What college did you attend?

I went to a few community colleges for my first two years. Then I went to the University of Oregon.

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute It’s a well-known school for science & technology, had a lot of “my kind” of people (ie, geeks), and offered me a substantial scholarship.

SUNY Albany. Within 50 miles, and I qualify for in-State tuition fees. Relatively inexpensive.

@johnpowell I am at a community college right now to save money. Glad to hear it!

Stanford University

I currently attend it (I’m a freshman). I chose it over UCLA (also over USC and Berkeley) mainly because my parents went there (mostly), it’s an excellent place and environment, they were the #1 school for linguistics, I had a few close friends going there (compared to no close friends going to UCLA), it’s ranked higher than the others, and the number one reason: I got into freakin’ Stanford! :)

It’s kinda hard to say right now if I’ve made the right choice (moved in on September 15th this year), but I’d bet money that I did.

@erikaVT :: I saved buckets of cash. And my diploma still says “University of Oregon”. It was the best thing I ever did.

Wellesley College, one of the seven sisters in the East, before the Ivies went Co-ed. It has the liberal arts, a distinguished faculty and small classes. The entire school was then below 1800 women and the endowment was very large for a women’s college.

I am within spitting distance of both RPI and Suny Albany.

I went to SUNY Buffalo. It was affordable at in-state tuition, 4 hours away from home, offered a wide range of academic programs I was undecided when I arrived on campus, and I felt like I was home when I visited. It also had a varsity D1 rowing program.

I’m the rowing coach at RPI, who shares a boathouse with SUNY Albany

I’m going to the University of Phoenix online. I chose it because it’s an accredited online school. I sometimes regret it because it’s intense, and I’m not in the position to take intense classes with no breaks.

I went to Sonoma State first. It was the only college I applied to, because I was lazy, it was close to home, and my boyfriend at the time lived in the town (college applicants- don’t be like me!). A few years later I realized I was just screwing around, partying, and needed a change. I transferred to CO State, because it was far away and had a good HD program. I haven’t left the state even though I graduated almost 6 years ago. My life has turned out pretty damn good, but I don’t know if I would make the same decision to be so far away from my parents again. Now I’m getting my Masters from Regis University. They have an excellent teaching program and I can take night classes so I can still work.

I went directly to UCLA and graduated with a BA in Biology. I fell in love with the campus and Westwood during a visit as a kid. It was the only place I applied…I knew we were a perfect fit. I attended from 1972 – 1977 stretching things out to take additional courses of interest. The 70s were an exciting time to be a university student. I learned a lot about life and how to loathe USC Trojans (ironically, I did postgraduate studies there, sponsored by my employer).
See ya….Gary/wtf

6 weeks away from graduating from Colorado State University.

I should probably put the beers down and start studying.

I went to the University of Houston for undergraduate – it was local, (relatively) cheap, and had plenty of educational areas to explore since I wasn’t very focused early on (I spent five years full time but finally ended up with two BAs and a separate certification).

For graduate school I went to the University of North Texas – it was only one of two accredited programs at the time in Texas for the degree I wanted and it offered adjunct staff here in Houston at UH and offered good distance classes. It was also close enough to take a couple of weekend classes up there during the summer.

I wouldn’t change anything (sticking to local and public).

Carnegie Mellon University.

I visited after being accepted and instantly fell in love with both the school and the city of Pittsburgh. I definitely made the right choice.

More than a few people in my graduating class didn’t even apply to some places because they figured they wouldn’t be accepted there, which is patently ridiculous. You can’t succeed if you never try. Because of that, they ended up at schools they never wanted to attend in the first place, and several have dropped out.

I’m currently attending Quinnipiac University. It’s a small school in southern Connecticut. I chose it over the University of New England because the campus is prettier and my major is highly accreditted (acreditted?accredited? oh damn, forget it) and lots of people know OTs that came from here. It costs a pretty penny and has a few downfalls but given the chance again I’d come here.

Kent State and then Portland State.
I am not one of those people who enjoyed college. I also tool some classes at the university of Chicago.
I’m thinking of returning For another degree however the thought of it makes my stomach turn.

