Now you guys are making me nervous. I have to apply in the fall, but I’ve got pretty good grades, so I should be ok, right?
And if any Montrealers read this, I’m staying here, so Concordia and McGill are the only places I’m applying to. I’m too much of a wimp to move out of my city. Grad school, though… I’m gonna aim high.
As a junior in high school I can’t bring myself to care about going. I want classes where I am not able to correct the teacher or answering the questions she can’t. One where I can’t so effortlessly make A’s that I don’t even care enough to try. I just don’t think that I will get them. None of the companies that I look at now as wanting to work for even list a college degree as a requirement.
I applied to Northwestern and the University of Missouri. I was accepted at both, but after a campus visit, I realized that I would implode after three weeks at Northwestern. I went to Mizzou instead, which is actaually probably a better school for a journalism major anyway.
I don’t remember being too freaked out about getting into college; it was a given that I was going to be accepted somewhere, so it didn’t bother me much. I do remember all the junk mail, though. I saved a piece from each school and made a collage out of the logos to display at my graduation party. It was pretty cool looking, and it made me seem super-smart since I apparently had all those schools begging me to apply. 
Like Chas. E., I went to my hometown U. Same school, but in the early 60s. The deciding factor in my case was money. Tuition was less than $125/semester and I could live at home and keep my job. Mrs.G. (then Miss Spirited Filly) was in much the same boat. I can’t say that I was disappointed with the undergraduate education I received. In my field, my teachers were people who were the recognized leaders in their field. The point is that because of a personal finances crunch, the public university was my only option. I don’t think I have suffered because my choices were so restricted.
In hindsight, however, I wish I had not been so focused on college. If I had enlisted right out of school my life may well have been much different. If nothing else the three years of growing up and the GI Bill would have helped.
I applied to three colleges, as I remember: Mary Washington, Goucher, and William and Mary. I didn’t really want to go to any college because I was SO sick of being in school by then, but them was the rules in our family: you went to college. So off I went. I chose the one closest to home because I was afraid of getting homesick. My father pretty much did everything except take the SATs for me… filled out the applications, chose my courses, et cetera (I really didn’t want to go!); so I really don’t recall much about the whole application/acceptance process. It was always my very private opinion that if you have the money, any college will take you.
P.S.: Years later, I’m really glad I bit the bullet and went. Even though I was ten minutes from home, I lived on campus and gained a lot of much-needed independence that way.
I’d rather spend as little of my hard-working folks’ money as possible, therefore:
I applied to: 1 university
I was accepted by: 1 university
I am currently enrolled in: 1 university
I thought about applying to, say, Stanford and they probably would have taken me, but like I originally said…
Besides, I’ll probably end up like my dad, dropping out with a term to go just because the weather was too damn nice to justify going to class…
I only applied to two different colleges. They were the only two I wanted to go to and got accepted to both. Now picking which one I wanted to go to was the hard part (not really…).