helped get me into all seven colleges I applied to.

My parents really wanted me to get out of New York, be exposed to other people, other ways of life.

I applied to only one college - the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania - and was fortunate to be accepted. After graduation, I headed to Wall Street and worked as I had dreamed.

I went to school at night in L.A. to brush up on my engineering while I applied to the astronaut program. I really did not know if I would get in. It was the year after the Challenger accident in 1987.

I grew up a little north of New York City and went to high school at Regis, an all-boys tuition-free high school in Manhattan.