I went to the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida. Back then, in the time before the internet, there was a computer program that let you select out colleges that met your criteria. I wanted a school of about 6000 students, in a warm area, near the ocean, with great science departments and an art department. Miami met all those criteria. My parents were living in South America at the time so it was also the closest US university (and at the time was the closest university that was not on strike).

I originally wanted to go to UC San Diego and did get accepted there. My essay even led the school to waive out of state tuition because I had been a Californian much of my life and was dragged kicking and screaming out of the state by my evil parents.

However, the trek home for holidays would have been very onerous. I would have had to fly from San Diego to Miami, and then Miami to Caracas (actually Maiquetia, a ways out of town) and then a taxi or a “por puesto” to where my parents lived. So I regretfully said no.

I also was interested in the University of British Columbia but that was during the Vietnam War and Canada had way too many Americans there already. That was the only school that rejected me in a way. Technically they didn’t reject me because they refused to send me an application to begin with. However, the University of Oregon wanted me very badly and kept sending me unfortunate bumper stickers that said “Follow Me to Beaver Country.” Not the best choice for the car belonging to a teenaged girl.

I went to college to become a marine biologist, hence my interest in those three schools. I also applied to Texas A&M University in College Station (my dad’s alma mater) – it was the first year that female students were allowed. However, they lost my application, they were and are landlocked, and there was no art department. They do have a marine science research station, obviously not on campus however. It is in Galveston.

And I applied to the University of Texas and was automatically accepted because I was in the top 10% of my graduating class. However, this school, too, was landlocked, it was way bigger than 6000 students, and my father is an Aggie (Texans will understand). It, too, has a marine science research station, down in Port Aransas.

Later on I also went briefly to the University of Houston to make up a class I failed due to having mono, and then did graduate work at the University of Florida and then the University of Arizona. Those two schools were ones that had whole-animal biology and that had terrestrial malacologists on staff, so that is why I chose those.

Right now my daughter is in the process of applying to colleges. Most of the schools that interest her are private and expensive (Rice is $45,000 a year for tuition alone, and Baylor, TCU, SMU, and UC Berkeley all run about $22–25,000 a year). As the child of a disabled veteran and a retired field biologist she really needs to either get bunches of scholarships or win the lottery.

Fortunately she was selected to take part in a special tour of the campus of the University of Texas at Austin this week, and she discovered that she really loves the campus, plus several of her friends are already there. And they offer Ultimate Frisbee.

I went to a little school in the middle of Ohio called Denison University. Things went not so well there just a poor fit I guess. I ended up at Ohio State. Then took jobs and did stuff that had nothing to do with my major. (like just about everyone else)

@Darwin…Longhorns and Aggies mix about as well as Bruins and Trojans or Cornhuskers and Sooners. See ya….Gary/wtf

I go to Ohio State, it’s my 3rd college, junior working on my BA in speech and hearing science. Applying to grad school in a year will probably stay i ohio

@whatthefluther – I know. Believe me, I know. My dad likes to sit on the UT side during the annual football faceoff so he can watch the Aggie band. All we have to do is explain to the Longhorns around us that he’s an Aggie and so can’t figure out where to sit.

For my Undergrad degree, I went to Northern Illinois University. It actually started off as my “safe” school, and really I only applied because my parents made me (there was no application fee). After visiting my top three school choices (Purdue, Iowa State and University of Nebraska), I visited NIU and fell in love with it. I chose schools based on their meteorology programs, and NIU treated me very well and gave me the best feeling. I had a horrible experience at Iowa State.

Now I’m at the University of Wyoming getting my Master’s in Atmospheric Science. I chose this school because they accepted me. lol. Seriously, while that is sort-of true, I wanted a place that I could do something other than forecasting, which is what I thought I didn’t want to do. I’m working with my advisor on instruments that measure ozone concentration by launching them on balloons that go to 100,000 feet. I love the opportunities UW has given me, but it is really time to get the heck out of Laramie.

Columbia University.

My niece is at NYU on a full academic scholarship for linguistics. She loves languages and is very, very good at them. Of course, a very high SAT score didn’t hurt.

Another niece is at an art college in Denver in part because she wants to be a professional photographer (she has already sold some images) and in part because she wants to get far, far away from her mother, who is a genuine nut-case.

