I know that the choice of the word “odyssey” sounds a bit pretentious, but bear with me here. It was a long decision process, spanning about two years, most of the Northeast, and a LOT of angst.
See, I had always kind of had the general idea that I was going to go to a small private liberal arts school in the Northeast. Look at Megan’s post for a similar sentiment, I believe. I was a straight-A honors student, did all sorts of extra-curricular activities, Scholastic Writing Awards, band, community stuff…the sorts of things that are generally smiled upon by the Admissions Gods.
(Not that I did those things for that reason, you understand. I am a very big believer in the principle that if you’re doing something sheerly for how it’ll look on your resume, you’re not doing it for the right reasons. This is, among other reasons, why I refused to join my high school’s chapter of the National Honor Society. Call it a function of my iconoclastic streak surfacing.)
Anyway. I knew that I wanted to be in the Northeast/Mid-Atlantic at least, so we decided to take one summer and go on several “college jaunts”. We went through upstate New York, looking at Cornell, Ithaca, Colgate, and Vassar, then swung out to Ohio and looked at Kenyon, Denison, Wittenberg and Oberlin. That was all on one trip, which seemed to go on forever, let me tell you! One time we went up to New England to look at Tufts and Harvard and Yale… I checked out Lehigh, Lafayette and Muhlenberg…made trips to Swarthmore and Ursinus…et cetera.
(At this point, I knew that I would be applying to Penn State no matter what, because I had a boyfriend and friends here…But I wasn’t nearly as serious about Penn State — I was bound and determined to make a college decision on what was best for me, and not on the grounds of a relationship, et cetera. I include that piece of information because I know that it’s a factor for a lot of people making a college decision. And it IS something to consider, but it really shouldn’t be the deciding point. Hmmm…maybe a post about college and the long-distance relationship is in order at some point…)
Anyway, I learned a few things on those trips. One thing was that there was NO WAY I wanted to be in the middle of nowhere (see: Kenyon, Colgate). I didn’t like urbanity that much either, to tell you the truth. Actually, I decided that everything in Ohio basically just seemed WAY too far way for me, although New England was an exception because of good train service. Also, the small private liberal arts colleges? Weren’t doing it for me. I went to see Swarthmore, which I always thought would be my type of place, and wasn’t impressed. The people I met just didn’t seem to click. The Ivies generally didn’t thrill me that much either.
Anyway, after seeing all of these places, I narrowed my applications down to four: Tufts University, Ursinus College, Vassar College (which is no longer single-sex, FYI), and of course Penn State and the SHC. Vassar wait-listed me, so that basically knocked them out. I set up overnights during the year with Tufts, Ursinus and Penn State/SHC, and…
Well. Um. I guess I should probably try to be circumspect here. Let’s just say that I felt rather awkward and out of my element at two of those places. One of those stories involves me tagging along miserably to a frat party. There was a brief gleam of hope when I commented “WTF, mate!” to something, and another girl said, “Oh my gosh, that’s from that The End of the World animation! I LOVE that!” I got all excited and was like, “Yeah, I love it too…all those catchphrases have totally passed into the lexicon of me and my friends!” …and then she answered, “Dude, you are not NEARLY drunk enough if you’re still using the word ‘lexicon’.”
And that’s when *I* decided that I didn’t need to pay $40,000 a year to feel guilty about not drinking OR using what my eighth-grade English teacher would call “fifty-cent words” in casual conversation.
But enough of the less-than-perfect stories…onto the good one!
I’ll admit that the weather might have had something to do with my “first impression” of Penn State (I was trying to look at it with fresh eyes, remember). It was the first nice weekend of the spring…probably late March or early April, and it was just gorgeous. My host and I spent most of the afternoon out on a blanket on the HUB lawn, talking with her friends and waylaying people who came by. I remember thinking that Meredith seemed to know everybody, and they all seemed incredibly friendly and glad to be here.
Actually, just meeting other people was something different. At the other schools, I basically had met my host and her roommate. Here, Leah and Meredith took me up and down the hall, introducing me to their friends. By the end of the night, I’d amassed a whole bunch of little pieces of paper with people’s names, screennames, and where I had to be when tomorrow, since they’d cobbled together a list of classes for me to come and sit in on, in addition to the one or two arranged by the college.
It really was a great visit. I felt emotionally at home at the honors college; I felt like I could see myself there and happy for the next four years. Doesn’t mean it was an easy choice — I still put off the Moment of Truth until as long as humanly possible. Finally, my mom just said, “Look, if you decide to go somewhere and you don’t like it, you can always switch. It’s not like it’s irrevocable.”
And something about that freed me to make the decision…which ultimately, after all that stress and travel and self-examination ended up being an emotional one. To this day, I’m positive I made the right one for me…and I hope that reading these has been a help to anyone looking for information about that “next step” from high school to college. It’s a tough choice, but…it’ll be OK. Even fantastic, I daresay.
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