I'm Going To College

If anyone wants me between now and Thanksgiving, I'll be at college.  Actually, I will be at colleges.

This morning Tara took her SATs.  I spent the entire testing session looking at, no, meticulously examining information on a select group of colleges in three states.

I started by taking notes about the colleges on a list of art appropriate schools in and around our area.  I jotted down student populations, availability of housing, percentages of commuters versus residents, and where information was available, I noted the percentage of residents who still reside on campus during the weekend.  I tallied in-state versus out-of-state student populations, noted exorbitant university pricetags, tracked particularly wonderful study abroad opportunities, and hunted for schools with the highest amounts of scholarship money available to give to me.  I verified the existence of photography concentrations at each school's website, and differentiated bachelor of arts degrees from bachelor of fine arts degrees, noting, of course which schools clearly delineated the four year course requirements.  I virtually toured all fourteen campuses and included a listing of approximate driving times.  Still worried that I may have missed something, I cross-references each entry with it's corresponding page number in Barron's Profiles of American Colleges. I then condensed my research onto one standard spiral notebook page and presented it to Tara upon completion of her test.

Then the two of us sat at the computer and I watched her view all fourteen websites.  We eliminated three schools and scheduled campus tours for each semi-finalist.  By Thanksgiving I will have used a normal year's worth of gasoline, learned to navigate the entire eastern half of Pennsylvania, and be qualified to conduct campus tours anywhere in the world.