All About My College Journey

Two years ago today, I went on my first college tour. I toured a total of four universities even though I applied to six different universities and colleges. The six I strongly considered were Indiana Wesleyan University, University of Chicago, Stetson University, Rollins College, University of Central Florida and Florida Southern College. Of those, the only two I did not officially tour were UCF and FSC and the only one I did not apply to was the University of Chicago. UCF because it is so local and FSC because the tour was set for a date after I had already decided.

The process was not easy. Although I only applied to six because of having being involved in four clubs with leadership positions in three and a 4.0, I would say I probably received flyers from roughly 200 schools. Even though I only had a top six for applying, there were a few others that I did consider at some point in time such as the University of Florida, Princeton, Stanford, University of Denver and University of Minnesota just to name a few. There is nothing wrong with those schools they just did not make it into my top six.

Now I will say that before I toured any of them Rollins was my top choice; however, after touring it quickly fell to fifth place. If I ranked them how I thought before applying it was Rollins then University of Chicago then Indiana Wesleyan University then Florida Southern College then University of Central Florida. Pretty funny how the one that was at the bottom of my top 6 (still beating 194 other schools), turned out to be my best choice and the one I attended, right?

However, before I say what my final ranking (even though some guesses probably can be made) was I am going to go over my tour and application experiences. Oh, I should mention, even though it will be fairly evident but on tours I had a thing to wear the school’s colors whether it was red, green or blue.

October 1st, 2015

My dad and I left the warm city of Orlando, Florida to head to a much more fall-like city in Marion, Indiana. Marion, Indiana is home to Indiana Wesleyan University. However, we flew from Orlando to Detroit to Indianapolis before driving to Marion. Let’s just say there were lots and lots of corn, soy and wheat fields. It was quite the different sight for this suburban girl.

I did enjoy the trip though. It was very peaceful and very different from the suburbs of Florida. When we got to the school, we parked and then headed into the admissions office. First, we had to go through the Maxwell Center for Business and Leadership to get to the admissions office. Now, in the admissions office was one of the coolest displays. On a screen was a rotating slideshow that listed the names of students coming in for college tours that day along with where they were from. All the others that day were either from Indiana or Illinois and then there was me from Florida.

After waiting a bit, one of the Admissions counselors came out and stared talking to my dad. I probably should mention at this point that Indiana Wesleyan University is my dad’s Alma mater. He has obtained his master’s degree from here in 2012 and he is currently enrolled in the doctoral program. However, I’ve always know that my dad is smart, but when he was talking with the faculty member I learned just how smart he is. I digress.

Once the conversation ended. My tour guide had arrived. We did a personal tour versus a group one. It was just the three of us walking around campus. Mia which was my tour guide was absolutely amazing. We learned that Indiana Wesleyan University is called IWU (pronounced eye-woo!) by the students. It was funny at first, but to this day my dad will go around the house saying “IWUUUUUUUUUUUU.”

On the tour, we visited several academic buildings along with the Barnes Student center, the Chapel Auditorium, the Recreation and Wellness center, and the dorms. The Barnes Student center is similar to the John T. Washington Center a.k.a. “The Breezeway” if any of my fellow Knights are reading this. The student center is home to a coffee place known as McConn Coffee Co, a Chick-Fil-A express, the Baldwin Dining Hall, Wildcat Express Food Court, Globe Theater and the Wildcat Pride sign(pictured above). The Wildcat sign is a photo opportunity spot as standing on the “X” one makes the “I” in wildcat. If you’re like me and grew up on High School Musical, you took a picture and captions “wildcats in the house, everybody say it now.”

Following the tour, we went back to the Maxwell Center and waited to talk to one of the admissions counselors. We talked about major possibilities and at that time I was considering English as a major. I love to write and still do, so at the time it seemed like a great choice for a major. However, I still wasn’t fully set on a major. After that, we were done and left to go get dinner before heading to the hotel.

In Marion, Indiana there is not a lot due to how small it is and essentially being in the middle in nowhere. Although, they did have a Walmart, Starbucks (I much prefer Dunkin’ Donuts though #TeamDD), and a Fazoli’s (#bless). We used to have a Fazoli’s by us, but it was then replaced by a Del Taco which didn’t do well and now it is a Dunkin’ Donuts. As you can imagine, we went there for dinner.

