The year was 2006 and my oldest daughter had begun her research into colleges some months before. While graduation was almost two years away, we felt the pressure to make sure she picked the perfect school that would provide her with opportunities, challenges, and the best possible college experience. That Fall we booked airfares to Chicago accompanied by a rental car. The goal was to do a whirlwind of visits to colleges within driving distance of O’Hare airport and spend a hectic 72 hours looking for the perfect place for her college years. I anticipated that this would be the first of many trips to all corners of the country.
By the third day, she’d already tired of the entire process and said, “Dad, I think I’ll go to Notre Dame“. As a graduate of Our Lady’s university, my heart swelled with pride. We would have another Golden Domer in the family (my wife, sister, and brother-in-law are all graduates too). Initially all I could think of was “Too cool, all those years sitting with her on my lap during Fighting Irish football games on TV and belting out the Fight Song at every possible opportunity had paid off”. But as time wore on, I really wondered if Notre Dame was the best place for her. She was an undecided major entering university, and she had so many areas of interest that it was completely understandable. Heck, here was a young woman who, despite ending up majoring in American Studies with a focus on Journalism and French…took organic chemistry twice just for fun! Weird, I know.
With only three college visits under my belt as a Dad, our twins were the next ones up. I again foresaw traveling to the far corners of the US and learning about all sorts of colleges and universities. When Jenni and I went to Denver to replicate Becca’s Chicago trip, we actually cancelled the last interview because she’d fallen in love with the University of Colorado – Boulder. It’s hard to question that decision when you look at the mountains out of every window. For someone from flat-as-a-pancake Kansas, the sheer beauty takes your breath away.
Laura and I drove to Iowa to visit Buena Vista University and we flew to Pennsylvania to visit Indiana University of Pennsylvania. I never quite understood the name, but the IUP had a lot to offer. In fact, as late as senior night during the Volleyball Season, Laura was headed to IUP. Fortunately for all involved, BVU did an amazing job recruiting her, and came through with a complete academic funding package that ended up including two trips to Chile & Antarctica. Not bad for somebody studying Biology & Spanish. As far as I recollect though, we only made those two campus visits.
When it came time for Hannah to begin her search things got kind of weird. She kept trying to setup visits on short notice, and they always fell through. Finally, she managed to setup a visit to Maine Maritime Academy in far-flung Castine, ME. Neither Hectic-Mom nor I could go, so we coordinated a joint visit with Laura. Hannah was headed back from a school trip to Spain, so we managed to get both the girls to Bangor at approximately the same time. When you consider the size of the Bangor, ME airport…this was quite an amazing feat. Travel home was weird for them, including Laura & Becca waving to each other from different planes at the Detroit airport while Hannah was on a different plane in Philadelphia. At that point in my life, I was pretty much the Hectic Clan’s travel agent! But after that one visit, Hannah had found her dream school. She planned to study Marine Biology and being on the coast was an absolute must. Again, I don’t recollect us making any other college visits.
So for the first three kids, I’d traveled a bit and made seven college campus visits. In my wildest dreams I never anticipated that it would only be seven. I had figured on at least ten per kid! That’s what everyone had told me to expect. I hadn’t taken into account that most visits were within driving distance for those folks though. For whatever reason, our kids were a bit more distant in their visits. Maybe it’s our broader view of the world. Honestly, I just don’t know.
With Hannah I started a pattern that I hadn’t really planned on…zero college visits with her. Of course, her one successful college visit was to a school that takes 30 hours of driving or 18 hours of flying (encompassing an entire day if things go perfectly). Distance and inconvenience alone made the trip difficult, but needless to say, I was a bit surprised that there were on visits where I went along. It was weird to send one of our kids to a school that I’d never seen. As it turns out, I didn’t even see her school until last year, at the beginning of her third year!
When Jared came along, he was recruited heavily for his track skills, especially for the grueling and demanding decathlon. There really aren’t that many true decathletes, so when one comes along they’re a pretty hot commodity. While we had been getting our share of college mail, view books, and visit invitations for the first four kids…we were completely unprepared for the onslaught of mail, phone calls, and packages that arrived for Jared. At the very start of his Senior year, he enlisted in the Army Reserves with hopes of training to become a Special Operations soldier. At the same time Wichita State University seemed to have a lock on him for their track program. We did a campus visit, and Jared was interested in what they had to offer. He knew that he wanted to study something in the area of ancillary medical services, with a probably goal of becoming a personal trainer after retiring from the Army. WSU had a great program along those lines. We also had the opportunity to meet with the Head Track Coach, who also happens to be the Multi-Sport Athlete coach (covering women’s heptathlon and men’s decathlon). Jared was able to watch a practice, and as I saw him talking to the athletes, I could see him fitting right in. Things seemed pretty locked down, Army Reserves until December 2014, then matriculation at WSU in the Spring of 2015. Nice, neat, simple. One visit, fall in love, head off to school.
But things weren’t that simple. WSU pretty much dropped the ball with Jared and quit contacting him. No calls, no talk about National Signing Day. No talk about scholarships or other opportunities. Zilch. Zero. Nada.
