Hey everyone. I know it’s too late to change my decision since I’ve already committed to a school and it’s past May 1st, but I guess I just wanted to see people’s opinions on my decision since it’s been bugging me a lot lately.
Basically, toward the end of the college admissions process, I narrowed my options down to 2 schools: the University of Southern California and the College of William & Mary… sort of. As soon as I was accepted to USC, I immediately decided that I would go there, since it was my ~dream school~ (second only to Stanford, but they rejected me lol) and they gave me a very generous financial aid package. I’ve lived in Virginia for the vast majority of my life, and I’ve always been super hooked on the idea of heading out west to California, but the thought of accumulating ~$20k in debt even with a generous financial aid package (+ travel costs since I live on the other side of the country) started to bother me, so I gave W&M a chance, since it was my second choice out of the schools that accepted me and they gave me a need-based grant that covers 100% of the total cost of attendance. My EFC is 0, in case you hadn’t figured that out lol… I’ve been low-income my entire life, and the thought of not having to worry about money for once really appealed to me, so I went to W&M’s Day for Admitted Students, decided that I liked W&M even more than I thought I would, and committed.
I know that being stuck between your dream school and a full ride is a pretty good position to be in, but it still just kinda sucks, y’know? Going to California has always been the plan for me, and while all of the benefits of W&M are super clear to me now - smaller class sizes and more of a LAC feel without being small enough to actually qualify as a LAC, closer to literally everybody I care about, Greek life I can actually afford - sometimes I really miss the idea of living in LA and going to a huge school with super good sports teams that makes everybody say “wow” when I tell them where I’m going. Is W&M even that well-known outside of Virginia?
Sometimes I even regret not submitting a LOCI for UPenn despite accepting a place on their waitlist, since at that point I was just super done with the whole process. I’m just a big ball of regret right now, basically! I really needed to get all of this off my chest. What do you guys think? Did I make the right decision?