<p>I'm an alum (25th Reunion this year!) and have always been struck by the amazing number of W&M students/alums who have a similar story about seeing W&M for the first time and knowing, just knowing even at 13 or 14 or 15, that it was the perfect school for them. </p>
<p>In my case, it was a family trip to Williamsburg when I was about 12. As part of our touring we visited the Wren Building and, standing on the back portico, looking out over the Sunken Garden, my father standing beside me said something like "Wouldn't this be a great place to go to school?" I didn't say anything, but I was thinking, "Oh, yeah!" </p>
<p>I have heard something similar from a remarkable number of other students and/or alums. Just wondering if any W&M folks on CC have had the same experience.</p>
<p>Well, our youngest daughter realized she wanted W & M as an 11-year-old 6th-grader, when we were moving her older sister in seven years ago. We haven't figured out whether it was that she fell in love with the place, or that she just figured "It's nice here" and never wanted to exert herself further. :)</p>
<p>The very first time our oldest d saw W & M was when we visited CW and Busch Gardens for a family vacation during the summer between her sophomore and junior years in high school. Williamsburg was sweltering (more than 100 degrees heat index after dark, which about killed us). One day I tried to coax the family to do a walk through campus, and no one was willing to do it. I said to the oldest d "But maybe you'd like to go to school here," and she said "No way if it's this hot!" She graduated in 2005. :D</p>
<p>We live close to Williamsburg...an hour away. Daughter, during a fifth grade field trip, said she was going to go to W&M and study journalism. Fast forward seven years, many other first choice schools, many other thoughts of a major and she's just finished up her first year, looking into something in the medical field.</p>
<p>D had gone to summer camps at W&M, and Virginia Tech too, during late elementary and early middle school.That was one of several reasons that they were the two instate publics she decided to apply to (UVA didn't make her cut). We made several trips west and south to other schools, but didn't visit WM and VT before she applied. When she was invited to the honors weekend at Tech in March of her senior year, she realized that she didn't remember ANYTHING about the campus (other than vague memories of the cafeteria). She did remember one thing about W&M--Crim Dell Bridge. She made a point of making an overnight with acurrent student, and decided W&M was for her (despite major financial incentives from Tech). In the fall she'll be living in a dorm near the Bridge.</p>