Washington & Lee

I said this was coming, and here it is! My visit to W&L recap.

Washington and Lee is a small liberal arts university in Lexington, Virginia. Lexington is also home to Virginia Military Institute, or VMI. Many people on my mom's side have attended W&L, and many family members and family friends have attended VMI, as well. Last weekend my family and I spend three days in Lexington. We explored the town with my mom's close friend, who lives in Lexington, and ate at the Bistro, the Southern Inn, Nico's, and Primo. We went to the VMI football game (they won!) and hung out with our family friends who have a son who goes to VMI. Some of my cousins and family friends really want to go to VMI who are around my age, so it would be fun if we were all in Lexington together! I also spent the night at W&L with my friend who is a current freshman. I will be forever grateful for her hosting me, taking me to a party, and introducing me to tons of people. I really learned more about W&L than I would have otherwise.

I have actually spent quite a bit of time at W&L over the past few years, because they have this great lacrosse camp. Its a sleep-away camp where you get to sleep in the dorms, eat in the cafeteria, play on their fields, and get instruction from their coaches, their players, and coaches from other nearby colleges. So, I knew the campus pretty well before I had even had a tour! I highly recommend the lacrosse camp if you play, and you are thinking about the school!

How does W&L stack up on my wish list?

1. Study Abroad: The best time to study abroad is during the "Spring Term". Spring term is this really interesting term where students on campus only take one class. Normally freshmen and seniors stay on campus for spring term, and sophomores and juniors either do internships or study abroad. This really sounds like an amazing thing, that obviously most colleges do not have.

2. Small Classes: Yes. Crazy small classes. A lot of them are smaller than the already small classes at my HS! Crazy low student to teacher ratio, as well. I love small classes personally it helps me create closer relationships with the other students in my class, and I become much more comfortable around my teacher as well.

3. Traditions: Apart from being a tradition to attend W&L for many of my family members, W&L is a school with a rich history and a historic campus. I love schools with older architecture (like W&L, Davidson, W&M). That is something that I would love to have at my HS, but unfortunately do not have. Washington and Lee used to be all male, so no female members of my family have ever attended!

4. Honor Code: Yes! This is honestly so important to me, its kind of hard to describe how much I love the respect that students have for each other under a honor system. Leaving things around campus is NOT the norm everywhere, and a big reason of why I love my favor

5. Liberal Arts Education: Yes! And they have a journalism school! It was the first journalism school in the country. I think that history is really special. They basically have every major I am possibly interested in: Journalism, Business, Poli Sci, and English!

6. College Town (with trees!): One of my mom's best friends lives in Lexington, and she really wants me to go here! Its a great little town! They have the best ice cream (check out "Sweet Things"), and tons of restaurants and stores for such a small town.

7. Greek Life: YES! W&L has over 80% participation in Greek life. Thats so amazing and their houses are beautiful as well. When I went to visit my friend, who is a freshman, I went to a frat party at the Kappa Sigma house (I think? ... Maybe a different "Kappa" house) and it was so much fun. Unfortunately, there is not a Delta Delta Delta  (my legacy) chapter at W&L, but there are lots of other great options. The sorority houses are really nice, normally sophomores live in them, and they're all in the same little section of campus!

Looking pretty rough, but it was a great night!

All in all, I love W&L, and it is definitely somewhere I am interested in attending. It is the perfect school for me!

Have you read my other college posts? I have also visited William and Mary, Davidson, and Wake Forest.

I really still need to visit a lot of schools, and because I am only a junior, by no means is anything set in stone. There are a lot of colleges that I like, but here are some of the ones I love:

My College List: Washington and Lee University, Davidson College, College of William and Mary, Wake Forest University, Vanderbilt University, Sewanee: University of the South, University of Virginia, Southern Methodist University, and Johns Hopkins University

XOXOXO,
Kels

Junior Year Craziness!

Even though I have only had four weeks of classes, I am so stressed out already! Along with going to a very difficult college prep school, I play volleyball, am a yearbook editor, and an officer on two community service clubs. It's been really hard getting everything done. I'll just fill you all in on everything that is going on in my life right now!