At dinner, my dad and I talked about the tour at IWU. I was definitely impressed, but as it being the first college visits, I had no expectations or standards set. However, after the tour I now knew what to expect even though the next three college visits were all group tours. Or at least I now had a point of comparison even it was a small school versus larger ones.

After dinner we headed to the hotel and began preparing for the next day.

October 2nd, 2015

The next morning, my dad and I got up and began the journey from Marion, Indiana to Chicago, Illinois. On this day, we would be touring the University of Chicago. However, first we would had to drive on the highway for 132 miles straight passing nothing but corn, soybean and wheat fields, and a solo gas station with a McDonald's attached to it, but the closer we got towards the end of the 132 miles there was more around as we were getting closer to the city.

After a couple hours and a switch in time zones we finally arrived in the city. We checked into our hotel briefly before heading to campus. At the University of Chicago, we headed to the admissions office and check in. there was a meeting before they split us into two groups for the tour. I honestly do not remember my tour guide’s name but my dad and I referred to her as Pixie later on because one she had a pixie haircut (where we chose the nickname from) and she was so energized. You could tell she was in her comfort zone, and she was an amazing tour guide. She knew her material and some fun facts about the campus.

We learned that the first Heisman’s Trophy was awarded here (it’s a football thing and that’s about as much as I know). We also learned that each year there is a campus wide scavenger hunt each school year during the first week of the fall semester and some of the items to find are crazy to say the least. Here are a few examples: one year “Lions, Tigers and Bears Oh My” was listed and a group of students rented out a lion, tiger and bear from a local zoo and brought them on campus and then one year was to recreate an energy source I believe and well the two students did just that and created nuclear power let’s just say Federal officials came and confiscated the device.

Besides the traditions, the school is very technological and academically driven. It is oh so beautiful because of the age of the campus. The tour was very well laid out. I will say something didn’t feel right for me. I didn’t quite feel fully comfortable there. It was probably a mix of feeling overwhelmed because even though this was the school that came the hardest after me, there was a fear of not being academically good enough there as the University of Chicago is the 4th ranked University in the nation.

Although my dad has said it would have been a good fit for me academically, but after the tour the University of Chicago was out of the running. The school an absolutely amazing school, but I did not feel comfortable. The lack of comfort probably was a mixture of the distance from home along with feeling like everyone else was smarter than me. While Chicago is a beautiful city and I love the cooler weather, let’s just say parts of it like where the college is located are not the safest. That was another factor in my decision of ruling this school out.

October 25th, 2015

Rollins College was the first in-state school that we officially toured. This was probably the school I went in with such high hopes and that along with a poor tour experience probably attributed to the drop from number one to slot five.

I was a part of one of the general tours and not a program specific one. Because of this we got to see more than the specific ones did. There were a few things that were bad about the tour. The first was I heard the fact “only 33% of students are involved with Greek life” about six times on a two-hour tour. I’m personally not interested in Panhellenic Greek life at all and hearing this multiple times on the tour really annoyed me. Like once is informational, twice is to reiterate, but anything past that is quite annoying personally. As I said, it’s more of a personal preference and some of my friends are in Greek life, it’s their cup of tea but not mine.

Once the tour was over, there were a couple of seminars to attend. The first was with two coaches and two sports players in the smaller theater. It was kind of boring to me personally just because I’m not a big sports person, but it probably was the most informational session.

After session one, we had another session. This session was with admissions counselors and Student Government. Keep in mind there were two sessions that all the tours went to at different times to cover the material. At this session, the panel talked first and then the potential students and their family could ask questions. Everything seemed to be going well until one parent asked a question. The parent asked a question regarding the four-year graduation rate. This is where it goes downhill. One of the counselors replied something along the lines of “well we are required by state to give our six year graduation rate, but I don’t know the answer and funny enough I was asked the same question in the last session.”

My dad and I just gave each other a look. After that, that session was over and while there was still a couple more left to go to we were both done. We took a selfie and then left. It was another school that would be good academically, and it was local which was a benefit, but the social environment would not be a good one for me.

It was disappointing to say the least. For the longest time, I had seen Rollins as the school for me and my top choice, but it didn’t quite reach the bar and expectations I had. However, I am willing to recognize there is the chance I just had a negative tour experience and that ultimately impacted my decision not to attend Rollins College. It is a good life lesson though. I learned that sometimes what you want isn’t what you need and what you need isn’t always what you want.

