On Moving to Scotland (How and Why I Moved Halfway Around the World): Part Two

I had missed the application deadline for the following autumn, but I was so enamoured with St Andrews, still sight unseen, that I decided to wait a year to apply. I spent the following year working, saving money, and writing and rewriting my personal essay for college applications. I even brushed up on my math skills and re-sat the SAT to get the best score I possibly could before sending in my application. I applied for other universities, too, both in the US and the UK, thanks to the UCAS 5-for-1 system, which was a lot more affordable than the system in the US. 

St Salvator's Quad at the University of St Andrews

I don’t think I’ve ever been prouder of myself than when I received my acceptance email from the University of St Andrews, complete with the confetti animation—congratulations! I had done it; I had been accepted into my top university. Still, it seemed like the smart thing to do to wait until my other decisions came in to make anything official. When they did, more confetti emails and mailed welcome packets from universities at home and abroad, some with weighty scholarships attached, I felt almost disappointed.

That wasn’t the way I was supposed to feel, I knew that. But I understood it. Now I had a decision to make. I had to triple verify that St Andrews was the right university for me.

I have never been good at making decisions, and this was no exception. I spent a lot of time mulling it over, wrestling with it on long walks by myself, weighing the pros and cons. Did I really want to go so far away for four years? Wasn’t St Andrews one of the more expensive options? What about the colleges with better creative writing programmes? Deep down, I knew the decision I wanted to make, but something told me that it was too good to be true. What if I wasn’t cut out for St Andrews? Would I even like it as much as I thought I would?

My mom and I even flew to Boston to visit the college that would have been my second choice. In the airport on the way home, I confessed I didn’t think it was right for me. Over the weekend, I had met other prospective students and even been given the opportunity to sit in the back of an English class. The professor teaching the class asked a simple question about a famous author, and one of the students raised her hand. “Why do I need to know that?” she asked. “I mean, how is that relevant to my writing today?”

It was a liberal arts school, a classroom full of eager writers. I wanted to write, too, but I couldn't imagine having no interest in learning from past masters. How was I supposed to know what to emulate, what needed changing? How was I supposed to learn the rules so I could break them? And I didn’t just want to write. I wanted to read, process, and write about what I was reading. 

There are so many ways of learning, so many paths to success, but I knew this wasn’t mine. As long as I was learning in a classroom, at least, I wanted to be progressing academically, filling my head with new perspectives and new information, or I knew I would wonder why I was there at all.

On the plane ride home, I sat by a man who lived in Boston but who had been born and raised in Scotland. We talked about the importance of place. I couldn’t put my finger on why, but I didn’t feel I belonged in Boston. It was a city I loved visiting, but I couldn’t imagine myself living in. My new friend told me he had moved for work, and that he missed Scotland every day.

I told him that was a coincidence: I was trying to decide between universities between Scotland and the East Coast. When I told him which university in Scotland, he told me I would be a fool not to go.

So I talked to my parents. We figured out the costs. While the international fees do not make St Andrews cheap, I was amazed to discover that one American university I was considering was more expensive than going to St Andrews, including the travel fees, despite the generous scholarship I’d been granted.

So eventually it felt inevitable, and as soon as I made the decision I felt as light and as joyful as they day I received the acceptance email. I couldn’t believe I had ever doubted that I would go to St Andrews.

Getting a student visa was reasonably straightforward, considering I had sponsorship from St Andrews, but it was an expensive and lengthy process. When my family left to visit my grandparents in Costa Rica, I waited at home for the government to return my passport.

In September, I prepared to go back to the UK, this time to Scotland.

My time at university wasn’t always easy. Unlike my experience at Capernwray, it took almost a full semester to find my friend group. When I returned home for Christmas, I felt strangely out of the loop, like I was missing out. I wondered if my family needed me closer. In March, my semester was unexpectedly cut short by the arrival of Covid. I returned to the United States when my accommodation shut down and classes moved online. The following autumn I returned, only to get stuck back in the US when I travelled home for Christmas.

Like most people, I had my fair share of drama with friends, flatmates, dating, and assignment stress, and until I had close friends this side of the Atlantic, I spent days counting down the hours until my friends in North America were awake and we could talk.

Nevertheless, I have never doubted my decision to go to St Andrews. From the town to the university itself, I have always felt right at home, even with the time lost to Covid. And although it took me a while to find them, I know the friends I made at university are friends for life. This post barely scratches the surface of my time at St Andrews, let alone in Scotland, and I’ll leave the rest for a third part later this month, but know that whatever emotions I have experienced here, the underlying constant is gratefulness.

Since graduating, I’ve had a few interesting conversations with acquaintances who seem to think that no real work is required at St Andrews, that no real skills are taught, and that I was only accepted because my parents could afford to send me. To an extent, I think this has something to do with what I realised at the university in Boston, that different people have different interests and learning styles, and what works for me might not work for someone else and vice versa. But I think it has more to do with bitterness around places like St Andrews and the privilege that exists there.

I welcome conversations like this because I appreciate the perspective. Like most generalisations, there is some truth in it. There are people who abuse their privilege, who put in less work than they should and leave with fewer skills than they ought who still succeed because of their family money and connections.

But I can tell you that there are also students running on nothing but ambition and faith, students on scholarships who spend long hours in the library and sacrifice sleep to work two jobs, support friends, volunteer, maintain extracurricular responsibilities, get their work done, and do it well. There are also students who speak five languages and complete their degree in a language not their first.

Mostly, though, there are students like me. The truth is, I couldn’t have gone to St Andrews without the emotional, physical, and financial support of my parents: that much is abundantly clear. While I would probably call myself middle class, I was fortunate to grow up in a wealthy area where I was able to take advantages of the privileges that living there naturally afforded. I know that my family and my upbringing were instrumental in leading me to St Andrews, and I want to acknowledge that privilege.

But I also worked hard to get to St Andrews. I worked hard in high school, studied a lot to achieve the SAT scores I needed, and spent months perfecting my applications. I also worked for a year before university, as well as summers and sometimes part-time during the semester. I worked hard to get the most out of St Andrews, too, from my marks to extracurriculars and internships. At times, it’s been hard to be so far away from family and friends in North America. I want to acknowledge that, too.

All this to say, I loved my time at St Andrews and I will always be grateful for the opportunity I had to study there, as well as proud of the work I put in. Nearly seven years after I first started applying for universities, it strikes me as impossible that I could have gone anywhere else, but as I write this, I realise how many things had to fall into place for my life to turn out the way it has. So maybe there’s an element of luck—or fate, or God—there, too.