college visits

similar to how i thought i was done with college applications for lyfe (undergrad that is) senior year (i was wrong), i also thought that the summer before my senior year would be the end of my prospective college scope-outs (please just read that as touring colleges).

make that wrong again (life: 400, 345, 412 meredith: approx. 1.3, for those of you keeping score at home)

i should've known that two summers after analyzing the campuses of skidmore (didn't apply), cornell (didn't apply), colgate (didn't apply), hamilton (didn't get in), dickinson (didn't apply), & bucknell (waitlisted), i'd be back in the game, this time taking kathy around new york and new jersey. this weekend we quick zipped up to suny-purchase & drove through rutgers in an overnight trip.

(side note: this post isn't about kathy, it's about me. typical.)

i found myself not viewing the schools holistically, and from the eyes of kathy, as i should've, ad rather as though i were a young blossoming seventeen year old on the brink of collegiate livelihood.

i hated suny-purchase.

i loved rutgers.

um, hi, life? thanks for letting me know what i wanted in college a year AFTER i'd applied places.

touring these schools made me realize something i didn't know this time last year, or this time the previous year...or ever until now.

i actually like big state schools.

i made so many mistakes in my college application/decision process...i was obsessed with small liberal arts schools in the north. turns out i really like big state schools ...anywhere.

driving around rutgers made me wonder why the hell i didn't apply to rutgers, and moreso, why the hell i didn't even look at the damn school. i could say the same about virginia tech, jmu, uf, and a million other schools.

i was so damn blinded by uva that i didnt even consider any other options. it's kind of psychotic. i still don't understand why seventeen year olds are left with so many big decisions when they clearly have no idea what they want.

luckily for me, life is a pro at proving me wrong and putting me right where i want to be (kind of).

marshall jones, acting director at rutgers said today "sometimes you don't get into the things you want to...but it's O.KAY. you end up where you're supposed to be anyway. and you're fine. and you realize you love it and can't imagine yourself anywhere else"

to which i nudged kathy and nodded

hi, i am the prime example of the misguided kid who ended up precisely where she should and likes to be. thanks life for lucking me into clemson.

....although i still wouldn't mind a virginia acceptance ;)