Johannah's College Decision

*deep breath*

I've been sitting at my computer for a while now, trying to figure out exactly how to start this post.  Let's see if we can get things rolling.

Something John and I have tried to teach our kids from the beginning is that you never know what the Lord's will is; you just need to accept it and "go with the flow".  From Ohio, to Germany, to Pennsylvania, John and I have just trusted in the Lord that he needs us in the places where he sends us.  I personally am not always very happy with where we end up, but I can't deny that it's exactly where we are supposed to be.

I firmly believe that the Lord has very specific paths for my children to walk down throughout their lives.  If they are sensitive to the Spirit, they will go where the Lord wants them to go, and it will be the best thing for them.  That being said, it's certainly not always the easiest thing.  Sometimes the Lord sends us places where we can grow the most (*cough cough* Pennsylvania), or he sends us to places that we don't necessarily want to go.

For two reasons, I have long been worried about Johannah and her college choice.  First, she plays a string instrument.  In the grand scheme of an orchestra, stringed instruments are the most competitive.  Second, most of the kids playing strings have held an instrument in their hands since they were three years old, and Johannah began at age seven.  So, unless the Lord forced children who are Johannah's age to pick non-stringed instruments, or unless he forced them to delay beginning the instrument, it was going to be a tricky battle for Johannah to find a college that would give her a lot of money.

Okay, a third reason.  I like to plan ahead, and I have known for years that in the Fall of 2014, our Kennedy family would have three, yes THREE, children in college at once.  Knowing that we would be receiving no financial awards from the government, this was going to be a very pricey time in our lives.  Pricey, and painful.

So, as Johannah finished up her junior year in high school, I knew we were in for a wild ride.  However, in the front of our minds was always the idea that the Lord had a very specific plan for Johannah and her life.

Last summer, Johannah was encouraged to apply to the Academy at Interlochen, a boarding school for high school kids.  The viola teacher at Interlochen saw a lot of promise in Hannie's playing, and thought she would be a great fit for the school and the viola program.  I personally was over the roof at the offer--I felt that if Johannah could attend the Academy, she would have the "edge" over the competition in applying to music schools.  It really is a guarantee of acceptance and money offers.

Try as we might, we couldn't get the school down to a price that we could afford.  The tuition was along the same lines as private, or out-of-state schools.  I wondered at times if we just needed to pay the tuition and view it as an investment, seeing that she could get full tuition scholarships to schools.  While there at Interlochen, I fasted for it all to happen--it just seemed the answer that we needed.  I assumed my fast would be accepted to the Lord, and that a reasonable offer would be made to us.

The night of my fast, I was folding clothes and thinking hard about it all.  Into my mind came the feeling of peace, and I heard a voice saying, "Just have patience.  It will all work out."  I could hardly remain standing, because the voice had been so clear.  I knew that I had heard the Spirit, and I knew that the Lord understood my worries.  I had no doubt that Hannah would be able to attend the Academy.

Wrong.  The school never came down on the price while we were there, and after we had returned home from camp, we never got a phone call saying that the school was willing to take less.  I honestly couldn't understand what had happened, and more importantly why.  When the professor had approached us, we assumed that it was a bit of destiny.  The fact that Hannah felt good about it immediately made us think that it was more destiny.  And the voice?  I couldn't see why that would happen.  I was extremely disappointed.

Thankfully, the teacher at Interlochen was still willing to help us find some good possibilities for Johannah.  In fact, she made some phone calls to teachers at different schools and got us in the door.  We spent the Fall of 2013 visiting as many music schools as we could, narrowing down the choices.  There's just so much to consider:  the teacher is probably the biggest factor, and the music program is a close second.  The living environment is important for us as members of our church, and the local church congregation?  It can be the linchpin.

Johannah narrowed down her choices to five:  The University of Michigan, The University of Illinois, Baldwin Wallace Conservatory, Penn State University and Brigham Young University.  She really only wanted to attend the first three on the list, with Penn State and BYU being her "back up" schools.  Penn State held the first audition of the audition season, and she thought it would be good practice, and every Kennedy child is required to apply to BYU because of the price. Johannah could hardly wait to hit the "DECLINE" button for BYU as soon as she was accepted, because of the miserable experience she had had at the summer music festival the summer before.

I would love to go into detail about each of these schools, and why they were attractive to Johannah, but in the end it doesn't really matter.

Despite being offered $80,000 from Illinois, $60,000 from Baldwin Wallace and $20,000 from Penn State, Johannah will be attending BYU in the Fall.  It seems to be that BYU is the place where the Lord wants her.

I'm not going to lie.  This has been a much more difficult decision for me than for her, and yet at the same time, I'm the one that made it all happen.

Something interesting happened along the way for Johannah (that didn't happen for Mark or Ethan):  she couldn't make a decision about where she should go.  Literally.  It was coming down to just two weeks before the deadline, and she didn't have any idea about where she should go.  In fact, she would finally make a decision (picking Penn State the second week of April), and then she would attend the viola studio recital and realize that she had worked too long and too hard to be in a studio with such low expectations.  She had chosen Baldwin Wallace at some point, only to speak with someone from the Cleveland area who brazenly told us "you won't like it there".

