What was your second-choice school?

Great replies.

My school's administrators always called it "The Princeton of the South." Whatever. That must be why half the student body is now from New Jersey.

Using that logic, Brockport should all itself 'The Clemson of the North (without big-time athletics)." The ultimate party school, safety school for Empire Staters.

 

I was kind of torn between Seton Hall and Temple. Temple was 90 miles away and Seton Hall was four blocks away.

I saw Temple has better facilities for communications and I kind of wanted to go there, but I would have had to take loans and Seton Hall was better financially considering that I was the oldest of nine children. It probably was a mistake, although looking 35 years backwards, I had no idea about college and what you had to do to succeed, 80 percent of which is showing up and paying attention. Temple would have been a better choice, but I wasn't ready emotionally. I also had no idea about what it meant to be at a really good college, and probably should have tried to apply to better colleges. I think that, unless you really are certain where you want to go, if you get into every college where you apply you probably didn't challenge yourself.

 

I was a fuck up, and not even an endearing fuck up who did cool stuff instead of getting good grades. I failed at life both academically and socially until my senior year, when at least I got my grades up. Second choice school was Virginia Tech, but couldn't get in thanks to my shitty first three years. Applied to state schools only, since I knew I'd be footing the bill.

 

Like Bud Bundy, I went to city college. A few months into the semester I got a job as a stringer at a large L.A. paper and worked my butt off so much that it became a full-time stringing gig, at least enough money to pay for rent and such. Stopped going to school. At 18, I was working in a really cool, large newspaper sports department.

I was learning hands-on, and that's always been the best type of education for me.

If I had done the traditional thing, I'd have applied to USC and if that didn't work out, Long Beach State would've been No. 2.

 

I was accepted at all four schools to which I applied: Indiana Bloomington, Mizzou, Webster (private school in Missouri) and Sacramento State in California.

After much help from the board, and a lot of weighing of pros and cons, I decided on the latter. In two Midwest visits since then, I can say I would have shot myself in the head by now if I had to live and go to school in that part of the country. I love the choice I made. There's no place like California.

 

Travelling across the country to the University of Arizona wound up being my second choice school and I got accepted there. I wanted to go there but my parents (who were alumni) talked me out of it (one using the "you'll probably have some of the same teachers I had and you don't want to be compared to me" argument; the other using the "it's a huge school all the way across the country, why not go to the in-state D-III school 90 minutes away for a year and if you still want to go across the country you can transfer" agrument).

Wound up staying at the D-III, spending two great years on the school weekly paper before landing my first real job in journalism the summer before my junior year. I'm still at that paper coming up on 17 years now.

 

Because of the approach that my grandfather had had to it, my father felt for the longest time that if you could afford it, you went to private school no matter what, and he ended up having more than a little influence on my initially approach to the college selection process. In the beginnning, my top three were 1.Cornell 2.Northwestern 3.Dartmouth, I applied to the UC's only as a default. I got into all three of my top choices, and although I really liked them all, none of them really gave me that warm-fuzzy feeling when I visited them. Then, late in my senior year, I got a letter from UCLA inviting me down for scholars weeked (this big show they put on for the top applicants). All I can say is that it was love at first sight, and the rest is history (not to mention that I could bare the thought of sticking my parents with the bill for private school, especially since I'm the oldest of three). And if I could do it all over again, I would still make the same choice.

 

If I didn't go to KU, I would have gone to Kansas State and roomed with my best friend. But then, I never set high college goals -- in Kansas, if you graduate, the in-state colleges must accept you, which is why they created flunk-out freshman courses to see who was serious about it. I never really thought about leaving the state.

 

Intangibles, indeed, were not missing from my college. And, our colleague says to you, piffle.

 

My second choice was Missouri, up there on the list because of the j-school's reputation. But I decided to go elsewhere because I liked the other school much better overall -- liked the setting better, had a better reputation in programs other than journalism if I changed my mind about a career path.

Third choice was Rutgers, really just because it's almost a default top-three choice for New Jerseyans.

I have to say that I'm glad I didn't go to Mizzou. For some reason (true or not) I think I would have probably felt some sense of entitlement and not worked as hard if I thought I had the Missouri reputation to fall back on.

 

UCLA football sucks!

Better than Dartmouth, though.

 

Flippin' Marquette.

Made the trek up during my senior year of high school, stayed with a student in a horrible dorm room, took in a couple of classes, actually loved the campus in beautiful Milwaukee.

And just as I was set to sign the papers, they pulled about half my financial aid. Something about FAFSA trouble.

With that, the choice to soak in the bright lights of Northern Arizona was made.