After careful consideration, prospective student chooses Willamette ‘because they have more kale’

By Lee L. Benbow

It’s that time of the year again: tour season. Hundreds of prospective students visit the campus, and a solid handful choose to spend the night as well. Ellie Huff is one of the students who decided to spend the night. The high-school senior from the Bay Area traveled up to the Pacific Northwest in order to tour a decent amount of small liberal arts colleges. Though she enjoyed her experience, Huff ultimately chose Willamette, because an in-depth analysis revealed they had more kale in their dining hall.

Huff described her visit as amazing. It drizzled all 17 hours she was on campus, and she was lucky enough to experience a classic college moment of the fire alarm going off at approximately 11:30 p.m. Despite a couple dampers on the evening, a catered meal and Diversions chai left Huff impressed and feeling like there was a chance that she could make Puget Sound her home for 3 1/2 years (she plans on studying abroad).

The Flail caught up with Huff the day after her night at the Puge to see if spending extra time on college helped at all with making a decision. “I had a pretty good experience; my host was sweet and the a capella groups were most definitely talented,” Huff said. She sounded excited but there was a look of pure indecisive fear deep in her eyes.

Her host, current sophomore Jenna Dunne, shared that they had a pleasant time together: “I felt like we had a really good time, and she wore Smartwools and listened to a band I’d never heard of so I figured she was for sure going here.” This information was swayed when shortly after, Huff’s parents added to the narrative: “Ellie is pretty scared of going so far away, but the lawns are so beautiful,” her mother Susan said.

It has now been two weeks since Huff’s night at the University of Puget Sound. The Flail caught up with her via Skype to see how the process was going. She said that she had toured about nine schools and they were starting to all blur together as time passed. However, she did add, “Willamette had the most kale in their dining hall, so I’ll most likely go there.” After hearing this, the admissions counselors ran over to the Metropolitan Market, purchased all the kale in stock and promptly added it to the salad bar in hopes of not being out-kaled by any small liberal arts school in the Northwest region of the United States of America ever again.