Yale University

Yale University enters the story as a hoped-for next step in Daniel Jae Ho Bae’s education, represented less by its campus than by the admissions process surrounding it. Daniel applies early decision and prepares for an alumni interview, but the university’s importance is tested when he chooses to make room for Natasha Kingsley in a day organized around that interview.

Daniel’s Application and Ambition

Daniel describes Yale University as his second-best school, after Harvard University. He has put his foot down and refused to apply to Harvard University, because the prospect of being Charlie Bae’s younger brother at another school feels like too much. Charlie’s suspension also makes Daniel wonder whether Harvard University would admit him at all. Yale University thus offers a distinct path: Daniel has applied early decision and has an alumni admission interview scheduled.

The interview sits within a family atmosphere of academic expectation. Daniel’s mother urges him to get serious about school, while she prepares steamed frozen mandu as a treat for his interview day. At the kitchen table, he works on a long-running poem about heartbreak despite never having had his heart broken. His father does not openly criticize his poetry, but Daniel understands that he disapproves. The scene places the interview alongside competing pressures: his mother’s hopes for his studies, his father’s quiet disapproval of his writing, and Daniel’s own uncertainty about what he can write from experience.

The Alumni Interview

When Daniel tells Natasha that he has an interview later, he clarifies that it is for Yale University, with an alumnus, and that he applied early decision. The interview is a concrete obligation in a day that otherwise begins to turn toward Natasha: he has met her only recently, yet he is already fitting her into plans made around his application.

Daniel reschedules the interview for her. The interviewer says the timing is fortunate because she had been about to call and reschedule too; the only available appointment is late in the day, at six o’clock. Daniel waits in the lobby of the building where he left Natasha, scanning the directory and watching for her. His decision does not erase the Yale University interview; it shifts it later, allowing him to remain nearby while she attends to her own appointment.

Narrative Significance

Yale University functions as both an aspiration and a measure of Daniel’s priorities. The early-decision application and alumni interview make the goal specific, while his willingness to reschedule shows that it does not wholly govern his choices. In the available episodes, the university remains an admissions destination rather than a fully depicted institution: its significance lies in the plans Daniel makes around it, and in the way those plans yield when he decides to spend time with Natasha.