Chloe

03/09/2020 1:01 AM

Bradley wasn’t even on my list when I first started looking at colleges which is crazy to think back to since now I can’t even imagine my life without Bradley. I wanted to play college soccer and go to school on the west coast somewhere close to home. My parents both went to Bradley so I applied through the CommonApp to make them happy and that was as far as I had planned to go on that, appease the parents and move on.

A few months later, my parents had me come and look at Bradley. I did an overnight with a girl that was a current freshman. I got to experience the dorms that night and see what it was really like being a Bradley student for an evening. The following day we met back up with our parents and I told my mom all about the amazing night I had had (reluctantly though because I didn’t want her to get her hopes up). That day was one of the admitted senior visit days and my mom and I were attending it, which is something I HIGHLY recommend you do. At this event, I got to see even more of what Bradley was like and could potentially have to offer. While I was at the visit day we ate in the dining halls while our parents ate elsewhere. We got a chance to talk to other students without them around and experience the dining halls all in one. While I was eating lunch, I ended up sitting by this really sweet girl and talked to her the whole time we were there. We realized we had the same interests, the same potential major and the same lifestyle habits such as sleep and noise level, etc. so we decided that if we both ended up coming here that we would be roommates.

When we got back to our parents after lunch there was a huge activities fair with all sorts of Bradley related clubs and things to see that I could potentially get involved in if this is where I ended up. My mom asked me how lunch went and I told her “as much as I don’t want to do this because I want to be my own person and not just like you and dad, I REALLY wanna go to Bradley.” and that was that. I ended up at Bradley all because I came to a visit day, did an overnight and got to see what Bradley was really all about. After three years here, I can say without a doubt that I am my own person and on this campus, it is easy to get involved in so many different ways that it would have almost been harder for me to follow exactly what my parents had done.

When I think back to the day I decided to become a Bradley Brave, I think about how grateful I am that I took the time to visit the campuses of the schools I was looking at. If I hadn’t visited Bradley I can say with high levels of confidence that I wouldn’t be here and I am thankful every day for the time I have here. Since you guys are at that time in your college search, I want to emphasize wherever it may be, no matter what you think you know, go visit the schools you are looking at and try and figure out what feels right. At the end of the day, college is an experience and you want wherever you end up for the next four years to feel right and feel like home.