College Roulette

My college journey is coming to an end, and so far, things seem to be pointing to me a choice between three schools: University of Virginia, The College of William and Mary and Georgetown University. I didn't get into my top pick of The Wharton School at UPenn and I got rejected from Columbia University and I haven't heard from Harvard yet. All of these schools were my reach schools so I'm not devastated that I didn't get in.

But now that it seems the field has cleared up a bit, I need to get decision making. All the schools had their pros and cons and I want to make a firm decision and not end up playing college roulette or anything and make my decision based on chance rather than where I actually want to go.

Here are some pros and cons:

University of Virginia (Charlottesville, VA)

Pros:

-Arguably one of the best schools in the South

-Comparatively affordable (but at roughly $40K, it's hardly cheap.
-Not too far from home

-Lots of friends are going here

Cons:

-Not the nicest campus in the world (too big, spread out)

-Has a reputation of the people being preppy and stuck-up

-No financial aid

-It's in the middle of nowhere, nothing to do that's close by.

The College of William and Mary (Williamsburg, VA)

Pros:

-Beautiful campus, rural without feeling detatched

-Historic location and area and right next to Busch Gardens Europe!

-Relatively affordable (about $43K)
-Nice, warm, welcoming people

-Lots of friends are going here

Cons:

-More expensive (no word on financial aid offers yet)

-Farther from home

-The climate is a bit too warm and humid for my tastes

-It felt a bit....Southern

Georgetown University (Washington, D.C.)

Pros:

-Felt most comfortable, I could actually see myself going here

-Nicest people

-Best campus and location. Felt like a separate world despite being in D.C.

-Close to home

-It's in D.C. so there's so much to do!

Cons:

-Again, close to home

-Holy student loans Batman! ($52K!!)

-I only know of two other people who got in/might go here

-Students admit there is a homophobia problem but that it's also getting better
-No financial aid

Notice that I didn't include Harvard on the list; I doubt I will get in and it's also hella expensive. Really, Harvard is a lot like a BMW or Mercedes, you buy it for the name first and foremost and everything else plays a minor role. Anyways, the campus felt old and stuck up and the people were much the same, it was really overrated in my mind.

This is going to be one hard decision...

All the best,

JP

Georgetown Interview: Postgame Analysis

So I think the interview went pretty well. It took place at a Starbucks in the area so it was pretty casual. My interviewer asked stuff about my family, my course load, extracurriculars and the like and I didn't freeze up on any of the questions! I did notice she had a notepad where she wrote my name down but never actually took any notes in the end, lol. She was a really nice person and just recently graduated from Georgetown so it was nice talking to someone who was only so much older than I was. So overall it was a really comfortable and fun experience, hopefully this will bode well for me in the end :)

Just one more step towards college land

All the best,

JP

Georgetown Interview

Ahhhhhhh!!!!! Tomorrow is my Georgetown Univeristy admissions interview and I'm so nervous! All undergraduate applicants have to go through an interview with an alumnus of the University so I really hope I'll make a good first impression. I'm meeting my interviewer at a local Starbucks at 5 tomorrow and the interview itself should about 30 to 45 minutes. They're supposed ot be generally casual in atmosphere but like most people have, i'm dressing up a little (khakis, button down and the like) to make myself a little more professional and appear more dedicated and interested. One of my friends has already done her interview and gave me a few tips and said the interviewers are really nice and you should just be comfortable and yourself around them.

Recently, a lot of my friends have been getting their first college acceptance letters. I know one of my friends got accepted to UPenn, another person I know got into Cornell and one is getting recruited to Stanford for crew. It's so annoying realizing that I will have ot wait until April to hear back from any of my colleges >.<. I really hope I haven't overreached in the schools I'm applying to but I'm really nervous about this whole process and the stress it's adding to the already busy senior year.

Well, I'm going to try and get another one of my application essays done before I go to bed. I'm also trying to calm myself for tomorrow, hopefully I won't be too nervous and everything will go well.

je peux le faire.

-JP

It's Snowing!!

Thanksgiving came and past as usual and no real surpsises occured during the time. In the end both of the iffy-cousins were able to come in the end and we got to hear some funny stories about his time over in England (he's heading back in a few days). Overall it was fun, but also rather dull if that makes any sense. Today though was much more active, mostly because it was my friend's 18th birthday and her and two of my other friends had a day on the town.

