My junior year, I decided I needed an answer for when people asked me where I wanted to go to school. I chose UC Davis. I don't really remember the exact reason why, but pretty soon I was set on going there. I researched it, talked to people I knew down there, reviewed materials I had gotten from a college fair, and started exploring...

In February of my senior year, after applying to 12 colleges, I received two scholarship offers that would be impossible to refuse: one from Fresno State, and one from Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo. I was still set on UC Davis, but my dad decided we had to go on tours of the schools. Now, I already felt angry; I realized that I only had two choices now that made sense. There was Cal Poly with a scholarship that was practically a full ride, and there...