My freshman year of high school, I was dead set on going to Texas A&M. I had my life planned out and that plan included me wearing maroon and getting that Aggie ring. I look back now and think about how crazy I must have been for thinking that my life would go as planned, because if I have learned anything in my life it is that God throws some curve balls. I wish I could go back to my high school self and just say, “You’re going to end up exactly where you need to be.”

I remember looking at my options for colleges, being absolutely torn and feeling like I could see myself at every single school… seeing multiple futures for myself and wondering which was the “right” one. I was scared that I was going to make the wrong decision; I was scared that I would end up at a school and wish that I had chosen another. It began to set in that the decision of a university was going to impact the course of my life forever, and, as an 18 year old, I realized that kind of decision is one that shouldn’t be made in haste. After much inner turmoil and prayer, somehow I realized that I belonged at the University of Texas. Making that decision, and saying out loud that I was going to attend UT felt like a burden being lifted off of my chest, and now I look back and can’t imagine myself deciding any different.

I’m not going to rip on the Aggies… as much as I love UT, I’m not going to deny that there are plenty of amazing schools across our country (call me a traitor, fine). Looking back on my senior year of high school, I know now that there is no such thing as a “wrong” decision when picking a school. What your friends hate in a school might be what you love in it, or vice versa. Maybe a pretty campus matters to you, maybe it doesn’t; maybe greek life matters to you and maybe it doesn’t. All of the little things that make a certain school unique could make you fall in love or out of love with it… and that’s ok.

I feel like a lot of my time senior year was spent waiting for that “wedding dress moment,” the moment where everything fits perfectly and you know it’s the one. Maybe some people get that feeling the exact moment when they walk onto a campus, some people get that feeling because their family went to that school, and maybe some people don’t get that feeling until they are halfway through their first semester of college.

That wedding dress moment happened for a few of my friends; some of them knew that they wanted to attend a certain school the second they walked onto the campus. Some of my friends had a wedding dress moment for a certain school and then didn’t get in… it’s definitely a reality that a lot of seniors have to face. A lot of senior year is looking around and thinking that everyone else is figuring out their lives before you. Everyone starts to get their acceptance letters, everyone starts to make plans… everyone seems to know exactly what they want to do.

Staring at my pros and cons list for every school, I was panicked because all I wanted was for someone else to make my decision for me. I didn’t want the pressure of making such a big decision on my own. However, I am so grateful that I had parents that truly gave me the freedom to make that decision on my own… parents that also knew I would resent them forever if I ended up unhappy at a school THEY chose.

I don’t know how everything fell into place the way it did… All I know is that come May 1, it was a feeling of pure joy as I walked down the hallway knowing that everyone had somehow made their choice. It’s incredible how so many of us had decided on different schools, yet no one could deny that we were all equally relieved to have come to a conclusion in the college application process. I never thought the day would come where my best friends and I could sport our college T-shirts and finally know where we were going to end up, but somehow it happened.

So, high school senior, no one really warns you about the toll this process is going to take on you. In a perfect world, you apply to your dream school where you get the wedding dress feeling and everything goes as planned. However, I know that this scenario isn’t always the case. No one warns you about how conflicting the process is; no one warns you about how you could fall in love with multiple schools, and no one warns you about how draining it can be to go back and forth with your options.

My word of advice to you is just to take a second and breathe. You are only a high school senior once, and don’t let this process get the best of you. Some people will have a smooth sailing process, and some of you will have an incredibly tough time with this process; either way, come May 1 you WILL make a decision. Whether you are the first person in your class to commit to a school, or whether you are still attempting to flip a coin on April 30, don’t compare your situation to anyone else’s.

I personally think that I attend the best university in the world. The school spirit, academics, greek life, people, living in Austin in general… in my eyes, it can’t be beat. From the butterflies I get in my stomach when I hear the “Eyes of Texas,” to getting squished between hundreds of people at ACL, everything about this city and this school is perfect in my eyes.

I may have struggled to find that “wedding dress feeling” during the college application process, but I get that feeling every day that I get to spend here at UT. Whether you find it here or somewhere else, I hope all of you are able to eventually find happiness at whatever school you decide to call home. This process is hard, but one day you will look back and wonder how you ever could have chosen differently.