When I tell people that I only applied to one college, their face usually pales and their eyes become as big as saucers. “Why Michigan State?” They ask me, to which I respond, “ Michigan State feels like home.”

From the moment I stepped onto the campus of Michigan State, I felt a strange sense of comfort and familiarity. I felt as if I somehow belonged in the thicket of colorful leaves that had fallen from the trees; as if I was supposed to be walking with the prong of students sprouting the variety of Green and White Spartan gear. Michigan State has ability to engulf you; it has a welcoming presence that seems to surround you the moment your foot touches the spartan soil.

Now, my family has always been huge Michigan Fans. We were the family with the big blue and yellow signs wavering in our front yard, screaming at our television for our beloved Wolverines to win. Since I was little, I had always yearned to go to Michigan. I wanted nothing more than to get accepted into the highly-esteemed college; I had spent almost the entirety of my high-school career packing my transcript with AP Classes and ensuring that my grades were up to par. It was as if I had spent the last couple years of my life perfecting my standardized test scores and joining numerous extracurriculars just so I could go to Michigan. Just so I could go to the school I had been rooting for my entire life. However, something changed in my senior year. I realized that while Michigan had top academics and was deemed one of the best in the country, I just couldn’t bring myself to apply. I didn’t want to go to Michigan simply because of the prestigious title and acclaim that the school offered. I wanted to spend the next four years of my life somewhere that I loved- and that happened to be in East Lansing rather than In Ann Arbor. This past year- I realized Michigan State was where I belonged.

These past couple of weeks, I have watched the horror on all my friends faces as they filled out application after application. I have watched their panicked expressions as they race to beat the deadlines. A sense of both relief yet terror rushed over me as I watched all of my friends applying for colleges. Alleviation in the sense that I had already filled out my one application and no longer have the thought of deadlines and applications lingering over my head. But fear in the sense that my future is now set in stone. The single application to Michigan State made things a little more permanent- at that moment, I knew exactly where I would be living next September.

When the end of the school years rolls around and the air becomes a little stickier, the end of my journey at Forest Hills Central will soon become a reality. I will be trading in my green and white Ranger sweatshirts for my green and white Spartan ones. While I will be leaving the familiar walls of FHC behind,