I check the school’s website daily to track my admission progress and days go by where it stays the same. My anxiety levels by now are through the roof as I await my admission (or decline) from Illinois State University. Yep, you read that right: Illinois State University. To come to this decision wasn’t easy, but it also was easing to the mind that I was making the right choice.

Last weekend, I went on a huge college campus visit to the University of Iowa upon my admission to the school. As some of you may know, the University of Iowa is kind of a big deal to my family. I was looking forward to tour the school, but the other deciding factors for me going there were weighing down on me hard. Iowa is the school I feel like I was always meant to go and set goals to end up there. But upon receiving my admission I didn’t quite feel the same, almost scared. I know that going away to school for the first time since I held off for two years is scary, but it wasn’t just that. For weeks post my admission at Iowa all I kept talking about was my application for Illinois State and getting in, not the fact that I had just gotten into a tough school. But I kept pushing myself to set aside Illinois State since Iowa was my “dream school”. I wanted to believe the only reason why I liked Illinois State was because my boyfriend was going there and I was at a home court advantage feeling comfortable there rather than at the University of Iowa. So giving the benefit of the doubt, I signed up for the campus tour and headed for the great big University with my mom and step-dad.

Stepping foot onto that campus, I couldn’t quite put a finger on it, whether it was just the gloomy day or the feeling of ISU is the school for me ringing in the back of my head, I just wasn’t excited for the tour as I had intended to be. I went along for the day trying to keep an open mind. But the more talk about establishing residency came ringing into my ears and thought of having to be a part time student and or spend a lot of money for two years, the less my idea of Iowa seemed great. Finally, towards the end-of-the-tour, I realized where I wanted to be most. If I wasn’t feeling Iowa now in this moment, will I ever? Probably not. I confessed to my mom and later my dad that I was strongly considering Illinois State. I loved the campus, I was close to home and it’s cheap compared to $39,000 a year. I liked the idea that I would know people before stepping foot onto the campus and that I was already comfortable going there.

Part of the reason why I had stayed home two years ago wasn’t just because of my grades, but because I just wasn’t ready to leave home. Now flash forward two years, I am ready to leave home but at the same time wanting to feel comfortable doing it. I like the idea that no one in my family has either been to the campus or gone to school at ISU. It’s time to make my own mark in the world and this is where I plan on starting it.