---
title: "Decisions"
description: "Weighing university options from Poland to Stanford, and discovering Gavin James and MAX."
date: "2020-03-11"
---

As you may already know, I'm a junior in high school, which means I'll have to choose a college soon. So today I took my time and checked universities in my country, in Europe, and I also looked at Stanford University. Having done that, I've come to some conclusions.

Firstly, I would love to study in the US, especially in California. But if I wanted to accomplish that, I'd have to start working on my GPA (which is not the best right now — 3.40) and prepare for the SAT. Secondly, I couldn't find any university in Europe (excluding the UK) that would suit me best, and I don't want to go study abroad just for the sake of it. If I went abroad, I'd want to study at a prestigious university that is respected globally.

Poland has some pretty good universities, but they rank very low in both world and European rankings. So I have to decide now, because there's a lot to do. If I choose Stanford, I'll have to ask teachers for recommendation letters, write a personal essay, and register for the SAT in Poland. Fortunately, Stanford doesn't require TOEFL.

The biggest problem is my GPA. I kind of messed up my grades during my freshman year and I can't change those anymore — they're pulling my GPA down. To hit a 4.0, I'd need to get top marks in Math, Physics, Spanish, and Polish. Maybe not all of it, but Math will definitely be the hardest. I'm not really worried about the SAT though — I did a mock one a few months ago and it went pretty well. The Math section was actually the easiest part.

I'll have to do more research on European universities. Maybe something will catch my eye.

On a completely different note: since last week I've been listening to Gavin James and MAX (also known as Max Schneider). I find Gavin's music very soothing, especially his album *Only Ticket Home*. I used to listen to MAX through Kurt Hugo Schneider's covers. Kurt also makes great music — if you haven't listened to him yet, go check him out. You might like it.

I think this is all for now. See ya sometime in the future!
