By Anna Mefford
This past Thursday, on a day off to recognize the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, some Lovett students got way out ahead of the college process by touring schools in the fall of their junior year. Other students, like me, decided to take a more relaxed route and not leave their room all day.
Six of those ambitious juniors included Addison Cunningham, Ridley Sands, Austin Stevens, Griffin Brogan, and Wix Windom, who all headed to Auburn.
While some of them, such as Ridley Sands, went because “Auburn is very close and it would be a quick day trip,” others such as Griffin Brogan went because “Auburn is the goal,” he said.
They traveled to Auburn Wednesday night and met up to get dinner together. The next morning they took separate tours of the campus. All of them agreed that “the Auburn campus is absolutely beautiful,” said Addison Cunningham.
This tour seemed to change some of the students’ minds about Auburn as the school was not originally at the top of their lists.
Austin Steven said that “after touring Thursday, Auburn has definitely moved up on my list,” to which Wix Windom added, “Yeah same. The town is super cool.”
Just out of curiosity, I wondered what the students’ number one colleges were right now. To my minimal surprise, 4 out of the 5 said Georgia, which junior Mason Bosworth decided to visit that Thursday.
Mason has always liked Georgia. Still, she calls herself a “fake fan because none of my family members have gone to Georgia and I mainly just cheer for them because I live in Atlanta.” For a “fake fan,” she can real cheer for those dawgs.
Unlike those who visited Auburn, Mason did not spend the night in Athens, rather she just went for the day with her mom. They started their day with a bus tour around the campus, then grabbed lunch, then ended the tour by walking around the town and visiting some unused classrooms.
“I have always loved Georgia but now I really really want to go after that tour,” she said.
Junior Frannie Berry decided to take a very different route from all the other students and go visit the University of Tennessee.
“I know UTK is not super popular at Lovett but at my old school everyone went, similarly to Georgia,” she said.
Frannie traveled to Knoxville Wednesday night, visited some old family friends, and then spent most of her Thursday walking around the campus.
“I would not necessarily say that I was blown away from the tour but UTK is still top 3 on my list,” she said.
She added how the campus is obviously pretty but it is in an urban area so it was very “city life,” she said.
If you haven’t visited any schools and are wondering if you’re behind the eight ball, I talked to college counselor Mr. Albano who said that visits any time during junior year are helpful and strongly suggests we do at least one tour.
“Even if you don’t know what you want to do…big school, small school, private, public, far from home, close, etc…getting on a college campus helps make some of that clear,” he said. It can be a way to narrow things down a bit.
For students who might not get the chance to tour colleges junior year, Mr. Albano suggests looking at Amazon Prime’s TV series, “The College Tour.” Over twelve seasons, the show explores schools all over the country and can help students get a look into different colleges and college life.
For at least five juniors, their in-person explorations led them to come in wearing some new college merch that they had evidently purchased the day before on their visits on their visits.
“Gotta rep Auburn after that tour to manifest it,” Griffin Brogan said.
