<p>Well, here's the question for those of you out there who are well into your college careers. Did you pick the right school out of the ones that accepted you? Are there places that you wish you had applied but didn't? If you did pick the "wrong" school, looking back why did you do it?</p>
<p>I'll get the ball rolling. I'm a senior. Out of high school I got acceptances at UVA, Georgetown, Chicago (partial merit scholarship), and Princeton. I picked Georgetown. Don't get me wrong, I've loved Georgetown, but looking back, I made the wrong choice. I should've gone to Chicago. Why? Well, the money would've been nice, my family's financial picture changed between when I started college and today, so that ended up having some nasty effects. That money from Chicago would've come in very handy. Also, I've headed off to grad school next fall (pending the right news in the next few days or weeks from those admissions committees), and I realize that Chicago would've been better been preparation for what I'm going to be study.</p>
<p>So, to analyze my Georgetown pick, why did I get it wrong? Well, part of the reason is that I wasn't aware of the way the money picture was change - there's really no way I could've done anything about that. Frankly, though, it had a lot to do with weather. The choice was always been Georgetown and Chicago for me (UVA was my safety and I just applied to Princeton to pacify my parents), and the weekend I visited Georgetown was magical. The cherry blossoms were blooming, people were smiling and happy everywhere. Things seemed glorious. The weekend I visited Chicago was terrible: there was snow on the ground, but it was raining, the guy I stayed with during the overnight was a jerk, and I had troubles with my flight, so I was in a miserable mood. Thus, on the basis of things that didn't really matter, I fell in love with and picked Georgetown.</p>
<p>Finally, if I were to do it all over again, I would've applied to MIT. It's my top choice for grad programs (in political science). As a high school student, though, I didn't even know that MIT did stuff other than engineering, so the thought never occurred to me.</p>
<p>Your stories?</p>