STUCK: Willamette or U Redlands?

conflicted4lifee
Wed, 07 May 2014 21:12:51 +0000

Hi all,
Thanks so much for the advice. Some people requested that I do a follow-up with what I decided on and how I came to my choice. After begging for advice on this thread, nagging current college students who go to both schools, and asking my friends about their thoughts, I decided it would be best to ask an adult. I first spoke to one of my teachers at school who I trust and call a dear friend. He believed both schools would be a good fit, but since he had gone to law school (Stanford, nonetheless) he advised that Willamette was a better choice for the path I have in mind, which is to pursue a career in corporate law. Something he also mentioned was that if you have the drive to be successful, you will be successful no matter where you go–it’s just a matter of how well you take on opportunities at hand. That really stuck with me. We then joked around and actually flipped coins, and I was supposed to “call out” whichever school I felt I wanted to go to, deep down. Of course, this strategy didn’t work, haha!
That same evening I called my college counselor who helped me fill out my college applications/supplemental essays/etc. I told him about my plan to transfer to USC or NYU sophomore to junior year, and his advice was to go to Redlands for the “conceivably” better GPA, since I will be more focused on my studies if I’m not competing for a spot in an internship. The more I spoke to him, the more I realized how biased I was being towards Redlands, but hadn’t realize it all along. Everyone who I spoke to about college recommended Willamette because it is a [slightly] better/more recognizable school, but the truth is (or so I think it is) I just wanted someone to talk me out of it and justify Redlands, which my college counselor did.
After speaking to my counselor, I started thinking a lot about picking a school (Of course, this was on April 29th, so I was obviously already thinking a lot about picking!) I browsed the admit pages for both schools on Facebook and the more I looked at Willamette’s, the less interested I was in the student body. Three students from my current high school are planning on attending Willamette. They are wonderful and interesting people, but I started to think to myself: I’ve gone to school with these three students for four years, some of which had been in classes with me before, and yet I’ve never been friends with any of them. I am a relatively outgoing and friendly person, so it struck me as odd. If the student body at WU is truly made up of students similar to these, then I figured I would be miserable. The Redlands page, however, was filled with people who had the same interests as me, who had similar personalities to me, and it’s kind of unexplainable, but I knew in that moment that Redlands was where I wanted to go. Another aspect that played a tiny role in picking a college was the weather in my area. A few Fridays ago, it was pouring rain, and I kept tricking myself into thinking that if I had to live under these conditions that I would be okay with it–especially with the fact that there was a drought this year, I forgot if I even liked rain. I realized I don’t, at all. The following week, it was super hot, around 85-90 degrees, and I absolutely loved it.
I thought that after “committing” to a college that I would maybe regret not going to the alternative school, but everyone told me that wouldn’t, and to my surprise, it didn’t at all. I do believe that WU is a wonderful, talent-filled school, but it is simply not for me, and I am pleased to say I am extremely happy and satisfied with my choice. I think it is also worth noting that I talked to three Redlands admits in the group who were also contemplating WU or Redlands, and the fact that we all picked the same school kind of tells me that I made the right choice, for some reason. Either way, nothing could persuade me to change my mind.

I do appreciate the help from everyone in this thread, and I hope that if a conflicted student is reading this thread, that my story helps you as well. Thank you so much! Can’t wait to be a Class of 2018 Bulldog!