November 15th, 2015

Stetson University is another private and somewhat local school. It is probably forty-five minutes to an hour away, but it was a long enough drive that being a commuter student would be a waste of gas. This was a school I had been on the campus of the previous year to go to the Art Museum for an exhibit with my parents and I had a full meltdown. The meltdown probably occurred because I was only a junior at the time and I was not at all ready for the thought of going to college. Trust me it takes time to adjust to such a big change. It probably took me at least until a month into the Fall 2016 semester to be adjusted.

I digress. I will say I had fairly low expectations just because of the previous years’ experience on campus even though it wasn’t an official tour. I probably had low expectations or I learned to not have any expectations going into it as I did not want another experience like my last college tour.

When we first got there, Stetson had multiple tables to check in. we received the information booklet along with name tags with my name, town and admissions counselor’s name. I also received a few complements of people loving my “Stetson green” sweater. It made me laugh, but as I mentioned earlier this was a little tradition of mine.

After that we went inside the auditorium, where admission counselors were greeting people before the opening session began. It was already a much more positive experience. The order events was an opening session with the vice president and president of Stetson along with performances by the school’s choir then a tour followed by two small seminars (there were multiple to choose from) and then the closing session. Everyone I was interacting with that day was so positive and helpful. I was loving it.

At the end of the day, I left Stetson smiling and thinking this school was a contender. At the time it was probably tied with IWU, but there still was some uncertainty about this whole college decision making process. It was something I was going to need time to think about.

Evaluating My Options

By the time we were done touring these four schools, I had already received a few acceptances letters, but I will say that I was still weighing my options. After the four tours, my ranking of the schools were as followed SU then IWU then UCF then FSC then RC then U of C. I will say I was still very unsure. I fell in love with a few schools, but nothing was fully clicking. However, two of them I didn’t even tour and I still had to factor them into the equation. I took some time to evaluate each school.

Ultimately the deciding factors became cost and location. I wanted to be close to home as family is a priority for me. I also wanted somewhere where I felt comfortable in environment and academics. Tuition rises each year, so I do not have the prices of when I applied to the schools, but the prices to attend each school varied. I do remember Rollins being the most expensive which was quite weird that I could have gone to out of state schools for less and UCF was the cheapest as I was in state and would be a commuter student.

The first few that were crossed off were University of Chicago, as I did not apply there, and second was Rollins after having a bad tour experience. That left me with four schools to pick from. Those four were Stetson University, Florida Southern College, Indiana Wesleyan University and the University of Central Florida. FSC was probably the one that became fourth place as it did really seem to be in competition with my top three.

I now had a top three even though I think part of me it really was a top two decision. I will say if I had gotten this one Stetson scholarship that two people from each school apply to, I probably would have attended as it was a full ride. However, I didn’t cry when I didn’t get it I was just like okay and I still have other choices. It was now down to my top two.

Would I be a wildcat or would I be a knight? I spent a long debating the two. My decision was ultimately solidified on May 9th, 2016. Why that date? Well it was the date I sent an email in response to my admissions counselor at Indiana Wesleyan University stating that I would not be attending the university.

Without using my counselor’s name, this is what I wrote:

I apologize for taking so long to reply. I would first like to say Indiana Wesleyan University is an amazing school from the people, list of academics and activities, and the campus itself. However, the decision for choosing which college is right for me was difficult I do have to say I have chosen another university for my undergraduate studies. I will say IWU was a close second, but for me personally the two factors that it came down to were distance from home and cost, as I plan to have as little debt from college graduation as I possibly can.

Although at this time, I have chosen to go another university I will keep Indiana Wesleyan University in mind for graduate studies. I would like to say thank you for helping me along the way along with other faculty and students who I met when I visited this past October. IWU is an amazing and welcoming school, but at this time in my life it is not the best fit for me personally.

Thank you,

Samantha Richardson

Everything I said in that email was true. I wanted to stay close to home and expenses were well expenses. It was the debate of private versus public and out-of-state versus in-state and living in a dorm versus commuting to campus.

I made the decision that was best fit for me then and what is still one of the best decisions for me. Choosing a college is extremely important and a lot of factors have to be considered. This was a reflection on my college journey and if you’re a senior in high school going through this right now, well I first want to wish you the best of luck and I hope it helps to see insight from someone who went through this two years ago. However, if you’re not I hope this still helps to see that we’ve all gone through this and maybe that we had a similar experience or applied to the same colleges.

I loved the decision I made and I hope you all out there love the decision you make and fit the best fit for you, and only you.