Last weekend, Wesleyan hosted a three-day open house for accepted students (and helicopter parents) to get a feel for the school before D-Day (the May 1 decision date, if you’re not in the know). Although I was accepted early decision, I attended the aptly named WesFest on Friday and stayed overnight, meeting fellow pre-frosh as well as current students and experiencing college life first-hand.

Since this was my first experience being completely immersed in college culture sans parental units, I learned a few things about life in college, from the insightful to the unexpected:

1. 11:00 p.m. on weekends is considered “early.” At home, I’m usually up until 1 or 2 a.m., but by 11 I’m in my PJ’s, watching TV and winding down from the day. At that time on most college campuses, the party’s just getting started. And it doesn’t end until the 6 a.m. puking rush begins. 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 »

For the first couple of months after my college acceptance, it was all about celebration. Buying up sweatshirts and car decals on the bookstore website, networking with my future classmates on Facebook, making pro/con lists for next year’s housing choices. But recently, my future hit me as being much more real when my school’s course catalog for the 2009-2010 school year was put online for current students (as well as curious prefrosh) to use in selecting their courses. And, being the geek that I am, I perused nearly every humanities department’s section and salivated at the descriptions of the classes I’d love to take.

But my passion for intellectual pursuits poses a problem for me. While my school does not have any core requirements, there is no possible way I could take every course that interests me in four years. I plan to be an English major, but there are courses in the history, government, philosophy, religion, and film departments that sound like incredible classes. I love to learn anything and everything and I will take every opportunity to do so; yet time constraints and forces beyond my control will make it impossible for me to take certain courses. Read More »

As the majority of the readers on this site will know, college admissions are a painful and infuriating process. Nowadays our society puts so much pressure on us to attend good schools that many of us begin to feel that, should we not get into college, we’ll be living in refrigerator boxes on the street. (Although it was brought to my attention that, if you’re lucky, you could end up being one of the slightly more fortunate homeless people of California that get one of these cool portable shelters. Doesn’t really make you feel better, but good to know.)

Statistically, my class (2009) is due for the worst admissions season yet.

The root of the problem lies in “boom and bust” population demographics. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, the baby boomers generation began to have children and thus created another wave of growth. As this new generation began to enter high school and apply to college, the number of applications began to increase and the number of students admitted decrease.

Basically, if you were born during the latter half of 1990 or in 1991, you’re screwed. Read More »

You’d think that receiving the coveted package in the mail on December 15 (for which my mom hunted down the mail truck like a lion chases a gazelle) officially kicks off high school senioritis. Yes and no; while getting into my dream school early decision helped alleviate my college process-related stress, I didn’t consider myself a victim of full-blown senioritis until Tuesday at 1:05 p.m., when the last midterm exam of my high school career ended.

And I have to say, this is one disease that I know I’m going to love.

All throughout high school, I was your typical gunner/overachiever type, pushing myself to get A’s and throwing a fit when I received anything lower. There were unfortunate times, usually around exams, when I sacrificed my social life in order to study. Looking back, I realize that my obsession with grades was unhealthy and I am not proud of it, but since I achieved my goal of getting into my number one college, I choose not to have any regrets about high school. What’s done is done; now is the time for moving forward.

In that very spirit, from here on out I plan on letting my hair down and doing all the things I never had time to do. My first order of business, of course, is sleep. I’ve also got a lengthy list of books to read, some TV shows to catch up with, a guitar to jam on, and – most importantly – some witty writing to crank out on Microsoft Word. Read More »

I was at the exact perfect age — high school seniordom — when the Red Sox achieved that wonder of wonders and won the world series for the first time in 87 years. To understand how momentous that was for Bostonians, you really had to have been there — my headmistress declared a day off from school, there were parades and people dressed up in Red Sox outfits every day that week.

The curse was reversed! Even more than that miracle, though, was the miracle that some people who had less than zero interest in sports (like yours truly) suddenly became excited by the games.

All of us, no matter what our sports background, were on the edge of our seats as the Red Sox struggled to beat the Yankees, our mortal enemy, and then the Cardinals. Each won game was one more day we were still alive, and I still remember the excited discussions at school. People who had never held a baseball in their lives were talking strategy and statistics; Red Sox caps came out in every possible color.

It reminded me of how fun and exciting it can be to pretend to be a tomboy even for a little while, especially in the summer, and get your head and heart into a game. Sports are made not just by the playing, but by the watching. Every great athlete dreams not just of winning, but of having the crowd go wild. Read More »

When I think back to my college search process, I can remember combing through books and magazines that my parents shoved in my face that ranked every aspect of a college from the biggest party school to the average parental income of students. Although I always had my mind set on venturing out of the Midwest and to school in upstate New York, I still enjoyed reading through the miniscule details of schools I had applied to.

Most high school juniors or seniors take a glance at these ratings materials, at least once, in the decision making process. College is a huge, life-changing decision and with tuition constantly increasing, it is so important for everyone involved to make the right choice. For that reason, the information should be completely accurate and credible. Well, it turns out that one ratings system in particular, the U.S. News and World Report, may be a glorified “beauty contest.”

Read More »