Back to my Scottish Roots, most certainly!

I feel excited and impatient and nervous and eager... I feel happier than I ever expected, just so honestly content and delighted and surprised to have been accepted by St Andrews. So now the big decision - to withdraw my other applications? I have applied to Reed, Macalester, Swarthmore and Middlebury, and at the moment I don't want to be at a single one so long as St Andrews is another option. They're excellent schools, and half of me wants to let the applications finish just to see if I could get in. After all, I wrote a kind of goofy essay for the Common App, and my ego wants to know if the wittiness made for a good and acceptable application.

However, Marisa's words were harsh: "Is your pride," she asked me, "worth another person's place?"

I hope not! It seems so harmless to leave my applications open, and yet if everyone were to do that it would skew the odds awfully. Everyone does do that already -that is, apply to eleventeen schools "just in case"- and that is the reason that the application process has become such a competition now, for which people are clamoring for a solution.

I know that I'm going to St Andrews. I have no good reason to wait for my other applications, except -as Marisa said- for my pride, and that is utterly unnecessary. So I think I will take a bold step, and withdraw my applications over the next few weeks (I'll take my time because my mother seems quite adverse to the idea of me doing that). There's something refreshing about knowing where I want to go, feeling so certain and excited about this choice.

Labels: college, St Andrews

posted by Holly @ 6:40 PM