Volleyball:

I don't really get play, but I try my hardest. This is my second year on the varsity team, and I really love the girls on it. It just sucks that I never get to play, but I am hoping that next year I finally will play more! Some of my best friends are on the team with me, so that has made the team so fun!

As you can see, we obviously have a lot of fun together before the games! We have jeans days every month that you can pay for, and the money will go to one of our charity clubs. Another one of my school's traditions is that everyone on a team will dress in a theme before a big home game. We dressed up as cowgirls, although by the time we took this pictures we were all in a state of undress.


School:

PreCalc BC is literally killing me, and my planner is literally SO FULL of homework assignments, games, meetings, social events, I can barely squeeze anything else in. French III this year is so hard as well. I really like my Physics teacher, that's my favorite class so far! I am literally in the library everyday working on homework due that day or the next, or studying for a test.


College:

I have recently attended a college info session for Johns Hopkins, and I loved it! I have only been there for a lacrosse tournament two years ago, when college was not even on my mind. Now, I wish I had taken more notice of the school and it's surroundings! Other info sessions that I want to attend are University of Georgia, University of South Carolina, Davidson, Sewanee, Vanderbilt, and William and Mary. Sadly, I don't think I will be able to go to all of them because of Volleyball and some classes that I cannot switch around in my schedule. I also recently sat in on college info sessions for UVA, McDaniel College, and Franklin and Marshall. I really liked UVA, but couldn't see myself at McDaniel or F&M! I cannot wait to finally have an official visit to Washington and Lee this fall.

My favorite colleges so far:
-Davidson
-William & Mary*
-Wake Forest
-Johns Hopkins
-UVA
-Washington and Lee*
-Vanderbilt

Other ones I like are:
-Georgetown*
-Boston College
-University of Georgia
-Sewanee

(* Denotes Legacy Status)
Let me know if there are any others that I should check out!


Clothes:

I have started getting sweaters, long skirts, and jeans that I will be wearing this fall and winter.

I am almost positive that I will be buying this dress for homecoming! I love the leather detailing, and I love even more that it is vegan leather! Just in general, I love blacks, reds, emerald greens, and royal blues for homecoming. I couldn't find any other ones that I loved, so I think this one will be the one that  I'll end up getting.


I am so excited for fall. I love pumpkins! I actually had my first pumpkin thing of the season today, pumpkin pie frozen yogurt from my local fro-yo joint. I put pie crust and pretzels on it and it was amazing!

This fall I know my tumblr will be filled with pumpkins, leaves, and sweaters. However, I also have another tumblr where I basically post pictures like that year round! Check out my fall/interior tumblr HERE for fall inspiration! It makes me feel so cozy just reblogging pictures onto it.

I never really thought I would say that I'm excited for fall, but I definitely am!

See y'all later!
XOXOXO,
Kels

Summer Recap

Summer is basically over for me, and has been for the last week and a half because I have had volleyball basically all day and the weather has not been very nice. So, I have decided to do  summer recap (in preparation for the hoards of people at school who will ask me what I did this summer).

JUNE:
-I visited Wake Forest (blog post here) and Davidson (blog post here)
-I went to Duck, NC with kHr.

-I visited William and Mary (blog post here)

JULY:
-I got my drivers license!
-I had a French Exchange student, Maélia, which was a life-changing experience. Through this, my family became really close with the other Frenchie, Alizée, and her host mWd's family. Even though the exchange itself was so exhausting and at times I thought I could not take it anymore, it was nice that I made a new friend from my area, and I always had someone to empathize with me. I will never forget either sister who came to my hometown for two weeks. (blog posts here and here)

-I went to a volleyball camp that really kicked my butt! I am glad I went, though because it really helped me get through tryouts.
-I freaked out over the new royal baby, Prince George!

AUGUST:
-I obsessively watched Desiree on the Bachelorette.
-I had the time of my life in Nantucket, my favorite place on earth.

Brant Point Lighthouse

Excuse the weird editing, it was really dark!

Last Day

-Volleyball Tryouts and Practices

And that's my summer! I'm sad its over, but I am excited to get Junior year over with. I'm ready for college!!

XOXOXO,
Kelsey

Davidson

Hello!

I am currently in the car on the way home from Davidson College. 

