YAY college! and other news
so life has been pretty busy lately, and i kinda feel an urge to update. hmm....crew, things going pretty well. our sophomore novices keep getting better and better!! :D but that also means i'm gonna have to step it up a notch and somehow go under 7:45 for my next 2k. o yea, and ildiko tells me that the possible cincinatti trip is the same weekend as prom. they've got to be kidding me. i've already given up 3 college trips for crew, no way am i giving up prom. *cry* still, i guess i shouldn't judge yet - we still don't know for sure.
o yea, and the trip to WashU was pretty cool. the people in the program were really nice, even though the school itself is a little bit on the quiet side. it might just be that i'm used to UVA energy levels, so anything below that seems too quiet. anyways, their dorms are really really really nice (you can snag a suite with AC your freshman year!) and their food is good. and then on the way back to VA i found out that WashU jumped up to #11 in the U.S. News Rankings. WOah! when did that happen?! Sneaky..
the weekend itself was really cool though. we got to go to classes (which made TJ kids seem so enthusiastic: people there were putting me to sleep!) and then they put on a dance for us and took us to a chocolate bar with tons of chocolate desserts (chocolate kahlua martini!! oh man that was AMAZING. except i didn't realize until afterwards that it actually had alcohol in it...hehe i love being oblivious)...and then we took a trip into st. louis, which is a surprisingly small and sleepy city. i guess they're right about the midwest being laid-back; maybe a little too much for me, but still cool. i guess i mainly just liked my host. she apparantly went to the same HS in Puerto Rico as my cousin (woah!) and they were on a volleyball team together. so we hit it off. as for my roommates, they were pretty cool too. i just couldn't believe how rich some people at that school were. one of my roommates was talking about how she goes to Paris to pick up hand lotion and go thrift-shopping. not sure if that counts as thrift-shopping anymore, but whatever. i'm sure she didn't mean to sound stuck-up, but i was just a little surprised. do people actually do that?
and then there was ONE 20-minute interview to decide my fate. i think our hosts had been "observing" us (sounds a little creepy but i actually didn't realize it until the end of the weekend) so i guess the interview wasn't the only thing they were going by, but still, i wish it had been longer. i had so many ideas for the school but only got to talk about hispanic alliance, WCC, and "overcoming obstacles". so i thought it went really badly. but then one of my hosts made me feel a lot better when she said her friend (who interviewed me) thought i did really well. yay!
so today, after getting back and wondering when i'd find out if i was a rodriguez scholar or not, i got the letter in the mail. "we are pleased to offer you a place in the Rodriguez Scholars Program at WashU....etc etc....including full tuition plus a $2,500 stipend that may be used to cover the costs of room and board" are you serious????!!! i mean, there were people there who had organized huge marches and campaigns and everything...i honestly felt under-qualified. but i'm not complaining! dude - full tuition! holy guacamole, i never thought that would be me!! :DDDD
and the funny thing is, i found out about it 2 days ago, but they said i couldn't tell anyone until i got the letter. and i actually didn't! i was afraid they'd wire-tap my house or something and send out spies so if i told, they'd reject me. hehee i guess being paranoid isn't such a bad thing sometimes.
anyways, so it's been a good day. and i just found out that i've been accepted at Tufts too! which was actually one of my top schools (yea yea, i know it's where all the ivy-rejects go, but i sure like it). unfortunately, they aren't very generous with the dinero. oh well. it's so weird now knowing where i'll be next fall (or at least 90% sure i'll be at WashU). Now what? My whole life i've worked for something like this. and now that i have it, everything just feels weird. feels like it should have been harder? maybe? i don't know. and i guess now that my choice has been made, i feel bad about all the other schools i applied to. i'm sorry i can't go to all of them. i mean, i would have loved to be at duke with all the sports hype. and then at tufts for their international programs and Boston. and at Emory for the neuroscience and atlanta. but washU is a good compromise. well-rounded (except maybe the athletics, but that means i'll probably be really good there), great bio and med program, and something new (i've never really spent much time in the midwest). so here it goes!
on a completely unrelated note: WTF mate?!
o yea, and the trip to WashU was pretty cool. the people in the program were really nice, even though the school itself is a little bit on the quiet side. it might just be that i'm used to UVA energy levels, so anything below that seems too quiet. anyways, their dorms are really really really nice (you can snag a suite with AC your freshman year!) and their food is good. and then on the way back to VA i found out that WashU jumped up to #11 in the U.S. News Rankings. WOah! when did that happen?! Sneaky..
the weekend itself was really cool though. we got to go to classes (which made TJ kids seem so enthusiastic: people there were putting me to sleep!) and then they put on a dance for us and took us to a chocolate bar with tons of chocolate desserts (chocolate kahlua martini!! oh man that was AMAZING. except i didn't realize until afterwards that it actually had alcohol in it...hehe i love being oblivious)...and then we took a trip into st. louis, which is a surprisingly small and sleepy city. i guess they're right about the midwest being laid-back; maybe a little too much for me, but still cool. i guess i mainly just liked my host. she apparantly went to the same HS in Puerto Rico as my cousin (woah!) and they were on a volleyball team together. so we hit it off. as for my roommates, they were pretty cool too. i just couldn't believe how rich some people at that school were. one of my roommates was talking about how she goes to Paris to pick up hand lotion and go thrift-shopping. not sure if that counts as thrift-shopping anymore, but whatever. i'm sure she didn't mean to sound stuck-up, but i was just a little surprised. do people actually do that?
and then there was ONE 20-minute interview to decide my fate. i think our hosts had been "observing" us (sounds a little creepy but i actually didn't realize it until the end of the weekend) so i guess the interview wasn't the only thing they were going by, but still, i wish it had been longer. i had so many ideas for the school but only got to talk about hispanic alliance, WCC, and "overcoming obstacles". so i thought it went really badly. but then one of my hosts made me feel a lot better when she said her friend (who interviewed me) thought i did really well. yay!
so today, after getting back and wondering when i'd find out if i was a rodriguez scholar or not, i got the letter in the mail. "we are pleased to offer you a place in the Rodriguez Scholars Program at WashU....etc etc....including full tuition plus a $2,500 stipend that may be used to cover the costs of room and board" are you serious????!!! i mean, there were people there who had organized huge marches and campaigns and everything...i honestly felt under-qualified. but i'm not complaining! dude - full tuition! holy guacamole, i never thought that would be me!! :DDDD
and the funny thing is, i found out about it 2 days ago, but they said i couldn't tell anyone until i got the letter. and i actually didn't! i was afraid they'd wire-tap my house or something and send out spies so if i told, they'd reject me. hehee i guess being paranoid isn't such a bad thing sometimes.
anyways, so it's been a good day. and i just found out that i've been accepted at Tufts too! which was actually one of my top schools (yea yea, i know it's where all the ivy-rejects go, but i sure like it). unfortunately, they aren't very generous with the dinero. oh well. it's so weird now knowing where i'll be next fall (or at least 90% sure i'll be at WashU). Now what? My whole life i've worked for something like this. and now that i have it, everything just feels weird. feels like it should have been harder? maybe? i don't know. and i guess now that my choice has been made, i feel bad about all the other schools i applied to. i'm sorry i can't go to all of them. i mean, i would have loved to be at duke with all the sports hype. and then at tufts for their international programs and Boston. and at Emory for the neuroscience and atlanta. but washU is a good compromise. well-rounded (except maybe the athletics, but that means i'll probably be really good there), great bio and med program, and something new (i've never really spent much time in the midwest). so here it goes!
on a completely unrelated note: WTF mate?!