That’s when Pittsburg State University came into the picture. One evening Jared happened to answer the phone…a complete oddity. We had all pretty much taken to letting 100% of the calls go through to the answering machine. The phone was practically ringing off the hook, and any college call to Jared from the academic or track side took a minimum of an hour. We simply didn’t have the time. So why he answered that call from an unknown number we’ll never really know. But it was a good thing he did. The Pitt Gorillas had an interesting proposition for him, and invited him out for a visit. So we went, and Jared fell in love with another campus, but this time he also fell in love with the track program. They treated him like royalty…something that had been sorely lacking with WSU. The made a big deal out of planning a signing day with him. They seemed very willing to work around his Army Reserves schedule. And they had a Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) unit right there on campus, something that WSU lacked. Not only that, the ROTC commander was extremely enthusiastic about Jared’s Physical Training (PT) scores, and was greatly anticipating adding him to the ROTC PT Competition team. He also did a fantastic job taking us around the campus from one appointment to another. If you’ve never had to try to navigate an entirely foreign campus, having someone to guide you is essential. Unless you want to spend the better part of the day looking lost, begging for directions, and getting lost again. On the drive back from PSU, Jared had de-committed from WSU and committed to Pitt State. So I’d done two campus visits with him.
A few months later, Maddie, who is one year behind Jared in school, began to plan her college visits. She and two friends planned on making a huge loop through Kansas to visit five universities over the course of part of a week. Maddie is our consummate planner, so she coordinated all the visits, housing, food, and travel. She asked me for some money for the trip, but that was it. Honestly I don’t think she ever anticipated that I would come along on any of the visits. While it wasn’t surprising, I was a bit anguished over leaving her to her own devices. I consoled myself in remembering that Hannah only had Laura for her visit, and her college decision turned out great.
Maddie has, since 2nd grade, been crystal-clear as to her career. She’s going to be an elementary school teacher, no question about it. She also plans on owning one or more side businesses to ensure that she’s not in dire financial straits because of the paucity of teacher’s pay. She has always planned to major in Elementary Education with a second major in Business. She plans to teach in Kansas, so it made absolute sense to train her and procure her teaching certificates in-state.
After her whirlwind circuit of the Kansas schools, she came home and announced that she was going to attend the University of Kansas and try to get into the Honors program. Of all our kids, Maddie is the worst test taker. The monolithic ACT and SAT tests are more difficult for her than the other kids, and despite being valedictorian of her High School class of over 400 students with the attached spectacular GPA, her ACT score was right on the bubble to get her into the KU Honors program. To make a long story short (yeah, I’m not too good at that), she got in, and even got into the Honors Dorm (another hurdle with even more stringent criteria). Honestly, I believe that her stellar interviewing skills helped along with her persistence when working with the staff making the decisions. This girl is going places.
Oddly though, she’s going places without me. I made exactly zero college campus visits with her. Apparently the pattern has been set…
With Maddie’s first week of school under her belt, I attended the Univeristy of Kansas Roadshow with our 7th kid…Lance. We’re fortunate that many of the universities in the surrounding states come right to Hutchinson, so the kids can participate in sports practices and still make it to the college information nights. Seven days into Maddie’s college career and Lance & I started his journey toward selecting a university. He’s very certain that he wants to study Aerospace Engineering, making the selection of places to visit and talk to much easier. When you know exactly what you want to study, the field narrows considerably.
Starting a couple weeks ago, I was gearing myself up for the first of many college visits. Apparently I’d forgotten about the pattern I’d set with the older kids. It should have been no surprise when Lance announced that he wanted to visit KU this weekend. His only requirement of me was to provide transportation to campus, he and Maddie had the rest figured out. They even went so far as to plan his trip home via Amtrak. So my sole responsibility will be to pick him up after his cross country meet tonight and drive the three hours to Lawrence, hand him off to Maddie, and turn around and drive three-and-a-half hours home. He’ll do his campus visit with Maddie on Friday, attend the College of Engineering open house on Saturday, and then take the train home late that night. Because the rest of the family has a half-marathon on Sunday morning, we’re going to simply park a car at the train station so he can drive home in the wee hours of the morning.
I honestly wonder how many college campus visits Lance is going to make. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Notre Dame are two of his dream schools, and I can’t imagine him making those trips alone…but I would never have envisioned Hannah returning from Spain and going directly to Maine either. I guess anything is possible!
I also wonder what things will be like when Colleen is ready to visit schools. She’s just started seventh grade, so we have about four years before she’ll be where Lance is. I used to joke that with our first kid we drove a trailer to campus with all the things to move into her tiny room. With the second and third we split the trailer. With Jared we took a van and a partially filled truck, with Maddie it was a partially filled van. When Lance comes alone it will be a partially loaded car, and with Colleen it’ll be a suitcase or two.
Hectic-Mom thinks we’ve finally gotten it right, since she arrived at Notre Dame with two suitcases and a box. I arrived with a 16′ enclosed trailer. Her story fits the mold of the I had to walk to school uphill, in the snow while mine smacks of absolute luxury. Her’s makes for better telling.
Seriously though, it seems strange to me that I’ve had so few college visits. I’m sure that part of that is due to the time the kids spend prior to selecting where they will visit. As each one has gone through the process, the younger kids have learned from the older ones. Heck, Colleen is certain that she wants to become a Crime Scene Investigator…the only question is whether she’s going to work in the lab, the field, or both. That has made her future college decisions much easier…if they don’t have a stellar forensics program the school won’t be in the running.
But the times have definitely changed. I can actually envision her going off on college visits in a few years without either Hectic-Mom or myself. She might meet up with a sibling, but it’s just as likely that she’ll go on her own. While I know that it’s still a few years away, it does make me a bit sad. I’ve only got two more kids to take on college campus visits.
Then again, Hectic-Grandson will be the High School graduating class of 2032…I guess I can look forward to that round of college campus visits!
