<p>Pfff- Dartmouth blows Penn out of the water. If I got into both, I would have no trouble whatsoever choosing Dartmouth over Penn.</p>
<p>Is that what you would do, too, blu?</p>
<p>oh god, Dartmouth is so much better than Penn in my eyes in every single way, with one exception: the distance factor.</p>
<p>That's the ONLY conceivable reason I would choose Penn over Dartmouth - 2 hrs vs. 6 hrs. but i'm pretty sure that it'd be Dartmouth rather than Penn. i want bang for my parents' buck(s)! A GOOD SOLID UNDERGRADUATE EDUCATION. at the most perfect place on earth with passionate people just like me. </p>
<p>which is funny, b/c following my deferral i sent Penn a letter saying it was my first choice lol, and after i sent it, that changed lol</p>
<p>lol well for me, there's really no question. D>P</p>
<p>And the distance? Well, that's so minor for me. Either way, I'm flying all the way to the east coast. D is just a tad bit more inaccesible than P.</p>
<p>(completely off topic- blu: did you get a likely?)</p>
<p>haha i wish! but i wasn't by any means expecting one - if i were valedictorian and had a 1570, i'd prob. be more concerned lol</p>
<p>oh another D and P thing. originally i fell in love with Yale - i thought it was the perfect size for a school, and loved the residential college system. Penn is like twice the size, and in a city - so it's a lot more impersonal. even though D doesn't have the residential colleges, it's in a much more contained environment (and yeah i know, most Yalies don't dare brave the scary streets of New Haven lol) so they're not necessarily necessary. D is just better than Penn at like everything that I consider important, except distance...what can I say, i like my family lol</p>
<p>blu- as someone who lives an hour from her school, i just want to offer that you get so swept up in campus life that you barely see your family at all, no matter what the distance.</p>
<p>however, i am the oldest of five kids, so that may have something to do with why i never go home...</p>
<p>i know...i'm afraid that's what will happen. but the closer i am to home, the more often my family can visit ME. trust me, i have a full intention of enjoying my college experience to the fullest extent... but i have a little brother who will be 3 in may and i don't want him to grow up without me, you know? i want to be part of his life. i'm very close to my sister, my parents, my cousins and my aunts as well. My sister and oldest cousin are currently in 8th grade, and they were horrified when I told them Dartmouth was my first choice. "At least at Penn, we could take the train to see you!" my cousin exclaimed. "If you go to Dartmouth, we won't be able to drive there until we're juniors!" my sister added. Basically, the distance thing is even more for them than it is for me lol</p>
<p>blu-- i have a lil sis who is 3, and I also don't want her to miss me...but it'll be hard for my big family to come visit...and I'm not sure how often I'll visit them.</p>
<p>that's why i did apply to some close to home schools, but in the end, i probably won't stay in NY.</p>
<p>my littlest sister was almost six when i left for boarding school. and yes, sometimes i do wish i had been there when she was that young. (and yes, for the first 24 hours that i'm home she will not leave my side. cute, to a point)
however, for the sister thats closest to me in age, my going away has made us a lot closer. we used to fight a TON, and while we still do, i have more conversations with her now (over im, phone, or email) than i did while i was home. it's hard, having been away for this long, to say whether we're closer because i'm away or because we're just older, but i'm definitely closer to her now than i was when i left home freshman year.</p>
<p>(you could always just get them to move to, say, norwich vt, just across the river...)</p>
<p>uh no!! you know what my mom said when I was still in love with Georgetown? She was like...hey, we might as well move to DC too! There are apartments right outside the school we could all live in! </p>
<p>i near died.</p>
<p>haha that would defy the whole point of college.</p>
<p>yeah, that's just plain creepy.</p>
<p>my sister and I used to fight all the time too, but now we're really close. the other morning we were putting our makeup on in front of the mirror like on every school day, and all of a sudden she goes, "Renee, you can't go to college next year! I'll have to put my makeup on all alone." I was like "No, I can't go to college next year because you won't be able to borrow my clothes anymore."</p>
<p>She looked horrified and was like "That's not funny."</p>
<p>We got closer as we got older and more mature, even though we live in the same house lol. Plus when my bro was born when i was a freshman, our fighting stopped even more than it already had</p>
<p>My parents have probably the best position imaginable -- let me do the work and the research, and support me no matter where I want to go.</p>
<p>Regarding Dartmouth, they recognize it's a great school and believe that I would probably do well there, but I think that's how they're looking at everything. My dad has said since the beginning of the college process that he thinks I will wind up in Hanover.</p>
<p>A lot of other people have been less than supportive. I was talking college last summer with a guy I worked for (mowing lawns), and he asked me where I would apply. I said I wanted to go to Yale, and if not, then Harvard and Dartmouth and the others...and he encouragingly told me, "Unless your parents went there, you have no chance." He was a bit oblivious, but that's the attitude I get from a surprising number of people.</p>
<p>Congrats again on your likely letter.</p>
<p>
[quote]
"Unless your parents went there, you have no chance."
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Please come to Dimensions, bring him back a souvenir. Everytime you mow his lawn for the rest of the summer, wear your school t-shirt, write on the back</p>
<p>...And my parent's didn't even go there!!</p>
<p>ok i lived at Penn this summer. It was really fun, but you are in a bad part of the city. Now, me and the other guys didn't really notice it so we'd do stupid things like walk around at like 2 in the morning off campus. I really don't see why people complain about New Haven, but idk. I thought the area around Harvard was the worst.</p>
<p>Just a shot in the dark: you meet a kid there named Ritchie?</p>
<p>i'm from socal, and my parents don't want me to leave at all. They just want me to stay here and go to one of the UC's. Which is something that i don't want at all. I would rather go back east and try new everything for atleast four years. It was really bad when I was making my list for applications, cause i had like 7 east coast schoolspicked out to apply to, and then my parents limited me to 5 east coast and i had to apply to two UC's. (not that i don't have anything about the UC system, i would just rather get out of california.) </p>
<p>Since i sent everything in, my parents are finally starting to warm up to the idea of me leaving the state, but they still aren't very happy about it. As far as friends go, a large group of my class is applying back east, there are about 15 of us all applying to schools in similar areas, so we have formed liek a little support group, and one of my friends who got into Harvard EA and i are planning on taking a road trip back there over the summer when we move.</p>
<p>haha i know what you're saying about the support group. for me it was just one kid - then I found CC lol.</p>
<p>i'm sorry you were limited - which schools did you have to give up? just our of personal curiosity lol</p>
<p>i had to give up on Harvard (which was going to be a stretch) and then Penn (easier, but still hard) i did apply to MIT, Dartmouth, Brown, Williams, Middlebury, UC berekly and UCSD.</p>
<p>having firends that were going back east made it so much easier, just talking aobut i t, and getting feed back on where to apply and such.</p>
<p>bu-UMP!</p>
<p>+characters</p>