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<p>I mean this in the nicest possible way, but you’re leaving us all scratching our heads!</p>
<p>If, after visiting Swarthmore, you loved it so much more than the other school, isn’t your decision already made? This isn’t rocket science.</p>
<p>There is no perfect school. They all have warts. Swarthmore has warts. I know darn well Chicago has warts. All you can do is feel in your gut which one is for you and then roll with the punches. If you are lucky enough to “love” one when you visit, so much the better.</p>
<p>We’re all sittin’ here trying to support you in your choice of Chicago because it has sounded like that’s what you prefered. Nobody wants to convince you, or anyone else, to choose Swarthmore if you don’t really like the place.</p>
<p>But, then you turn around and hit us, out of the blue, with the statement above and it’s like…why didn’t you just say that in the first place?</p>
<p>I think your heart must be telling you one thing, but, for whatever reason, your brain is telling you something else. I know which one I would tell my daughter to follow.</p>
<p>You aren’t the first person to love Swarthmore more than Chicago. I couldn’t even get my daugther to visit Chicago – that’s how much she didn’t love the idea of Chi-town winters (and it didn’t help that she thought Chicago’s essay questions were the most pretentious thing she’d seen from a college.). But, I believe that most of the other parents in this extended conversation have kids who did choose between Chicago and Swarthmore. Why? I don’t know. I imagine that they visited and just knew it was the right place.</p>