<p>That wasn’t a long post by my standards!</p>
<p>I think you’re experiencing something perfectly natural. You’re looking at opportunities that you declined and doors that you chose to close behind you and now you’re wondering what might have been…</p>
<p>Here’s another “might have been” for you: If you had chosen Amherst, you might be asking yourself about its prevailing ideological winds, its proximity to big cities, and the marketability of a liberal arts degree. You might be posting a message on that forum asking advice from that community if, perhaps, Oberlin would have been the better choice.</p>
<p>I’m not one for comparing colleges head-to-head as though one can every be universally better than another. And there’s no way for anyone here to know whether Oberlin or Amherst (or any other option you had) was the best fit for you back in April when you had decisions to make. We can’t say “Oberlin’s perfect for you!” or that “Oberlin is waaaay better than XYZ U!” because you’re unique and that means the best fit for you is going to be chiefly a function of who you are.</p>
<p>You’re only two posts into your College Confidential experience, but I’m confident that I know this much about you: you had some great options in April. The type of person who has those kinds of options doesn’t go about important decisions in a foolhardy way. I also know that Amherst is not an option for you now, more than three months after you sent them the postcard declining their offer of admission, so there’s really no need to sweat that decision. It’s not yours to make now. But you* did* choose Oberlin…first to select it among many colleges that you applied to and then, once the acceptance letters came in, you made a very deliberate choice to select it.</p>
<p>So, instead of focusing on the benefits and merits of the colleges you cannot be attending this fall, consider the benefits and merits of Oberlin that you honed in on last April that made you say, “this is the one that, above all others, stands out as the right choice for me.” You can do it as a personal introspection; you can do it with family and/or friends; or you can come back here and share those thoughts.</p>
<p>Your friends are getting excited about college and I hope you do, too. Even if it’s just being excited about college in general. Don’t let them project their choices onto you and convince you that when they made the right choice about Amherst and UPenn and other great colleges that you must have made a wrong choice in selecting Oberlin because your choice was different from their excellent choices.</p>
<p>Your choice was right for you in April. You were confident enough in your choice to decline those other options you had. I would place far more weight in that April decision, when it mattered to you, than I would give weight to the doubts that are haunting you now, at a time when, frankly, there’s nothing on the line and there’s nothing at stake and nothing, really, to be decided.</p>
<p>Your mind is completely free to wonder about various college scenarios and you’re more apt to question yourself and your choices because there’s no consequence to this late summer exercise that you’re engaged in. It’s a very natural thing for you to do. I think it’s kind of neat, actually, that you’re running through these scenarios. But there’s no reason that it should be painful or cause you to grieve or feel remorse. In fact, I believe that this is your way of anticipating the big day when you set foot on the Oberlin campus. It’s not the same way that your friends who are headed elsewhere are getting excited…but you’re different from them and that’s probably one of the factors that had you make a different choice from them.</p>
<p>Possibly in another few months, and almost certainly in four years’ time, I bet you’ll find that most of your dearest friends had chosen Oberlin for their college too!</p>