This is long so if you want to see the bottom line skip down to In short
In August last year as my final high school year loomed ahead of me I was caught between four schools that I knew I would love to attend for the next four years: Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service, UPenn, Columbia, and Brown. As I met with my guidance counselor however in September she had alerted me of two (supposed truths) that one I would not be able to get into Columbia based on prior applicants, and two the likelihood of being accepted to Penn with the number of legacy students would be near impossible. In addition, the previous spring she told me to apply to schools like Wisconsin and Indiana (which went completely against the medium size city schools I told her I was leaning towards after college visits) so she thought (in my opinion) she was humoring me by giving me advice on applying those schools. She told me to pin my ED bets on Brown instead which was something I weighed for a few days and decided it would be a good idea from a strategical standpoint. I attended a Brown open house in I believe October as I was working on my application where I was able to meet the representative from my region. I have never met a more cold, lifeless woman ever!!! But everyone else seemed to be happy and nice so I thought that perhaps she was having a bad day and brushed it off. But the day got me excited about Brown even more! As the application date rolled around I became even more nervous. I perused the Brown website more and more, checking my application status every day. So when the time came to open the letter my parents, brother and myself huddled around my mother’s computer as I clicked the many buttons to open the acceptance. Upon reading the first sentence I knew I was deferred. My mother on the other hand decided to draw out the entire experience by reading the entire letter (which is completely unwarranted considering the first line of every acceptance, deferral, and rejection tells you everything you need to know. ) It was not until later that I became sad and cried a little bit. But I had just also received an acceptance EA to University of Chicago which was so amazing that I threw myself into learning everything about the school as possible! I took a week off and then began working on my ten other applications including those to Georgetown, UPenn, and Columbia.
These last few weeks have been an emotional roller coaster ride. Friday March 25th I received an acceptance to Boston College which was amazing especially because I was not expecting the package that day. On Monday I held my breath all day for Georgetown with about twenty other applicants from my school. The day dragged on and on as I watched the clock to get home. When I was finally able to hold the teeny tiny envelope in my hand (as it is the same size for rejections, acceptances, and waitlists) I wondered what would happen. And in my mad fury ripping open the letter I completely bypassed the letter and jumped to a double sided page explaining housing and the like! I was accepted!
On Wednesday morning I woke up with a pain in my stomach. I was receiving six admissions decisions that day and I had just received a rejection from Stanford the night before (though I applied because my mother made me so it was not a big deal.) My parents both raced home from work to sit with me at 5 pm to open the decisions together. Though I had previously scoffed at the idea of opening them in a particular order my mom persuaded me to open the big three first followed by the rest. At 5 I sat down and since Harvard had yet to arrive via email I opened Yale. Rejection. Again it was not a school I had wanted to attend so I was more so peeved that I had spent so much time working on the application and paid (or rather my mom did) $70 for a rejection. My mom made some snippy remarks about how little I worked on their application (which is a complete misnomer) because I was done, I just was not in the mood for any more rejections. For about five minutes I left the room before sitting back down again. Harvard had yet to arrive in my inbox so I went next to Princeton. Due to the sheer number of applicants the website was jammed and I was placed in a queue. I tried to start looking at my other decisions on another computer but my parents convinced me to slow down and look at them one at a time. I finally was able to log on and to my complete surprise CONGRATULATIONS popped up. My parents jumped up and down as I stared blankly at the screen for a few minutes. I had never pinned my hopes on Princeton or Harvard, though I liked them, because I thought I would never get in! After five minutes of jumping up and down I went to open UPenn, a school I had loved during my visit. And I was accepted! I thought I was about to die. I wanted to open Columbia next but I had completely forgotten my password and they told me they would lock me out after three times of trying so I requested a password and waited (for about three hours, we went out to dinner came back to find I was rejected.) Then came Brown. And I was rejected. But do you know what?! I didn’t care. Five other amazing schools had accepted me and Brown didn’t which is truly their loss. So though I loved Georgetown, Boston College, and especially UChicago, I knew my final decision would come between Penn and Princeton (though my parents made their mind up as soon as I heard from Princeton.) So after some thinking I’m pretty certain I’ll be attending Princeton in the fall all though due to my indecisive nature I need to see Penn again to be sure.
In short: Brown deferred me, Princeton accepted me. I now see Princeton is a better fit for me as a person, though I could have been as happy at Brown. If it were not for Brown’s deferral I would never have had the opportunity to choose a school that fit me best. So though my mom is slightly furious at Brown, we all agree that in hindsight they did me a favor.