<p>For the past months I have been searching for colleges that I liked and that fit me well. I finally was able to come up with a rough list of colleges I wanted to apply to.</p>
<p>I have been talking about college with friends and stuff, and one time in particular I told this acquaintance (not really friend) about my top choice school. I really want to go there and am relying on good merit aid in order to be able to. This acquaintance also told me their colleges and none of them were on my list.</p>
<p>Today, it turns out that my top choice school has made its way onto his list, and has even become a school he really wants to go to. For some reason when he said this it really hurt me. I'm not sure why, but I just feel like my college is no longer "sacred". Also, I feel like my chances of getting good merit aid are damaged and furthermore, I'd rather not go to the same college as him.</p>
<p>Thoughts?
Is my reaction correct?
Should I stop telling friends about my college choices?</p>
<p>I definitely understand where you’re coming from, I really loved this one school until this other guy started talking about how it’s where he’s going (as if he’s been accepted already). Then again, you have absolutely no idea whether he/you will be accepted, and even if you both end up going there’s probably a good chance you’ll never see each other. If you don’t want this to happen again, you may want to keep your choices to yourself, but be low key about it.</p>
<p>Regardless of where you go to college, there will be people there you don’t like.</p>
<p>I remember finding one of my college classmates rather annoying. There was just something about the tone of her comments in class that triggered annoyance in me.</p>
<p>A couple of days after I started law school, I heard that voice once again, and realized that we were once again classmates.</p>
<p>There’s not much point in castigating yourself for an emotional reaction. You are who you are, and you reacted as you did.</p>
<p>There’s an element of jealousy even in our closest friendships. I came across something one of my oldest and dearest friends wrote in one of my high school yearbooks, and was a little taken aback by the tone of her remarks, even a third of the century after the fact. </p>
<p>We’ve followed similar career paths, although her successes have outpaced mine; the vicarious pleasures I’ve taken in her achievements are real, but not completely devod or any admixture of jealousy, I’ll admit. </p>
<p>There’s no reason to deny to ourselves that we have jealous reactions, but there’s no reasonto cultivate them, either.</p>
<p>No, don’t stop telling your friends about your college choices, even though your choices may influence others in their choices.</p>
<p>Alex7592, when you told your acquaintence about your top school, I presume you were discussing it because you were either looking for validation of your choice or were looking for information from the acquaintence about other opportunities for yourself. This is normal because information from friends and acquaintences is more valuable than similar information from strangers because you can evaluate the source. If someone on this site tells you to go Harvey Mudd, you don’t know if the person is biased because he went there, because he has different opinions from you on virtually everything else, because he is the most insightful person in the world or because he is a ■■■■■. Your friends and acquaintenances are a guide as to fit. If the acquaintenance thought his top school was wonderful as you think your top school is, you would probably have looked into his top school and may have ended up applying there.</p>
<p>I think it is good to talk about college choices with friends and wouldn’t worry about the competition. It the top choice is meant to be, it will be there for you. If you get petty, you will not be the kind of person people want to be around and it doesn’t sound like that it would be the type of person you are.</p>
<p>Most of my friends want to stay close in the Midwest, and want to go far away, so I probably won’t have that problem. Though most of my friends and I want to go to Notre Dame, most, including myself, will probably get rejected so it won’t be a problem, haha. But it would be nice to bring a couple friends to college.</p>