For me, it ultimately came down to the local LDS congregations.  Illinois was probably my favorite school of the five, and yet when we attended the local student branch, it was just a bunch of 20 misfits.  Thinking how alone Johannah has felt as a Mormon here in Pennsylvania, it pained me to think of her only having that small congregation to choose from as LDS friends at a very large university.  She has spent so much of her life feeling very alone in her choice of standards, or even who she will date, that I didn't want her to just extend that experience into college.

With only two weeks left, and no decision made, I had a very strong impression that we should actually consider BYU.  After all, we had considered every other school, and looked at them through a microscope.  Why not do the same with BYU?

I wrote Mark.  This might sound ridiculous, but he was the only person I know who has been through this same experience.  An LDS member looking for a good music school....who didn't feel the "one price fits all" mentality of BYU was for him.  We know Mormon kids who apply to music schools...and who don't apply to BYU at all, and we know Mormon kids who want to study music who only apply to BYU.  I don't know anyone like us...except Mark.

Mark's answer was divine.  He told us to consider BYU, and he gave Hannah a bunch of tips on how she could survive the insanely painful social scene.  An hour later, I was looking at the BYU website, trying to find a solution for Johannah.

The previous summer, Hannie had felt like a fish out of water.  She isn't tiny, she doesn't wear maxi dresses, and she doesn't subscribe to the surface-deep spirituality of many of the kids.  She was teased at the festival for her abilities by other violists, treated poorly by the viola professor, and she came home hating the school.  How in the world could this possibly be the school she was supposed to attend?

Without even trying, the Foreign Language Student Residence popped up on my computer screen.  Have you heard of it?  It's a complex of ten different language houses, living together.  Only 144 students in the whole place, and Monday through Thursday, the kids make dinner together and eat together--in fact, the students must sign a contract to be there for those days for dinner.  The German house was the obvious draw for Hannah.  I didn't even need to tell her to submit her application--she had it done by day's end, and within days, she received a phone call.  She was interviewed auf Deutsch by the head teacher in charge of the house.  He didn't even need to hang up with her before he was accepting her.

For Johannah, this answered a whole bunch of worries.  A more mature, more intelligent population of kids in a small environment.

The price?  A whole semester paid in what would be a month of tuition at any of the other schools.  Johannah worried about being so far from home, but John promised her that she could come home anytime she wanted--he'd pay for the plane ticket ;-)

You may then ask about the music program?  Having gone through it myself, the classes and the large music ensembles are excellent.  In fact, of the three schools I attended for undergrad, BYU was the best by far.

The final problem was the teacher.  For Johannah, this was the BIGGEST problem.  She couldn't imagine not studying with some of the other teachers at the other schools.  They had done everything to convince her to study with them, and she had developed very personal relationships with all of them..... but not the teacher at BYU.  In fact, that teacher is so used to having every kids she accepts come to BYU that she didn't even contact Johannah after Hannie was accepted.

Thankfully (and I mean that in a BIG way), we have invested years of time and study into Johannah's current viola teacher in Philadelphia.  I really can't stress enough the importance of the private teacher, if your child is going to study music.  Mrs. Fay contacted the teacher at BYU and had several good conversations with her.  In fact, it was these conversations that convinced the BYU teacher to accept Johannah.  Not the best way to go about things, but in all honesty, the teacher plays favorites.  Not living in Utah, we couldn't play the favorite card, so it required some elbow grease from Mrs. Fay.

I can't say that this idea is resolved in my mind, but it is in Johannah's....and in honestly, that's all that really matters.  If you know Hannah well, you know that she is extremely motivated.  If she sets her mind to something, she's like a bulldog--she won't let go.  Johannah has it in her mind that she can make this situation work, and because she has that mentality, I know that she will make it work.  She's an amazing individual, and this college-decision making process has been a refiner's fire for all of us.  I have no doubt that she will come out of it all emotionally stronger and closer spiritually to her Father in Heaven.

And that's all I need to know.

The day after Johannah made her decision, a miracle happened.  She went on a field trip to Pittsburgh with her science class, and was bombarded with bad language and bad stories full of innuendo on the bus ride.  Her main thought?  "Thank goodness I won't hear any of this at BYU!"  It was certainly validation of her choice.

I won't lie--I still wish she was going somewhere else.  I hate the whole Mormon culture out in Utah,
and it sickens me to think of my girl there.  Too, I hate the thought of people thinking, "Of COURSE she would go there.  Why wouldn't she?"  Let me tell you, folks, there are a whole heck of a lot of reasons that she wouldn't attend that school.   However, it once again comes down to the will of the Lord.  I can't deny that the pieces seemed to come together best at BYU.  It seems that Johannah didn't need to attend the Academy so that we could afford to pay tuition for her for college.  We found the best living situation of any college we visited.  She'll have a large selection of Mormons to find friends--she won't feel so alone anymore--and she'll have Ethan and Rebecca for a while.  Plus, I'm already helping her make plans to go to school during the summer months too so that she can high tail it out of there as soon as possible!

And you better believe I'll be making good on saving John tens of thousands of dollars over the coming years.  Hmmmm, should I fly Southwest, or Delta?