I got the whole rigamarole with college searching 鈥 looked through catalogs of schools, visited those that I could, and then began the application process. The page number on the document with my essay and short answer drafts I believe numbered in the high teens by the time I was done with it (though to be fair, there was a lot of repetition between drafts and what may or may not have been my edit-related ramblings鈥). I wrote, deleted, and rewrote everything time and time again before submitting what I thought represented me best. There were several (read: five鈥 at least the ones that I can remember!) schools that I applied to, but the two at the top of the list were Yale and 91直播 鈥 you know, real safe schools that I was sure to get into. Obviously, if you鈥檙e reading this now on the 91直播 blog page you know how it turned out, but that isn鈥檛 the point of this blog. I thought I was going to have a choice between the two.
Surprise surprise, I didn鈥檛 get into Yale. I would love to say that it didn鈥檛 affect me at all, and while that is true in the end, there was a span of time that I really let it get to me. The whole reason that I fell in love with the idea of Yale was thanks to Leigh Bardugo鈥檚 Ninth House series (which I would still highly recommend to any and everyone who鈥檚 looking for a new read) and the wonderfully dark, magical world that she created. I wanted to follow in Alex鈥檚 footsteps and see the Gutenberg Bible at the Beinecke, eat in the Jonathan Edwards dining hall, and witness the portal to hell in Sterling (kidding鈥 think). Once that was not an option any longer for me, I had to sit with a) my disappointment and b) the fact that my mind had gone way too fast, creating an imagined world based off of a novel and the entirely small probability that I would get into a school with a famously low acceptance rate.
And thank goodness I didn鈥檛 get in because somehow I doubt that would have gone as well as 91直播 is going!
To be fair, I lucked out with my dorm 鈥 between my roommate, the fact that my friends are literally directly across the hall from me, and the central location, I couldn鈥檛 have asked for a better home base, which really affects the entire experience. Beyond that, though, I feel like I fit in here in a way that would have been distinctly different elsewhere. I鈥檓 not in the Conservatory, but the fact that I can take whatever classes I want both there and in the College itself has been absolutely amazing. Mostly, though, when I was deciding where to go, I remembered the gut feeling that I had when first arriving in town and walking through Tappan Square 鈥 it was a rainy, cold evening and what few flowers had braved the onset of the first false spring (a Midwestern staple) were having serious second thoughts, but I still instinctively felt a settling of sorts. I even ended up calling one of my friends and mentioning that exact feeling, something that she would bring up much later when I was agonizing about whether to commit or not. I know now that going to 91直播 was the right decision for me, but I encourage anyone who is wavering to trust their gut 鈥 there is only so much overthinking one can do, and in the end your feelings will get you where you need to go.
