I did college tours my entire spring break of junior year. We saw nearly 12 colleges up and down the East Coast in the span of a week. After that trip, I wasn't sure of many things, but I knew one thing for certain. "I'm going to apply to NYU," I told my parents. "And I'm going to go there and live in New York City."

And yet there I was in December of that same year, opening my acceptance email from GW, the happiest I've ever been.

So what happened?

I went to an extremely competitive high school in a very driven community. Large amounts of kids ended up going to Ivy's after graduation, and our AP exam scores are some of the highest in the nation. Despite faring well academics-wise, my grades and scores really only placed me near the middle of the class.

I'd always dreamed of moving to a different school in another state, somewhere where I could be near the top for a change instead of average, or even low. Somewhere I didn't have to be ashamed of being the only Indian kid that isn't planning to do medicine or engineering or business or anything "lucrative"--instead planning to do journalism.

I had developed this bad habit of taking cues from other people around me in school; when someone said or did something I went along with it, no matter how untrue or unfit for me it was. And then I would find myself thinking I wasn't good enough, beating myself up for not doing things that I wouldn't even need for my future, but I thought I did because everyone else was doing it.

I was a victim of the groupthink, the mentality that there's only one road to success, to the best colleges and beyond even though it wasn't my idea of success, and certainly not the route I would even see myself on.

They say you can't compare apples to oranges. And yet, in the environment I was being raised in, that's exactly what I did for four years.

So I weighed my college options again that summer, and I realized something, I needed to be at a place where I could establish myself, where I could finally take the reigns of my life and do my own thing without worrying about other people's academic and social agendas as I often did in high school. I needed to create my own path and be a doer rather than just a talker, going out beyond the classroom and getting my hands dirty in a field I actually enjoy and see myself in.

Enter, the George Washington University. As I researched the school more, including SMPA, I found myself open to so many more possibilities. Interning on Capitol Hill. Professors who had previously worked with CNN and the Washington Post.

The students I talked to were equally as friendly and genuine as they were driven and intelligent, something that you'd be surprised to find rare at my school. Potential experiences that spoke to me for once, that showed me the media and public affairs program was a whole world in itself, while still remaining true to GW and every other factor around it.

And something clicked in my head. This is where I had to be. I had to apply here and I had to go.

After endless conversations with "what-ifs" and "are you sures" with parents and teachers, it was decided. And I hit submit on the Common App hoping for the best.

The funny thing is, months later as more acceptances are rolling in, people at my school are now RAVING about GW; a good school to you and I, but not an Ivy or top 10 or any other school most kids have their eyes set on-or at least I thought they were set on from how they would brag about themselves.

Then again, not everything is as it seems- that's the difference between a doer and a talker. And in pursuit of being the latter, I chose GW.