New York

downtown ithaca, ny

 Over February vacation, my mom, sister, and I packed ourselves into my car to embark on a three-day trip to upstate New York. I have been sporadically looking at various colleges in the area, but the bulk of schools I want to go to are in New York, both in the city and upstate. My mom had asked me to make a ‘short list’ of schools I was seriously considering, but even after re-researching every college I had any kind of interest in, my list still had dozens of schools on it. We decided that it would be a good idea to go to the schools to see where they were and what they looked like before scheduling formal visits and interviews.

williams college, ma

Before going upstate, we drove to western Massachusetts to look at schools in the Amherst area. I didn’t particularly like any of them, but my mom did. (Going to school somewhere in-state would mean she could drive to visit me every weekend—one of the main reasons I want to go to NY.) My dad also likes the appeal of colleges in Western Mass., especially Smith and Mt. Holyoke—both are women’s colleges. The New York leg of our little excursion felt incredibly long. The GPS in my car was faulty, often taking us down narrow dirt roads instead of highways, and we seemed to be lost for the entire trip.

vassar college, poughkeepsie, ny

 Thinking back, all of the schools blur together—I think we went to nearly every college in New York, and I’m glad I took plenty of pictures at each school.

I think location is incredibly important when choosing a college; you spend four (maybe even more) years of your life there, and it should be somewhere that you want to be. New York City is one of my favorite places, and even though most of the schools I looked at were outside of the city, I would be closer than I am now. I can’t even explain what the attraction of the city is—I guess that after living in a small town for most of my life, I want to go somewhere that is always awake, always alive, brimming with people and excitement. Of course, a lot of that is probably just my blindness to the fact that New York isn’t as magical as I have convinced myself it is. Still, it’s something different, something new.

bath houses in saratoga springs, ny

The three of us often go on short road trips, overnights, and day trips, usually to New York City for shopping, more for a change of scenery than anything. It’s a lot easier to travel without my dad, especially when we go to NYC, because he grew up there and there’s nothing new and exciting for him to do when we go. Also, his vacant seat in the car is sometimes allowed to be offered to a friend.

where we went

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