What was your second-choice school?

[micropolitan guy]

Topic o' the day, in an attempt to find out even more about the members of our select group:

If we reveal where we went to school, some of us would be outed pronto.

But what was your second choice? Where would you have gone if your ultimate destination wouldn't have accepted you?

My second choice was SUNY-Potsdam. But they didn't want me. But luckily for me One of America's Gooder Universities said yes, otherwise I'd have ended up at Marietta, Muskingum or Baldwin-Wallace, my safety schools.

 

[Donny in his element]

I was accepted by all three schools in which I expressed interest.
One, Ohio State, was not financially convenient.
The other was University of Florida.

The third, chosen school, doesn't have the national academic recognition of the previous two, but has certain intangibles.

 

[MU_was_not_so_hard]

I was accepted by all three schools in which I expressed interest.
One, Ohio State, was not financially convenient.
The other was University of Florida.

The third, chosen school, doesn't have the national academic recognition of the previous two, but has certain intangibles.

So Playboy voted said school to have best-looking women?

 

[spup1122]

My second choice was Oklahoma State.  I transferred schools after my freshman year, and by my senior year I really regretted it.  I loved the education I did get, but I wish I would have picked my second choice before my freshman year and I would have never transferred to a school that didn't even make my radar in H.S. (OSU is NOT my alma mater, unfortunately).

 

[cougargirl]

The University of Maine was my second choice, because it was so far away from home, and Miami (Fla.) was my third, because it was so far away from home. Surprisingly, I ended up at a small liberal arts college, about four hours away from home and a fraction of the size of either university. Occasionally I wonder how different things would be if I had gone to a big school.

 

[dreunc1542]

I applied to about 10 different places and how I ranked those choices changed drastically throughout the process, but my final 2nd choice was Miami (Fla).

 

[CHETtheJET]

kid you not...Harvard.

 

[MU_was_not_so_hard]

kid you not...Harvard.

I was always more of a Yale guy.

Ball State was No. 2. This of course, was after I flunked out of Jayhawk U, went to Junior College, and realized I couldn't afford Northwestern.

 

[Trey Beamon]

Penn State was my first choice, but instead, I chose to save some money and attend a state school. At PSU, the weekends were buzzing, particularly on football Saturdays. Here, over half the student population went away (probably to PSU) on weekends. So much for "college atmosphere."

I should have transferred.

 

[PeteyPirate]

University of Pennsylvania, but I couldn't justify sticking my parents with that bill.

 

[Dyno]

Georgetown.

 

[spaceman]

2. Harvard
3. Yale
4. DeVry

 

[The Big Ragu]

I honestly didn't have a second choice.

I was a complete idiot when I was 17 (don't say it!). I applied to only four schools and pretty much did one of those applications in crayon. There was only one school I wanted to go to, one of the Ivy League schools, and I was incredibly stubborn. I refused to think about any place else. My older sister had gone there and I loved the place. There was no other school for me, as far as I was concerned.

The problem was that I was no lock to be accepted. In fact, no one thought I was going to get in. I was a complete goofball in high school. I underachieved, got into trouble over ridiculous things and frustrated the hell out of my teachers. It was offset some by good SAT scores.

My mom and my sister forced me to also apply to two state universities and a local university--I met its criteria for a scholarship. There was also a local Division III school that talked to me about playing basketball, but I never applied. If left to my own devices, I wouldn't have given myself a backup plan. I was arrogant and stupid.

In hindsight, my guess is that with my grades and class ranking, I probably had a 25 percent or less chance of getting into the school I wanted and I pretty much hit the lottery when I was accepted.

The interesting thing about it is that as I have gotten older, I have become anal as all hell. I'm the opposite of how I was when I was in high school. If I was applying now, I'd apply to 40 schools--and worry about it--to make sure I was covered.

 

[Flash]

The school I went to was my second choice. I wanted to go into journalism at Kings College or public relations at Mount St. Vincent in Halifax. But, since I was starting university at only 17, my parents wouldn't let me and made me live at home and go to St. FX.
Sigh ... when I was a senior at 19 (the legal drinking age in most parts of Canada), I still at a curfew ... of midnight.

 

[Sam Mills 51]

I would have gone to (UNC) Charlotte (like many schools in the UNC system, they're dumping the initial initials). And who knows ... the year I graduated was the year the Carolina Panthers were officially playing. Not organizing, but playing.

I was accepted by both UNCC and the school I went to. Also was looking at Wake Forest, until their financial aid form wanted to know went waaaay over the top. I can understand their wanting to avert financial fraud, but that was ridiculous.

I think I would have liked Charlotte, but unlike where I went, I liked being in a marching band and with no football program, UNCC didn't have one. That wasn't the primary reason for choosing the other school, but it didn't help Charlotte's cause.

 

[terrier]

Like any Boston University College of Communication alum, Syracuse was my second choice. Rhode Island was my safety.

 

[FuerteJ]

I was accepted by all three schools in which I expressed interest.
One, Ohio State, was not financially convenient.
The other was University of Florida.

The third, chosen school, doesn't have the national academic recognition of the previous two, but has certain intangibles.

A mutual friend says you went to the Harvard of the South. Though, he said it the other way. Harvard is the XXX of the North. I laugh.

My backup was Florida, then Maryland. Got into my first choice, so it didn't matter.

 

[Inky_Wretch]

Rhodes College and SMU were my co-second choices.

 

[fmrsped]

Kid you not: I was going to go to Youngstown State to be the next Bob Kennedy, until my folks said I wasn't allowed to stay at home.

 

[Batman]

Since I thought it was ridiculous to spend $25 or $30 on an application to a place you don't have a lot of interest in, I narrowed it down to the ones with free applications and no essay (and who attended our high school's college fair). The esteemed list included...

1) Tusculum College, a small D-II school in Tennessee. Got accepted, still have the T-shirt they sent me.

2) Johnson and Wales, a business college in Rhode Island. They gave me a scholarship, but it was still way too much and not really what I wanted to do.

3) I **** you not, the DeVry Institute. I went to one of the campuses to check out the "communications" program and found out it was much more the technical side of things. They showed us some of those wavy frequency scope things that were supposed to look cool.
I took an entrance exam while I was there, too. It was 25 math questions a brain-dead, retarded fourth-grader could have figured out. Since I suck at dividing fractions, though, I got a 92. Apparently, it was the highest of the 40 or so kids taking the exam that day. The next week I saw a kid in my homeroom who took the test at the same time. He remarked how hard it was and that he had only gotten a 68 or something. I felt bad for him while I tried to hide the laughter.