Thursday, January 5, 2012

The School Situation

Ready for some more updates? Man, it's a big year for decision making, and we're really fortunate to have several options already:

Jordan's list:
*Elon (interviewed, accepted and offered a scholarship)
*USC (accepted-- the #1 program in the US!)
-UNC (invited for an interview)
UCSF (not accepted... their loss ;)

And we're still waiting on Azusa (Los Angeles), Northeastern (Boston), Boston University, Duke (Raleigh), and UW (Seattle)

Kelsey's list:
*UW (accepted)
*Boston University (accepted)
*Northeastern (accepted and Dean's Scholarship)
*UNC (accepted)
*USF (accepted and Dean's Scholarship)
*Indiana/Purdue (accepted and Dean's Scholarship)

And we're still waiting on USC (I was invited to apply for their most prestigious scholarship, so that's a good sign), UCLA (just applied last week, so it will probably be awhile), UC Berkeley (ruled out anyway because Jordan didn't get accepted to UCSF), and Boston College.

As we've been thinking and praying about our options, we've been feeling that we will probably end up in Los Angeles... which we have mixed feelings about. Kelsey spent some of her childhood there (0-4 in Glendale, 10-14 in Manhattan Beach) and Jordan served his LDS mission there, Spanish-speaking. There are some things we don't love about the city, BUT if we do end up in LA, there are a lot of pros: a) We both have some of our best academic opportunities at schools there, b) We love California, c) Kelsey can escape her nemesis/archenemy: snow, d) It's the location that is equi-distant to both our families, and allows us to travel by car to visit both!

So we're excited, and hopefully Kelsey will be accepted to USC and/or UCLA with a scholarship so that it becomes a real option for us. We're thinking we might rule out the North Carolina schools, just because it doesn't feel right (even though it is a very attractive option!). Jordan was surprised by this because he loved the area when he interviewed at Elon and has two opportunities there, but despite the lovely area, amazing academic opportunities, and affordable living provided by NC, we haven't felt like it's the right choice for us.

Since Indiana schools and Bay Area schools have been eliminated because we weren't both accepted, that narrows the choices to Boston, Seattle, and Los Angeles! We're excited about these options and look forward to seeing how things pan out. Jord will continue to hear back from schools into February, and Kelsey has applied for scholarships at BU, Boston College, Northeastern, UW, Seattle University, USC, and UCLA that we will still need to hear about before we make a decision. Odds are we won't have all our information before we are forced to make a decision because of deadlines and fee requirements, but we'll have to just wait and see!

Here's to all our new adventures in 2012 :). Happy New Year!