Why College X - Wild Card College

Haverford is my wild card college: the college on my list that I barely knew anything about a year ago and that I didn’t really understand the appeal of until I visited. Coming from a big public school that I’ve loved, I wasn’t considering any of the “small schools,” but I found myself agreeing to visit when my Dad’s best friend, a Haverford grad, offered to spend an afternoon showing me around. As we wandered the campus and I heard his stories of his time in college, I realized that much to my surprise, Haverford is everything I want a college to be. It is a place defined by its intimate community. A place where I will be in small classes and develop close relationships with professors, instead of sitting in a huge lecture hall with hundreds of other students listening to a professor who knows none of us. A place where students like and support each other and no one is left out. A place where everyone knows everyone, and together at Plenary we make decisions about how our community is governed. So even though I always thought I was a “big school” kind of guy, Haverford is my wild card college. Go figure.