When I think back to senior year of high school, I remember a few things: hardly ever doing schoolwork, living under my parents’ roof, and being 10 pounds lighter, for instance. But there’s no doubt that waiting for those college acceptance (or rejection) letters to start rolling in is the most exciting and nerve-racking time in a senior’s life!

There’s nothing like bringing in the mail and finding that large envelope between the Victoria’s Secret catalog and some random bills addressed to your parents. Your heart pounds as you tear it open and find out that you’ve been accepted to the school of your dreams. You can barely sleep that night, excited to run into school the next day sporting the shirt you bought during your campus tour, telling every one of your peers, teachers, and even the lunch ladies where you’ll be headed next year while your parents are at home preparing your deposit and sending e-mails notifying the other universities you were accepted to that they can suck it you won’t be attending.

But what if, some time later, you found out that THEY TOOK IT BACK!? (Cue the tears, hair pulling, “I can’t show my face at graduation!” etc.) Read More »

As this week’s deluge of college acceptances floods into the houses of seniors across the country, I consider myself lucky to be done with the whole process. However, many of my friends are not as fortunate, and are now faced with perhaps the toughest decision of their lives (so far): picking a college.

“Choice” is the buzzword that seems to be on the tip of everyone’s tongue at school. Several of my friends have already heard back from all their colleges and have many to choose from. Others do not have the luxury of six or seven potential choices, but they don’t seem to envy those who received the thick envelope from multiple colleges. The trend I have noticed is that many of my peers simply don’t know which college they want to go to and feel overwhelmed by all the choices. One of my friends equated it to reading a menu with dozens of options; most of them look delicious, so it feels impossible to narrow the choices down to just one.

Here’s one example: Student A applied to nine schools and was accepted by six of them. Together, they’re a representative sample of just about every type of college: big universities, small liberal arts colleges, some with big party scenes, some focused more on academics, and various geographic locations. Her problem is that she likes them all equally, and can envision herself being happy at any of them. What is she to do? Read More »