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Hi, I’m Shoshana. I graduated from Woodson High School, and I’m going to Tufts University. Something I would like to talk to you about is what to do after you get into colleges, because you guys will obviously get into a lot.
The first college I heard back from was Virginia Tech and I didn’t really want to go there all that bad, but I applied to some in case you never know what happens, and they actually asked me to apply for their honors college, and I mean I really didn’t want to go there at all, but I was like what if I don’t have any other options, so I decided to go ahead and spend a few extra minutes and apply to the honors college and I got in, and I started getting a little bit excited about Tech, like maybe I could go there, and then I was about ready to go down and visit there and then I heard back from William and Mary.
I got really excited about William and Mary because they have a program called the Monarch Scholars Program and I was in that so that was a surprise, and so I was like okay I think I’m going to go to William and Mary, so I decided I would go to their open house and overnight stay for the Monarch Scholars to see if I wanted that, but my heart was pretty much set on it.
I also got into UVA, so I guess I had to go to their open house too. I ended up not wanting to go there just because I wasn’t feeling the I guess general vibe that UVA has, but it’s a really awesome school, I don’t have anything against it, I just couldn’t see myself there because when it comes down to it, when you’re visiting a college, the importance of going to the admitted students weekend is to see if you can see yourself there. You already know everything there is to know about the college, it’s just you start meeting the students, you talk to them, if you stay overnight you get a feel for what the social life is like, so it’s just a matter of if can you see yourself there, and I didn’t see myself there.
I went to William and Mary and I didn’t love it as much as I thought I did, so then when I heard back from Tufts I decided I would go to that admitted students weekend too, and my parents were like “are you sure you even want to go, I mean I thought you really liked William and Mary,” but I guess I did, I just would try it out just to see, it would be a cool trip nonetheless going out to Boston.
So I figured it out, I did the whole trip by myself up to Boston because that’s what I would end up doing on my own, and that’s really important. I liked doing the admitted students weekends by myself without my parents because they’re not going to be with you when you’re trying to find your place at college, like that’s all you so I would recommend really trying to be independent at that point in your college decision.
So yeah, I did the Boston trip all on my own, and I was like eh, I think I’ll still stay in Virginia and then I went to a couple of mock seminars and I was talking to students a lot, and I slowly realized Tufts was the place for me. It was a lot smaller than the Virginia schools, I think it’s around 5,000 or 6,000, and it was in a completely different area than what I was used to so yeah it’s scary, but it’s also really exciting.
So just keep your eyes open, you really just need to visit as many, visit wherever you get in because you never know what type of feel you’ll get for it, and whether you can see yourself there or not. So yeah, good luck once all that starts happening for you.