I am absolutely obsessed with Davidson. The architecture, the honour code, the eating houses, the D1 athletics, the town, EVERYTHING. 

Our tour guide was amazing. She knew exactly what to say to get me to fall head over heels. There are not that many cafeterias and eating places on campus but that is literally the only con for me. It is a really challenging school to get into, and that really scares me! I want I go here so bad!

Wake Forest has a law school, graduate school, and a school of medicine. Davidson is only undergrad. That's not necessarily a pro or con for either. It's interesting to see the difference though!

Touring Davison and Wake Forest these past few days have really opened my eyes to what I want in college. 

I like how a few people from my school have gone/do go to these colleges, but at neither school are there more than 5 people from my high schools. In contrast, some public state schools have as many as 30 people for each grade. That's over 100 people from my high school at that college! That's crazy. It's a good school, but it really turns me away from it. I want to meet people who don't know a ton of people where I am from. I want to be my own person!

1. Study abroad. I want to go on a semester abroad in college. At Wake, 75% of students go abroad. At Davidson, 80% of students go abroad. This means that many of my friends would go overseas as well, and that kind of thing is really encouraged and does not seem at all strange if you do so. 

2. Small classes. At my current school, I have never been in a class with over 23 people. At Wake, the average class size is 20 and at Davidson is 15. This is really ideal for me. I want to have everyone in my class recognise me and get to know me. I want my professors to know my name, and know me as a person, as well as a student. 

3. Traditions. At Wake Forest, after big sports team wins, they "roll" the lawn, covering the trees with rolls of toilet paper. At Davison, they have a "cake race" for first year students during Freshman Orientation. It's a race, and in the end every person gets a cake baked my a Davidson. The young alum leading the information session talked to us about how he got really close to the family that baked him his cake. This made me so happy!

4. Honour code. I really like how proud Davidson is in their honour system. It reminds me of my high school. At both places, teachers/professors trust their students not to lie or cheat, and you can leave your stuff anywhere and rely on your peers not to take it, or disturb it. 

5. Liberal Arts Education. I want to be a well rounded student. I do not want to declare my major early on, as you do at many large state schools. I want time to learn what I like. At Davidson there is a required PE credit. Some options you can do for this are tinker ball (I hope I am saying that right) which you play with people on your hall, wake boarding or water skiing at their lake campus (which is a five minute drive from their main campus), among many other options. 

6. College Town (with Trees)! I need some nature in my life. I do not want to go to college somewhere like NYU or VCU, which are really urban. I want more of a small college town feeling. Here are some pictures of all the trees at Davidson  (yesterday I shared photos of all the forestry at Wake!)

7. Greek life. I am really interested in becoming involved with Greek organisations. Wake has Sororities, but they do not have sorority houses. A side note, but I also really like Washington and Lee, which has amazing sorority houses and a really high percentage of participation in Greek organisations. Davidson does not have the traditional sororities (they do have two historically African American sororities), but they have something that I actually might like even more! 60% of the girls at Davidson join one of the four "Eating Houses". You do not live at eating houses, you can join with up to three of your friends, and are guaranteed  to be in an eating house with them. Anyone who wants to be in an eating house will be in an eating house. Although at most colleges, most girls do get into a sorority if they want to be in one, very rarely is there a guarantee like there is for eating houses at Davidson. 

Some other things that made me fall in love with Davidson:

- Laundry service. You will be given a laundry bag with a number. Put that number on all of the tags of your clothes. When your clothes are dirty, drop them off at the laundry centre, and within 48 hours your clothes will be clean and folded! This is awesome. My mom has explained to me that doing laundry was one of the most annoying things for her in college. This seems really easy and convenient. 

- Division One Sports. This means that they have competitive football and basketball team that I will want to cheer for. Yay!!

-Self Scheduled Exams. You have an eight day period to take your exams. You am choose any of the 16 time periods over those 8 days to take the exams. So nice!

So in love with Davidson. There's a chance I would even apply early decision. Yesterday I said that I could see myself at Wake Forest, which is true. However, Davidson is my 1st choice DREAM SCHOOL. So scared to apply next year!

XOXOXO, 

Kelsey