@Darwin

I was admitted to Stanford as an undeclared major, but I have now declared linguistics. Does she like linguistics? I know it’s not one of those degrees that leads directly to a career, but that’s why I’m going to double major and/or minor.

@DominicX – She loves linguistics. I don’t know precisely what she plans to do with her degree, but I strongly suspect that she will be going on to grad school, and may eventually become a professor and researcher in the field. She has loved languages and how they work ever since she was little. It doesn’t hurt either that she is in New York and can get to the Met and the Cloisters pretty much at will so she can indulge her other passion, the Middle Ages.

@Darwin

She sounds pretty awesome. :)

I pretty much plan on going to grad school as well. I was actually also considering being a professor. (I asked because I know very few linguistics majors. Most of the people in my linguistics class are not linguistics majors and are taking it for a different degree).

@DominicX – She is pretty awesome, she really is. She is scary smart, talented and beautiful in a Greek profile kind of way (yes, she is Greek on her mother’s side). And she can cook.

I went to the Colorado College, a small liberal-arts school in Colorado Springs. Very good school – “the Harvard of the West,” as no one liked to call us. My uncle went, and he tried to get me to go by offering me the free trip to Colorado. It worked. I went there on a whim, because I liked the campus and had an excellent experience as a prospective visiting student. I am very happy I ended up there because they just so happen to have one of the best undergraduate philosophy programs out there, and one of the few that specializes in Continental philosophy. The good department is due to its founding by one J. Glenn Gray. He was the Marine in WWII who had the good fortune to be the person assigned to guard the Nazi in charge of the University in Berlin – one Martin Heidegger. Gray did all the first translations of Heidegger’s work into English, and he built CC’s philosophy department. I think I couldn’t have made a better choice. I met wonderful people there, and the profs were simply stellar. Except that the school’s cost was way too high, and the administration is a bunch of gonads.

Massachusetts College of Art (more commonly known as MassArt). I earned a BFA in communication design. I went back six years later for my MFA in design theory, but never finished as we got the call to go adopt my daughter.

I chose it because of it’s reputation, quality of faculty and proximity to other colleges and museums (North Eastern, Wentworth, the MFA and Gardner Museums are all within walking distance) – there was all sorts of cross polination going on.

Also, it’s one of (or maybe the) only state art colleges in the country – so tuition was reasonable as I paid four out of five years out-of-pocket (I took out a loan for year five).

I loved the experience and definitely feel I made the right choice.

Sarah Lawrence College – a very liberal women’s college in New York State. Actually, it became co-ed while I was going there. I chose it because of the opportunities for small seminar classes, freedom to create your own program and proximity to NYC.

University of Portland. I like it a lot. I know people who left because of it’s short-coming but I think that all schools would have a few or even many weaknesses but you get past it. Learn to appreciate what is good about the school and just get though it.

Damn! I wish I could remember!

I went to UW-Madison. Why?

I couldn’t afford Harvard, Northwestern or NYU, it was close to where I was raised (and at the time I was guilted into feeling bad for even leaving home), and they had a decent Film and TV program.

I went to the University of Pennsylvania, and how I ended up there was a complete surprise. I was wait-listed, deciding between University of Chicago (snow) and McGill University in Montreal (more snow), when I got a completely random phone call in the middle of May. It was the admissions officer and she told me they were debating whether to reassess my application, but before they would, I had to “provide verbal confirmation that I would matriculate if accepted.” I asked if I had time to think about it, and she said I had an hour. I hung up, spoke to my parents and realized I had nothing to lose so called her back and said I would. And an acceptance letter arrived by Fed-Ex the next day…thus, you could say that my college picked me! And I’m glad I went because it has helped make me who I am today. I think whichever college you do go to, there are always ups and downs – but I think the college experience is what you make of it, so challenge yourself, push a few limits, and have fun where ever you go!

I’ve gone to three for three levels of degrees, but the University of Georgia (B.S.) is the most well known. The first was a two year college that I went to because it was close to home and because it had a great intro program into what I thought I wanted to do and I managed to pick up an AA there just getting core plus a little done. The last (but not the last, more school for me) was for my Master’s work.

I attended two Universities. I majored in Liberal Studies at San Francisco State University, and Kinesiology at California State University at Sacramento.