Making a decision on where to go college is a huge step and one of the biggest decisions I know I will ever make. I started early looking for colleges, most people do not start until mid senior year. I started around the middle of my junior year looking at colleges, what I wanted to do, and what type of environment I wanted to be in. 

I started off by talking to my guidance counselor, Mrs.Lillard, which was a huge help. We talked about what it means to have a good GPA, how you should request transcripts, and when to start applying for scholarships. Most scholarship opportunities did not appear until January, to gain access to these scholarships students should visit the career center and grab some forms, or visit the guidance website.

When senior year rolled around I was super excited! The first semester flew by, and now we only have two months until graduation, May 21st. 

At the beginning of this year I knew it was time to go get on the roll with filling out applications. I started with the Common App website after I had talked with our college advisor, Mr. Justus. The Common App, for those who do not know what it is, the Common App is an undergraduate college admission application that students may use to apply to more than 800 colleges and universities in 49 states and Washington D.C., and in other countries. 

One of the first steps is add colleges you would like to apply for. I had added a few colleges including George Mason University, Old Dominion University, The University of Virginia’s College at Wise, University of Lynchburg, and West Virginia University. Once I had added my colleges I went through and looked for the specific things that the colleges wanted to know. They all had their own smaller applications, and once I was done filling those out I checked to see if I needed essays before submitting.

When submitting the application will tell you if you need recommendations or not, if so you would add the name of the person you would want the recommendation from and their email, but do not forget to give your teachers a heads up so they have time to write one.

Other things that these schools will need are your high school transcripts and testing scores, like the SAT and the ACT. Not only will the schools through the Common App need all of these documents and this information, but all of the colleges you apply to will. I also filled out college applications just through the schools. I Applied to Longwood University, Radford University, Averett University, and Mary Baldwin University.

Once getting some decisions back from schools I needed to start narrowing down my decision. I looked at more information on the schools. Things like graduation and acceptance rate, total cost of tuition, class sizes, and what was around the area of the school. There were two schools that caught my attention, Radford University and Longwood University.

Longwood University is a public liberal arts D1 school in Farmville, Virginia. It was founded in 1893 and it became a university in 2002, which means it offers undergraduate and graduate programs. It is the third oldest public university in Virginia.

I visited Longwood on a Lancer day, Lancer days are for admitted students only. It was a very cool experience, we got to sit in on classes that we would like to major in, we took a tour of the campus, and got to sit in on question answer sessions. The campus at Longwood is so beautiful, I really liked it. I was almost set on Longwood, but I had one more visit to take to Radford University.

Radford is a D1 school in Radford, Virginia. Radford is about a three and a half hour to four hour drive away. Which was one thing about it that I loved, it was not too far away but it also was not super close to home. This was one thing I was looking for in a college because I wanted to be able to grow and learn as my own person.

My mom, dad, and I took the four hour drive to visit Radford early on a Saturday morning. Once we finally   arrived on Saturday morning I was kind of nervous. We parked on the other side of campus, so we got to walk a lot and look around before the tour. Once we got into the admissions building it was only me, my parents, the other student there to take the tour, his parents, and the guy giving the presentation on why we should attend Radford. Me being the person I am had already done all of this research so I did not have very many questions. 

When the presentation was over we got to meet our tour guides, who were absolutely amazing. One of the tour guides actually was majoring in what I want to major in, which is criminal justice. This was super cool and made the tour more exciting because I learned more about how things would work. We walked, talked about our majors, talked about the campus, went and looked at the dorms, looked in a couple of halls, and our parents asked questions as we went along. 

The campus was so beautiful, I really loved all of it. After the tour was over my parents and I decided to drive around and look at the surrounding area,  it was very pretty, and it had a small town type of vibe. There was a Walmart about 5 minutes away from campus, which would be very convenient. 

Ultimately I had made my decision. I chose Radford University. Now the next step was making the housing and enrollment deposit, which is about four hundred dollars to secure your spot for the Fall 2020 semester.

Some things to keep in mind when making your decision make sure you are going to be happy in the setting. Make sure it is going to be somewhere you are going to be happy, always do research, and make sure to visit.