One Family's Road Trip

By Meredith Fineman

Everyone told me I would know when I found the college of my dreams. "It's like a bolt of lightning," a friend assured me. "You can just tell." Still, as my dad and I began a season of college visits several years ago, I felt more panic than anticipation. I had no idea what I wanted—or who would want me.

The college-admissions process is another form of school. It sucks, but it's educational. I figured that the more places I visited, the better grasp I'd have not only of the colleges but of my own desires. We traveled the Northeast, from the most rural spots ("Can a town really have only one stoplight?") to the most urban ("Hey, wait. Where is the campus?"). I sampled frozen yogurt, dorms and classes from cognitive neuroscience (forget it) to British lit (more my speed). No lightning, but wonderful places. I applied to most of them. I was rejected by one, wait-listed by two and admitted to the rest.

At that moment, the process stopped being about college, and started being about me. I was forced to realize that I was a city girl. I had grown up on busy streets, in Washington, D.C., and felt at home on them. I had spent 14 years at a school with a senior class of 114. Others might want the intimacy and classroom attention of a small college in a quiet place; I wanted size, bustle, big-league brassiness and maybe even a little anonymity—not to mention good shopping. With joy and relief, I chose the University of Pennsylvania, which had all that, plus a great communications school, Annenberg.

But lightning? Not really, because now I felt uneasy all over again. Would I make it at Penn? Would I be able to keep up with my classes? And there was this thing about "throwing toast" from the stands at football games. What was that?

Now, two years later, I've made friends, I love my classes and, yes, I have thrown toast at one of the few games I'll ever attend. I've also learned a lot about my own character. I've learned that I can accept failure, and I can enjoy my success. I was not some hopelessly indecisive person (as I once thought), but just a teenager, inching out into the world, afraid of rejection. My friend was wrong. It's not about lightning (unless you're Ben Franklin). It's about deciding who you are, and being happy with what you find.

Meredith Fineman is entering her junior year at the University of Pennsylvania.

© 2007