Bryn Mawr’s class of 2017 has been chosen. After countless tours and an abyss of application sorting, I’m excited to welcome newly accepted students to campus as a Tour Guide and Admissions Representative. Although this won’t be the class to replace mine (dark blue!), I was originally accepted with the current seniors, the red class. As I’ve mentioned previously in this blog, it’s all strangely bittersweet.

I remember sitting on the couch in my living room, a high school senior, nervously waiting for my laptop’s digital clock to strike the hour. After hurriedly entering codes and numbers to find out my application decision, a video playback of current student said, “Congratulations, Ivy!” I got in. Now what?

Bryn Mawr was, ironically, the only college I didn’t visit before applying. At the time I was living in Maine and had mostly applied to schools in New England and New York. Bryn Mawr was the farthest, but since it was so similar to many of the schools I was applying to, I took the bait of the free online application and went for it. Naturally, it was the school I fell deepest in love with.

I visited during my spring break in April. It was the first school my mom and I hit on the “accepted college” tour. The cherry blossoms were beginning to come out and the climate was just far enough south to seem completely different than anything I had encountered in Maine or Chicago (viva la temperate weather!). I remember my mom whispering to me on the tour, “This is so wonderful, Ivy.” She was right. It felt like a place for me. A place I could call my own.

I stayed overnight in Pembroke East’s common room with several other prospective students, including one of my future friends and fellow Hall Advisor. I remember the students were so effortlessly brilliant– clearly very intelligent, but equally as approachable. They all seemed to strike that perfect balance, much like Bryn Mawr itself with its lush campus and accessibility to a major city.

I completed that spring break visiting the rest of my colleges, but Bryn Mawr remained a forerunner as visions of cherry blossoms and Katharine Hepburn danced in my head (so to speak). I waited until the last possible week to make my formal decision. Was this it? A friend and fellow accepted student offered all the reassurance I needed: “Ivy, this is your school. Come to Bryn Mawr.” And I did.

Original photos from my first visit to Bryn Mawr