And the verdict is...

I tell you it's been a long school year of law school applications and decisions with a lot of waiting in between. It's been quite the process. Anyhow, it seemed that things just started falling in and out of place this week.

We had our choices narrowed down to Ohio State, The U, and BYU (even though we still haven't heard back from them). Then on Monday we found out that there was no way we could get an increase in student loans at Ohio without lying and saying we were sending our kids or day care. Pretty much it just took Ohio off the list. It was actually sad and surprising to me, as I really thought we would "go away" for school. Not to be, however.

Monday and Tuesday began the serious debate whether to wait it out for BYU or accept the scholarship offer we'd been given at the U. We have until Friday to accept the scholarship (it's actually not much money, but something). Accepting means we make a binding decision to attend their school. We could reject the scholarship and still leave ourselves open to going there, but we would not likely be able to get the money back, or be considered for more money. By accepting the scholarship, we make ourselves available for the second round of scholarship offers and hopefully will get more. But because it's binding, we have to withdraw from every other school we have an open application at (which still included BYU, Ohio, WASHU, Alabama, and Georgia).

Seriously, this has been a stressful few days. After much (MUCH) debate, prayer, study, and deliberation, we have decided to accept the scholarship and go to the University of Utah. Whabam.

This means we have withdrawn our application at BYU and will never know if they would have let us in (I have my doubts). The good news is: we are staying in Utah! And we will be attending a good school (ranked 42nd--equal, actually, with BYU). It has a lot of good clinics and programs, produces a fair amount of clerkships, has good job placement (particularly in Utah, but also outside of Utah). It is in a place neither of us have lived, so will still be somewhat of an adventure, but close enough that we'll still get to see lots of family and friends. And I must say I am thrilled at the prospect of getting to go the Salt Lake Temple regularly.

You know, from the start I told Jeremy we would end up going to a law school that we least expected. That's the way these things usually work, isn't it?

At least for me, that is how I feel like the final decision turned out. While the University of Utah has always been on our list, I never actually thought we would end up there.Being a true blue BYU fan myself, and loving little Provo, I was sure that if we stayed in Utah, it would not be at Utah.

But now that the decision is made, I'm actually really excited about it. And extremely relieved that the decision is finally (FINALLY) made. Hooray!