Now that I have all of my decisions in, I thought that I would let everyone know that I was rejected by Columbia and Yale but that I got into Princeton and Stanford! However, I’m sticking with UNC. I just got back from visiting Stanford, Princeton (for the 2nd time), and UNC (for the 3rd time) and it 100% confirmed my decision. Although I do still like Stanford a bit more than UNC, I don’t like it enough to justify my parents spending $300k. If it had been an extra $15k or maybe even $20k, I probably would have gone for it, but not $75k. @publisher when I said that cost was not an issue, I meant that it was not a limiting factor - if I hadn’t gotten those incredible scholarship offers, my parents would have been able to quite comfortably foot the Stanford or UVA bill. But alas we don’t have an endless supply of money and cost is still a factor. I’m just thankful to my parents that it wasn’t the main factor and if I had decided that UNC truly wasn’t a good fit, I would have had other options.
@publisher the name put me off too at first, but really, apart from having to take one religious studies class (which is a discipline I plan on taking classes in anyway), it pretty much operates as a secular institution. I was reading an online TCU article where one student said that the C in TCU should be changed to Community to better represent the university.
I think that @calmom articulated why UNC turned out to actually be the best fit for me better than I ever could. She hit the nail right on the head.
I was re-reading some of my old posts and I was struck by how even then I was changing my mind about what I wanted in a college. I thought that I wanted somewhere fairly urban but after reading anecdotes from posters about the pros of rural/small town colleges and how it wasn’t as big of a deal as I thought, I changed my mind about what I wanted and fell in love with Middlebury, Grinnell, Mount Holyoke, and Hamilton. Initially, I was put off by the idea of a school where the large majority of students were STEM majors but thanks to @LoveTheBard I opened my eyes to the advantages of a school where humanities majors are a real minority. I originally thought that small LACs were great fits but I later changed my mind and decided that, after reading many posts on CC and visiting campuses, for me, most LACs were just too small in both course offerings and diversity of student opinions but I’m certain that for other students that is not the case.
I think, for me, changing my mind about what I wanted so drastically came when I stopped looking at colleges as Rural LAC X or Big Sports University Y but as Grinnell and UVA. Suddenly it wasn’t just a perceived notion in my mind of what students and student life would be like based on one broad and subjective description but an actual individual school with its own unique atmosphere and traditions and campus and people. They became schools that I fell in love with and not just a set of preferences waiting to be ticked. And from the point of view of someone else, I can totally see how my saying that both Grinnell and UVA were fits seems contradictory. After all, they’re rural vs college town, small vs large, midwest private vs VA public, no Greek life vs large Greek scene, ‘down to earth’ student body vs ‘preppy’ student body. The only common thread between the two is that I think that I could be happy at both and that I could make a home for myself at both. I know that UNC doesn’t match up at all with my original stated preferences; it appears that I didn’t know myself as well as I thought I did. Turns out that what I think I want and where I think I will be happy and at home on paper compared to in real life are two very different things. The best thing about UNC is that it gives me the opportunity to make friends with people who are excited by ideas like I am and to take classes in areas I’m yet to realise I’m interested in. And it also gives me the opportunity to try and to pursue things I’m not at the moment interested in. Like @calmom said, maybe I won’t end up majoring in philosophy but change to classics or anthropology and then change it again. Maybe I’ll change my mind about Greek life, fall in love with the idea of sisterhood and philanthropy and join a sorority. I have a good feeling that I’ll change my mind about D1 sports and that I’ll be on the bleachers of every Carolina game that I can (as soon as I learn how American football and basketball work); I still cannot get over the absolute sense of pride and community I feel everytime I see someone wearing Carolina blue or the UNC logo. In fact, saying that I got a full ride to UNC is misleading - it doesn’t account for the cost of having to replace my entire wardrobe with UNC gear 