What Am I Walking Into?

There's hundreds of books out there that promise to de-bunk the college admissions process - I would know, as I think half of them sat on my bookshelves at one point. I don't promise to do that. Instead, what I'm hoping is to offer up a view of what happens after you're admitted, you've sent in your deposit, and arrived on campus.

For some background knowledge: I'm Shannon, a curly-haired geek from Seattle. My parents have lived in the same house since before I was born; I moved about twelve feet partway through junior high into a different bedroom. I went to a reasonably-sized public school in the area, where I was an IB diploma student (about which I will speak at length if the subject is brought up), co-editor of the yearbook, and leader of a club or two. For my high school, I wasn't an overachiever, and my grades were nothing special. I willingly admit that I struggled with the stress that IB classes as well as my general schedule placed on me. However, I wound up getting accepted at a fantastic school that fell squarely into that "reach" category all those books talk about: Oberlin. 

Of course, the process of choosing a school to go to is complex, and there's a ton of resources out there to describe how to do that. As for myself, I received my acceptance letter to Oberlin and screamed out loud, frightening several of the parents waiting at the bus stop for their children. There wasn't a whole lot of questioning about where I wanted to go.

 I have to say I'm looking forward to living away from home, but that comes with the biggest footnote ever.  I've lived in a place where I got spectacular views of mountains just from driving down the freeway, and some of my biggest memories from childhood feature the Puget Sound. I love the Pacific Northwest with all my coffee-swilling, Dungeness-crab-catching, rain-soaked heart, and what I intend to do in this blog is discuss the adjustment that newly-minted college kids will have to go through when moving to a different part of the US for The College Experience.