Welcome Home!

When I was in third grade I told my mother that I wanted to go to the University of Notre Dame. I remember going to meetings at age 13 about what it took to get in - that's how bad I wanted it. I knew everything it took and used this knowledge to my advantage. Notre Dame will not accept someone merely because they get a good score on the SAT, it takes so much more.

I told everyone I talked to, new friends and old friends, that I would be attending the University of Notre Dame. The response was almost ALWAYS THE SAME: "Wow, isn't that school hard to get into? Don't you have to be really smart?" They would wish me good luck in a "you really need it" tone. I never let this sway me.

Before every football game, Notre Dame would play a commercial showing a girl taking "the letter" out of her mailbox. I CRIED EVERY TIME (because I could FEEL - with so much intensity - how I would feel when I came to that day).

When it came time to apply I was more stressed out than I had ever been in my life, but I still continued to tell people that I would be going there. Sometimes a thought would creep into my head saying, "What if I've been telling everyone that I'm going there and then I don't get in?" Every time I'd stop and say, "NO, I will not let myself think these thoughts." And I would continue to imagine and to feel the feelings of coming home and seeing the letter sitting on the table.

On March 28, 2008, I got a call from my step-father telling me that I had to come home, "RIGHT NOW". When I got home I saw the letter and felt every feeling that I had felt previously in my mind - only magnified. The letter said, "Welcome Home".

I have never wanted anything more in my entire life. I have never KNOWN something more intensely. I KNEW that Notre Dame was the place for me, was my home (I guess God, The Universe, knew too).

Rachel (Indiana)