Since the target audience of this blog is prospective students and their families, I’ll try to use this page to give you a decent overview of my own road to Cornell.

So, how does a band geek from North Texas end up in New York studying at the best Hotel School in the world? Well, after applying to 13 schools around the country to study everything from music to journalism, I decided to apply to my dad’s alma mater, the Cornell Hotel School. I love food, people, and hospitality, so why not? Plus, it would certainly make old pops happy. After sending in part of my application, I scheduled my interview and flew up to Ithaca (minus the parents) and stayed overnight at the Statler Hotel (the “teaching” hotel that is physically attached to the Hotel School). Every person I met there was unbelievably warm and friendly and willing to offer all kinds of advice and help– they seemed to know before I even opened my mouth that I was a prospective student. Sidenote: I know now, after being at Cornell for 2 years, that pre-frosh stick out like a sore thumb– but we love them. I’m not even paid to say that.

Anyway, you know how they say that when you set foot on the college campus that’s right for you, you just sort of… know? Well, that was it. With the Hotel School, I just kind of… knew.

Suffice it to say, I fell in love with Cornell after that visit to Ithaca. Ok, perhaps this was not just love, this was an obsession that actually led me to withdraw my binding early decision application to another university in hopes of a Hotel School acceptance. I knew after my visit that Hospitality was the only thing I wanted to do. I got in, it was fabulous but sort of embarrassing when I walked out into my high school parking lot after class to find that my mother and her friends had spent the afternoon decorating my car with red and white streamers and sticking packs of Big Red gum to the windows. And now I’m here and I’m a senior. Oh my god, I’m so old.