Somewhere between my sophomore and junior of high school, where I was going to go to college became an immensely significant question. As I loaded my schedule down with AP courses and extra-curricular activities—all things I’d been doing thus far in high school, but which intensified by junior year—I agonized over my future. In fact, I probably spent just as much time researching colleges and universities as I did cramming for history tests, if not more (let’s be real: definitely more). I was suddenly taking the surveys and workshops encouraged by the college counseling office seriously…or, at least, trying to do them properly. It didn’t help that everyone and their aunt would ask me where I was going or what I was going to study when the truth was I currently hated everything about schooling and academia.
Of course, I’d had an idea of where I wanted to go to college for practically eons. That is to say, I had theories and a back pocket of familiar names I knew from friends, family, television shows, and novels. From a young age, my dad fostered a fierce loyalty to his alma mater among all of us kids. This wasn’t done in any forceful way; rather, my dad’s love for and dedication to his undergraduate university seemed so authentic that it spilled over into my brothers and myself with little resistance. I wanted to wear those legendary colors, learn that iconic fight song, and walk those picturesque grounds long before I studied Shakespeare. In high school, my hopes of attending this place were tempered by acceptance rate statistics and the similar interests of countless classmates, but I nevertheless held onto this old fantasy.
Like any lively teenager with an independent streak as comprehensive as mine, however, I briefly shifted my collegiate dreams, displacing dad’s alma mater from the #1 spot. I became obsessed with an even-more-competitive university and worried myself (and my college counselor) jumpy trying to get in. I was deferred in December of my senior year, an event I now take as a massive blessing, because by the time they got around to actually rejecting me, my desire to attend that school had completely withered. Dad’s university was back up to top priority; I spent my days praying I hadn’t screwed my chances by not ranking it as high earlier on in the process.
In the meantime, there was one university whose blip on my radar kept growing bigger and bigger. Frankly, prior to late junior year, I’d never even heard of the place. Their emails were persistent, though, and loads of my friends were talking about it, and it was a convenient way to slow my college counselor’s heartrate—she was starting to fear I’d shot too high on all of my applications—so I applied. Arrogantly, I was not at all surprised when I did get accepted to this university. Not only that but in February of my senior year, I acquiesced to a scholarship application. One night, I opened up a quite official-looking embossed folder to find myself staring down at a scholarship offer that still doesn’t feel real some days.
The kicker? A month or so later, I got into Dad’s alma mater. In fact, I was one of few in my high school class. I now had to decide between the dream I’d been nurturing since birth and the wild card about which I still wasn’t sure how I felt. It seemed like the biggest thing in the world back then, choosing between the two. The trouble was this: even though (I was insanely lucky) my dream university made me a generous financial offer, it still couldn’t compete with the other scholarship. I knew that, in four years, I could walk off the graduation stage with an impressive name on my diploma and an equally impressive amount of debt—or I could enter the post-grad world unburdened by either weight.
No, I did not go to my “first choice” college. Instead, that August I packed up my books and my doubts, and my Dad and I traveled down to my now-soon-to-be alma mater. The past four years have flown by with more speed and beauty than I could ever have imagined. Sure, there has been pain, and heartache, and difficulty, and thoughts of “what if?” on any number of counts throughout my time here. But there has likewise been joy and grace and adventure and friendship that make it all worth it a thousand times over. The opportunities I’ve leapt into here—and abroad (shout-out to my fellow study abroad addicts)—and the stories I’ve gained as a result carry so much more weight than the perceptions I had as a high school senior.
Best of all, I got to discover this university along the way. I am far from believing that college will be the best four (to six...ish?) years of your life, but there is something precious about the time you have as an undergrad student. Trying to rush into what you see as your dream is admirable, but take caution: sometimes your dream isn’t exactly what you thought it would be. Now, had I chosen to go to my “first choice” college, I am sure I would be saying many of the same laudatory things about my time there. What I’ve learned from my experiences is not so much that I had the dream wrong, but, rather, that my dreams evolve as my circumstances do.
My alma mater will never be the college I dreamed of as a little kid—but it will be the place I speak of with such love to my own children that, perhaps, they will one day dream of going here themselves. Whether or not they ever end up here, I hope when the time comes they will know this: what matters is not whether you go to your first- or second- or fifth-choice college—but how you choose to spend your time there.
