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

Easing into the Holidays

It's been forever since I have been on here, and I hate that! I have had a crazy few weeks since I last posted. Here's what I have been up to in the last couple of weeks!

1. My amazing French exchange student, Hannah, left for France. We didn't have nearly enough time to spend together due to a crazy amount of school work and volleyball commitments that happened while she was here. I can't wait to visit her at her home in 2014!!

2. I went to my dad's college homecoming, and met with a family friend who is a freshman that college. We went to a football game and met tons of his friends from college. It was interesting to see it with all the alumni, and it showed me how you really do make life-long friendships in college.

3. I have been obsessed the show "Don't Trust the B***** in Apartment 23". Actually obsessed. In only a couple of days, I have watched almost all of Seasons 1 and 2! It's bad how much I love it! It's really annoying though because Netflix mixed up the order of the episodes, so some of them are in Season 2, but it puts them with Season 1 episodes. It has been my relaxing tool!

4. Volleyball is OVER! I am so happy to finally have more time to do my homework and BREATHE! I love my volleyball team and the friendships that I have made from it, but I am pretty relieved to have a season off. I think winter is the best season for me to be free because the holidays are my favorite time of the year, and I really get to take advantage of them! Plus, not that many of my friends do winter sports, so it is not like I am the only one that takes it off.

5. I visited W&L this weekend. I will write a post on this later today, but I LOVE IT. Can't wait to elaborate! 

6. I am currently putting together my Christmas list, and I am sooo excited to start buying presents for my family and friends. Ahhh!!!

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

Long Time No See!

I have been so busy with school over the past three weeks I can barely take it! Volleyball is taking away from my study time, so study time is taking away from my free time. Anyways, here is a recap of the past few weeks!

 ^ The annual first day of school picture! I cannot believe that I only have one more left!

 ^ I have completely redone my tumblr page, it's a totally new theme! ( I also changed the banner on this blog!)

> I have asked my since-we-were-6-months-old best guy friend to Homecoming (with baby pictures!)

> I have gotten my mom's old car, and I have been driving to school (by myself!)

And I've done a lot of online shopping, and a lot of Facebook stalking the freshman in college who went to my HS. I cannot wait to be at college! It's so close, but so far away at the same time. We are starting to learn about the whole process in seminars held at my school over the next two days, and I cannot wait to hear what they say!

My IN-SCHOOL-Frenchie gets here October 14th! Her name is Hannah and I am so excited to host another person! As of right now, I am kind of excited for fall. I will be visiting Washington and Lee this November. I am so excited for Homecoming at my school, carving pumpkins, and eating lots of pumpkin pancakes (and other kinds of pumpkin flavored goodies).

XOXOXO,
Kels