Decisions stress me out. Even decisions as small as choosing what to have for dinner or what assignment to start working on first can be incredibly nerve-wracking for me, and send me into a tailspin of indecision. So when it came to picking the school I would spend the next four years of my life at, I knew it was going to be a long, difficult process. What frustrated me the most, though, was how people would always say “oh, well, when it’s right, you’ll just know!” or “you’ll just be able to feel it.” That advice felt way too much like leaving it up to chance. So I did everything I could to not leave it up to chance. I scoured the College Board’s book of the Best 389 Colleges during my summer spent at home in COVID-19 lockdown. I went to every virtual tour and information session I could, and I had an incredibly complex spreadsheet that is honestly terrifying to look back at now—I do not pretend to understand the levels of color-coordination that I was using to try to bring order to the insane amount of information I was trying to come to terms with. And once I could go on campus tours, I spent the weekends traveling all over the Northeast, visiting all of the colleges I was considering.
After all of this work, after I had sent my applications in, I thought I had found my dream school. I had gotten the good vibes on the tour, they had the major I wanted, I could picture myself there—I thought I had figured it out. And then I got the news that they had waitlisted me. I won’t lie, I cried for an entire afternoon. It was a really hard lesson in accepting the unexpected, and it was deeply disappointing.
A week later, I was at Swatstruck. Swatstruck is Swarthmore’s accepted students day, where you can go and explore campus, go to classes, attend information sessions on specific majors and general information about the college, and spend time with other prospective students. It was only a week before I needed to decide where I wanted to go, and I was nervous. What if it wasn’t right for me? What if I didn’t feel at home?
The whole day started off incredibly well, simply because it was late April at Swarthmore, which may be, in my humble opinion, the most beautiful place on earth. There was quite literally not a cloud in the sky, the magnolias were blooming, and the grass looked so green I thought it might be fake. It was still during covid, so we weren’t allowed to go to classes, but I met professors, chatted with current students, and explored campus all day. In the afternoon they invited the prospective students down to Crum Creek to watch the Crum Regatta. While I was down there, watching the Dean of Admissions, Jim Bock ’90, in a pirate’s hat waving off the beginning of the race while students floundered in the creek, I struck up a conversation with some other prospective students. After the Crum Regatta we went back up to Parrish Beach, the huge lawn in front of Parrish Hall, where we sat and talked for two hours. When my dad came and found me to drive home, I had him take a photo of me in front of the Big Chair, because I knew I was going to be a Swattie.
I had gone to other accepted students’ days before, and I had enjoyed them. I had gone to classes, talked with current students, and gotten a sense of some incredible campus communities. But at Swat, I really felt it. The magical “it.” I can chalk it up to a lot of factors—the weather, the silliness of the Crum Regatta, actually connecting with the other incredible prospective students, the magic of a moment of calm in the middle of the madness of your senior spring—but I finally had the moment I had been waiting for since I started the college process. I knew that I had found the place where I belonged. I realized waiting around for “the feeling” wasn’t about leaving the process up to chance, but about opening yourself up to listening to your gut. And understanding that sometimes, you just know what’s right for you, beyond what the spreadsheets and the information sessions say. And when I was back on Parrish Beach four months later with my friends during orientation, I knew. I was right where I belonged.
