Robinson recalls that some of her teachers in high school tried to dissuade her from applying, and that she had been warned against "setting my sights too high". She believed that her brother's status as an alumnus — he graduated in 1983, before being hired as a basketball coach at Oregon State University and Brown University — may have helped her during the admission process, but she was resolved to demonstrate her own worth. She has stated that she was overwhelmed during her first year, attributing this to the fact that neither of her parents had graduated from college, and that she had never spent time on a college campus.