Sorvino was raised in Tenafly, New Jersey, where she wrote and acted in backyard plays with her childhood friend Hope Davis and in theater productions at Dwight-Englewood School. Sorvino has said that as a child she was strongly influenced by her mother to pursue social causes; her mother had participated at the March on Washington. Sorvino excelled in high school, and was accepted into Harvard University. She studied for one year as an exchange student with CIEE in Beijing, China, where she became fluent in Mandarin Chinese, but later claimed to speak very little during an appearance on Larry King Now, when Dennis Miller temporarily filled in for King. In 1989, she graduated from Harvard "magna cum laude" with a degree in East Asian studies. She also helped found the Harvard-Radcliffe Veritones, one of Harvard's co-ed "a cappella" groups in 1985.