The breakdown-

8:45AM - woke up
9:15 - breakfast
10:30 - leave for my friend's house so we can catch the metro over to DC
11:15 - after arriving late, we begin walking over, singing Lady Gaga songs all the way
11:30 waiting at the metro - still singing Lady Gaga, but also discussing the difference between snuggies and a backwards robe (snuggies won)
12:15PM - finally arrived at the Rosslyn metro station and then catching a connector bus to Georgetown
12:30 - Dead hungry, we have lunch at an Indian Restaurant (Chicken Vindaloo ftw!) we also got to see a little toddler who growled and roared at his food, laughter ensues.
12:50 - Holy Shit! It's Snowing!!!! (most random thing considering it usually does not snow until late December)
1:30 - My birthday friend gets her cartilage pierced! she wanted to get her nose pierced but decided against it for a variety of reasons
1:45 - Begin browsing the various shops in Georgetown - Lucky Brand, American Apparel etc.
1:50 - We ran into a guy we all haven't seen since middle school. He had moved to California but was here visiting a friend. After initial awkwardness, we chatted and had a few laughs.
2:00 - decide to get our palms read, but apart form the place being really sketchy, the psychic apparently was not in.
2:15 - We visit a place called "Lush" where you can buy hand made soap for about $7 a 1/4 lb. (wtf!?) I will never understand this.
2:40 - Ben and Jerry's run - I got a small Half-Baked frozen yogurt, great even though it was cold and windy out
3:00 - Make a mad dash to catch the connector bus back to the metro station.
3:30 - Arrive back at home, unfortunately, my friend had to go to work on her birthday (boo!)
-skip-
10:45 - Finished my UVA Supplement Essays :D

We all wished we could had stayed out longer but as I said, my birthday friend had to go to work.
I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. I finally got to talk to Ethan on his Pingbox. It seemed his thanksgiving was a good deal bigger than mine with many more relatives. He seems like a very genuine guy and I hope I will be talking to him again in the near future.

Also, congratulations to Jason who came out to his twin! That was quite a big step and he seems to be getting ready to take it to the final step soon and come out to his school. Wishing you the best of luck, mate!

My life has been relatively boring lately so sorry if posts have sorta followed suit. Hopefully things will pick up again once college apps are over and the holidays roll around.

Before I finish, I want your opinion on a question a friend sent me - "If you could completely eat yourself, would be end up twice as big or no longer exist?"

Ponder that for a little bit. (Bonus Points if you know where this came from)

All the best,

JP

Georgetown Visit and Visiting Californians

So today I went to Georgetown University for my first ever college visit, and I gotta say, it's quite nice. It probably has to do with the really nice campus or the fact that it's so close to where I live, but yeah, it was really nice. We got a tour from this girl who had just graduated this year so she was really nice and familiar with the place and answered all teh questions we had very nicely and clearly, but by the end she seemed so tired, I think everyone sorta felt bad for her. But yeah, one college visit down, many more to go >.>

Also, yesterday we had some visitors come in from California, it was one of my mom's friends who she had met in China when she was 17 and she had since moved to cali, lets just say my mom and her haven't seen her in quite a while, meaning I wasn't even born yet haha. So yeah, she had two kids, one 28 one 211 and it was pretty much me and my cousin and them two who hung out and talked through dinner and afterwards. We ended up going to IHOP in the end around 10 PM, haha. I got "bullied" into getting a neopolitan milkshake which the waiter did not know what that meant (choc,vanilla, and strawberry all together) which was a pleasant surprise. They live in LA and are staying until sunday. They are some pretty cool people I must say, very nice and fun to talk with. If you live in the Los Angeles area, a heads up, they plan to franchise a Golden Corral out west. In case you don't know what Golden Corral is, it's a restaurant/buffet which pretty much serves everything imaginable including a grilled station and bakery, it's a southern thing (sidenote: they lived in North Carolina for a while, hence Golden Corral). They also apparently plan to open some frozen yogurt shops here east because apparently it's popular out on the west coast. But yeah, it was nice to meet them and pretty fun, hopefully I'll be able to see them again some time.