College

I've been going through the Rotary and visa application materials trying to find documentation that we need for college registration. Both kids' vaccination cards misplaced themselves but, of course, it will be on Chloe's Rotary application. Except it's not: It's the only part of the application that is blank. I have copious copies of every document I put my hands on during that time (many of them useless) and I can't find the damn immunization record or the application copy with that section filled out. Now I vaguely remember having to call the school to get her record faxed to me in order to complete the Rotary application. Except they don't have it, either, so I have to try to catch the school nurse on the one day a week she's at school. If she doesn't have it Chloe will be getting two measles shots in the next several months.

Chloe was accepted to the schools she applied to, even St. Andrews in Scotland. So much for "warm and dry." Living in St Andrews will be wetter, colder, darker, and windier than here, which is plenty wet, cold, dark, and windy. But she'll be a quick discount-airlines flight away from warm and dry. She's certain that the English spoken and written in Scotland is enough of a foreign language for her while attending university classes.

Our plan was that she wouldn't get accepted there and even if she did we couldn't afford it so she wouldn't be able to go, but hey, what the heck. What the heck indeed. Acceptance has exposed our plan for the folly that it was, so we have a new plan. She's going to Western Washington University next year while we spend the year trying to figure out how to make St. Andrews work for four years after that. If we could afford to send her there now, we would, but she's really not ready to leave again (she's really enjoyed her year back here) and a year spent a few hours away from home will be good preparation for four more years abroad.

Most of what I've read about college admissions is that it's a crap shoot, especially if you're an above average but not outstanding student. One college admissions officer said he'd rather read an entrance essay that explained what the applicant learned about people while working in a neighborhood grocery store than how the applicant learned all about diversity when he spent the summer in Panama building a school. I agree, but there's no doubt that Chloe's year in Spain was a factor in her college acceptance. Her essays mentioned her experience and how it opened her eyes to other cultures, but also how she dispelled some myths about her culture to the people she met in her host country. And probably reinforced some - now they know for certain that all Americans wear flip-flops year round, even - horrors - when they aren't at the pool.

All the paperwork associated with Chloe's exchange seems like it was prepared a lifetime ago. I'd forgotten the excitement when we found out where she was going. The many bureaucratic disappointments and frustrations along the way. The realization that this was going to happen when we got the itinerary and plane tickets. Every part of the exchange-student experience, from the application to the initial rejection to the return home, has made the prospect of attending university in another country viable. Many people, when they hear that Chloe's planning to go to school in Scotland are surprised. Because of last year, we aren't. Why not? What is so magical about borders that we're surprised when people cross them?