Acceptance

I have always thought that I would like to go through the college process again, but instead of blindly sending applications, being unappreciative of the gravity of the situation, and not feeling the stress of whether or not I would get admitted, I would like to go through it with the knowledge and experience that I have acquired since then. In my high-school senior naivete, I applied to a mixed bunch of schools without really knowing what I wanted in a school and why. I ended up somewhere that I didn't know much about and for reasons lost to me by the end of my senior spring, and although it worked out great and I loved Lehigh (for different reasons than I originally thought), I always wondered what the college process would have been like with greater depth to my worldly knowledge a greater enchantment in my goals. 

The good news is, I got my chance, and the process is largely complete. Armed with solid motivations for wanting to go to law school in the first place, I researched schools, made a list, visited them all, gathered all my information, went through the daunting process of reducing everything I bring to the table to a file of papers, made my connections, made my pitches, and started to hear back, and here I am, alive. Unlike the way I approached it in high school, the waiting was the worst part, which I guess is how it is supposed to be (although I still hated writing those personal statements). The idea that some people are sitting around, evaluating you, and trying to come up with an accurate picture of a person is terrifying. This is an idea that was somehow lost on me five years ago. 

And unlike five years ago, I am able to adequately evaluate my success in the process. Out of high school, I got in somewhere, and that was fine with me. Because I didn't know what I was looking for or looking at, I just went where I went. There was no "top choice". There was no excitement and pleasure in being accepted. Even though I have been reluctant to make a "vertical list" of schools, you better believe that I am taking pleasure in this feeling. With the pressure of not knowing went the pressure of the future, and being admitted into Vermont is a feeling that I have never really felt. Maybe it's that I have never really wanted something that badly, but you better believe that I'm chasing this feeling. 

Hearing from my top choice first is wonderful, because as I said to my mother, everything else is gravy. Technically, I am still being evaluated and assessed, but as far as I'm concerned, the process is over. I made it, and I'm really glad I did it, because it was a lot more enjoyable this time around. I know because I can't stop smiling.