Three years ago, I was the college applicant from hell. My parents, their friends, guidance counselors and my peers looked at me like I was crazy when I told them that I was submitting 14 college applications. Among those 14 applications, I was applying to public schools, private schools, small schools, extra-large schools, city schools and schools in the middle of nowhere. If that wasn’t bad enough, I ended up sending three deposits to different schools (despite my parents’ wishes, I never really planned on going to Penn State, though). To say that I had no idea where I would end up is an understatement, but I could not be happier that I ended up in the perfect midpoint of my 14 applications at University of Delaware — a large-but-not-too-large public school with private funding in a suburban setting.

If there is anything that I can tell you about myself with 100 percent confidence, it is that I am the worst at making decisions. Not only am I the worst at making decisions, but I also rarely have confidence in the ones that I actually manage to make. One of my three deposits was at Indiana University, the school that more of my friends from before college attended than any other. When I first got to Delaware freshman year (and let’s face it, through the rest of the year as well), I let the FOMO of what was happening in the middle of cornfields in the Midwest inhibit my experience in the First State.

Until flying out to Indiana last week to move my brother into college with a two-hour delay followed by a two-hour flight (with getting to the airport and security, this was a five-hour experience), having to actually get from Indianapolis to Bloomington (another hour the next morning), then accompanying my mother on the 12-HOUR drive home, I had always wondered “what if?” in the back of my mind. After spending 24 hours at what I had claimed was my “dream school,” the “what ifs” have subsided, and I have never loved University of Delaware more for taking me off of their waitlist. The two-and-a-half-hour drive from New Jersey to Delaware seemed like a stroll to the end of the street compared to that. Though my friends and little brother have seemed to find a great little niche in Indiana, I have finally established that I am not meant to live in a place where it is legal to buy alcohol in Target (but not on Sundays). If you happen to be reading this and are applying to college, it all works out the way it is supposed to.

NDB doesn’t quite compare to a New Jersey bagel and Margherita’s pizza could be a bit better, but Delaware gives me (most of) the comfort of home while still allowing me to have an away-from-home college experience. While waiting 20 minutes for a bagel is absurd, not paying sales tax on anything somewhat makes up for it. Also, if I need sushi pizza from Nagoya or retail therapy at the Short Hills Mall (with my parents’ credit cards) one weekend, home is a hop in the car, a skip down my driveway and a jump onto my bed away — not a trek through two different airports with a flight in between. The people I have met and the experiences that I have had at the beautiful UD are incredible, and though they did not exactly (read: they absolutely did not) go as I had planned, I would not take them back for the world. No FOMO, no regrets; I am ready to make the second half of my college career even bigger and better than the first half of it was. Let’s do this.