Making decisions

Each person probably has their own set of criteria in mind when selecting the school they want to go to. For me, in no particular order, I consider:

1. The campus atmosphere and infrastructure - when I set foot on UWO's campus for the first time, it felt right. The campus wasn't too huge. The buildings weren't uncomfortably old. I was able to see myself living in one of the residences (to be specific, Perth Hall, which was luckily the residence I ended up getting sorted to!).
2. The location - i.e. the city the school is in and how far away from home it is. I picked UWO mainly because it was two and a half hours away from home - the farthest my mom would let me go on my leash; but I also considered that London was a pretty nice and lively city compared to, oh, I don't know, Waterloo?
3. The cost... which I selfishly did not consider all too much when picking UWO and my parents were nice enough to let me be a bit selfish.
4. The school colours Whether there'll be people I know there - I mean, this ended up not mattering by the end of second year; but by picking UWO, I got to ditch a whole bunch of people I never wanted to see again, all while knowing I would still have a few friendly faces nearby. Plus, it made it easy to find a roommate!

This time around though... it's not so easy. I mean, logically, it is. But I think I'm letting my emotions and heart get too much say in all this.

But here's where I stand:

1. Maybe not NECO? I submitted my deposit to NECO last week, so $1000 of my tuition has been paid for if I end up going there... because, you know, it is a tad bit expensive to go to school in the states, let alone Boston. I know, I know, if you've talked to me before you're probably all like "But you saaaaaaaiiiiiid you wanted to go to Boston!" And I know I did - because I wanted to experience actually living on my own (without my parents too close by) and being in a city that I love. But after talking with two friends, I got really scared of how much debt I'd be in, all for an education that I could receive at a much less expensive cost. 
2. Yoohoo, Waterloo? While my heart is set on Boston, my brain says I should just go to Waterloo. Sure, it's Wateverloo and I won't get to truly experience being far, far, far away from my parents' jurisdiction, and I could potentially run into people I don't really want to see, but it would definitely be a lot less expensive, with not having to convert to the American dollar and not having to travel by plane (or by car... really far). Also, with Waterloo being so selective of their students, I feel like it may be a better school (by a bit). However, I haven't heard back from Waterloo yet, which is a bummer. It says on their website that all decision letters will be mailed out by the last week of March. I don't know if this means that they've been mailing out letters since we did our interviews and that we'll all have heard something by the end of March; or if they'll send them all out during that last week.
3. Blackhawks > Bruins. In the considerably probable case that I don't get accepted to Waterloo (they're only taking 90 out of the 150 applicants!), ICO will most likely be my back-up school, before NECO. Thanks to the elaboration and persuasion by one of the friends mentioned in the first paragraph, I've decided to consider ICO. For starters, it will be a little less expensive than NECO - tuition is slightly less expensive (only by $4000, but still), cost of living will be less, etc. And secondly, it looks like a nicer school based on what I've seen in the information booklets they've sent me. And to be honest, ICO was ranked higher than NECO in my mental list initially (mostly because they sent me an info booklet quite early but also because I would rather go see the Blackhawks than the Bruins). The ranking flipped because NECO got back to me first and really sucked me in when I was there for my interview. Anyway, I've booked an interview for the end of March, which is not the best time to interview, seeing as seats are probably almost all filled up, but I feel like I have a pretty good shot. And hey, if Waterloo responds by then, then it'll just be a trip to Chicago for me!

If you read all this, major props. If you didn't, keep scrolling down, the next paragraph is for you.

tl;dr picking schools is hard, but I bought a cool t-shirt today so whatever decision I end up making won't matter because I now own a pretty cool t-shirt.

Keep it real, folks.