Still somewhat confused

Wow, I'm still confused about college decisions. So I thought I was sure where I wanted to go, as I sounded in my last post. Yet, after a college fair on Monday and talking to my teacher, I x-ed out all of the colleges. Oberlin is extremely liberal, and they just hired on this creepy Anrew Lloyd Weber creepo-alike composer. Plus, they're in the middle of a cornfield, and that means I wouldn't have too many performance opportunities. Peabody said that it's really difficult to get Leon Fleisher as a teacher bc he doesn't like teaching freshman because he's constantly gone, and you don't get lessons every week with him, and when you do get lessons, you get group lessons. And the only reason I wanted to go there was to get him as a teacher. So I x-ed that. Then my teacher told me she knew someone's son who went to Juilliard who dropped out after his first year to go work at McDonald's because they pushed him so hard that he basically learned to hate cello. So I x-ed that because I get discouraged really easily by people, and that wouldn't be a very good environment for me. I x-ed out the Cleveland Institute because their faculty didn't look so great. So now I've prayed about everything and talked to my parents once again about everythin (I really don't know how they have patience with me constantly going back and forth) and I think I'm going to apply to the Manhattan School of Music, Mannes School of Music, Colburn School of Music, and Westminster Choir college. The positive about Mannes, the Manhattan School, and Colburn is that they are all solely music schools, no dance, theatre, etc. The positive about Westminster is that it apparently has a good reputation, and the acceptance rate is 75%. However, as of right now, my first choice is the Manhattan school, because they seem to have alot of fun, yet wholesome activities to do. Like, the first day you get there, they take you on a cruise across the Manhattan Island, they have a few formals, and they are in NYC, which means they offer a bajillion of performance opportuinities (although Mannes is in NYC too, and Westminster choir college isn't too far from NYC either...it's in Princeton, NJ). Then I'd probably say that Colburn is my second choice, or maybe even tied with Manhattan. If you get in, the tuition, room and board are all free. It's in the middle of LA/Hollywood, which means there are lots of performance opportunities, not to mention a bajillion things to do and places to go and all. Then Mannes probably comes in third. And I'm not even sure if I'll apply there because I only have until November 15 to submit the prescreening cd. Then Westminster comes in fourth, because their acceptance rate is the lowest, but it looks like a great school because you have a huge emphasis in developing your voice as well as whatever instrument you play. So I'm sorta thankful for the new bunch of schools because I think it's better than me going for the top right away. And I have Westminster that I can ALMOST bank on, Manhattan and Mannes that I think I could PROBABLY get into, and Colburn which is a reach school (they have like a 10% acceptance rate....last year they only accepted four pianists :/). Plus, they're all in huge cities, or near huge cities. And that's something I also wanted. So all though the process was a bit confusing, I'm very thankful that the Lord has led me to look at these other colleges. Later,
Rachel