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When Vail Kohnert-Yount saw the admission e-mail from Northwestern in her inbox, she debated whether or not to grab her parents before clicking the fateful link.

“I remember thinking, ‘Well, it’s just Northwestern. If I get rejected, it’s not a big deal,’” Kohnert-Yount said. She opened the email by herself and saw a bold-lettered “Congratulations!” on the screen. While she quickly realized that her initial response to Northwestern was silly, Kohnert-Yount had yet to “fall in love” with the school, and hadn’t awaited its reply with as much anticipation as she did for letters from other colleges.

Kohnert-Yount’s good news from the Medill School of Journalism followed similar acceptances from the University of Texas, Wellesley, and Georgetown’s prestigious school of Foreign Service (where, she points out, Madeline Albright teaches). A deferment from Stanford’s early decision applications had come earlier.

After four acceptances and an acceptable deferment, the senior from Houston was feeling particularly pleased. Her mood shifted the following day, when she received rejections from Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, Columbia, and the University of Pennsylvania, as well as a wait listing from Brown.

“That was pretty harsh. I was kind of expecting to get in to at least one or two of those places, [and] I was really hoping for Stanford,” said Kohnert-Yount, a newspaper editor, soccer team captain, freelance journalist and D.C. intern when not a student at St. John’s School. “I cried for maybe seven and a half minutes … then I got over it. I’m so excited about the four of the other schools I got into.”

Kohnert-Yount is now faced with choosing between four very different college experiences. She has already ruled out Wellesley because she feared it wouldn’t give her a classic college experience. “If the guys at MIT are what you get excited about,” she said, then it wasn’t the place for her.

“Georgetown is kind of what I’m leaning toward right now,” Kohnert-Yount said. After interning for a Democratic congressman in Washington, D.C. last summer, she became familiar with the area. Kohnert-Yount is tempted by the Science, Technology, and International Affairs major. “Georgetown is a great fit for me,” she said.

But the politically minded senior has yet to pass judgment on Northwestern, a school she knows very little about. “It’s not a place where Houstonians flock to,” she said. Kohnert-Yount intends to visit soon and see for herself. In a car conversation, Kohnert-Yount recounts her mother saying, “I can’t think of a reason why you shouldn’t go to Northwestern. Besides the fact that it’s very very cold.”