I sat on my bed with my laptop in front of me opened to my email box filled with colleges promoting their schools, trying to get me to apply. “It’s already August,” I thought. “I just have to figure out what schools to apply to.”

I had to research all the universities in Texas over the summer, learning all the different majors, campuses, and prices. Obviously I had heard about A&M or UNT, but I hardly even knew what I wanted in a university. I didn’t have any college counselor to help me with things, so I just decided to apply to two or three schools that I could safely get into. That made sense. 

“If you apply to UNT you automatically get accepted as a Texas high schooler,” one of the school counselors said during a class-given presentation about the topic. 

“Baylor would be a good fit,” my father said to me, unaware of my pre-stated hesitation to live in Waco for four years.

“You could always try Wichita State University,” my mother mentioned, ignoring the eye rolls from my father. “I went there so you’d get in for legacy.”

That catches my attention.

My mom said no out of state, even after I told her Harvard was my dream school, but this was a chance to go out of state – albeit Kansas, but still. 

I went upstairs to my room and opened by computer, pulling up the Wichita State University website.

Never mind if I could actually get into the school, tuition was the major problem for out of state, so I wasn’t too hopeful when I started looking at the prices for the school (including the shiny, new dorms recently built). 

To my surprise, I learned that Texas and Kansas have a deal with out of state schools. If I’m a resident of Tarrant County (which, luckily, I am), I get in-state tuition for WSU.

This was a huge surprise to me. If I took advantage of this, going to school and living on campus would be cheaper than some of the schools here in Texas that I planned to apply to. 

With this newfound information, I readily researched majors and dorms and hastily filled out an online application to the school. Low and behold a few weeks later I got a package in the mail stuffed full of yellow and black stickers and paper, informing me that I was accepted to the university. 

I was ecstatic, if not surprised that I got a letter so soon after applying; like my mother said before, it was pretty surefire that I’d get accepted, but I was still excited for the first college acceptance letter I received.

This excitement was to the chagrin of my father who would rather see me at his alumnus than my mom’s, which was hilarious at the time (and still is if I decide to attend WSU). 

At this point of the year, I’ve already applied and been accepted to a few colleges -and am still waiting for some. Wichita State seems a good option for what I want in a school but we’ll see what the future holds.