Furry little roomates

When I started my college search, the main thing I looked at was whether or not schools allowed their students to have pets. Now this may seem strange, but you have to understand that I am very attached to my cat, also known as "The Baby". She is great, and you all would love her too if you had the pleasure of knowing her. Back to the college search. So I had heard that Tufts was a good school and when I found out that a speaker was visiting my high school, I decided to attend.

I sat and listened to how great Tufts was for about forty-five minutes, after which the speaker asked if there were any questions. I sat through everyone's questions about majors, the activities available at Tufts, and the school's study abroad options before raising my hand and asking if students were allowed to have pets in their dorms.

"No," she replied, "are there any other questions?"

I raised my hand again. "No pets at all?" I asked. "What about fish?"

"Okay," she said. "Fish are allowed. Turtles and frogs are okay, things like that. Basically, you can have anything you keep in a tank. Any other questions?"

This seemed like good news for The Baby, so I raised my hand again. "So, what if I were to put my cat in a tank? Would that be allowed?"

"No. There are no cats allowed at Tufts." This lady seemed extremely bitter, I am pretty sure she had some traumatic feline experience at some point in her life.

I really liked the sounds of Tufts, but I was not quite ready to give up on the idea of taking The Baby with me. My next question was what would happen to you if the administration found out that you had snuck a cat into your dorm. Would they kick you out, or just your pet? If I tried to sneak The Baby in and was unsuccessful, I would not mind flying her home to Oregon and returning to school. However, if they just kicked The Baby out on the streets by herself, or confiscated her (which would be evil), I would probably cry for the rest of my life.

The woman never directly answered my question. She just recommended that I not try it and eventually kicked me out of her presentation. That was pretty rude, considering that I was not messing around or anything, I honestly wanted answers to the questions. Luckily, I had not filled out her little postcard, so she was unable to warn the admissions office not to accept me, like she probably wanted to. I could write an entirely different viewpoint on how mean that lady was and why Tufts should work on not allowing bitter people to represent their school.

Anyway, a few more months into my college search, I had narrowed it down to my top two choices. One was Tufts, the other was this random marine biology school in Florida. I hate Florida and I hate biology. I have no interest spending the rest of my life in the ocean, mostly because sharks scare me, and I think I would get cold even if I was wearing one of those wetsuits, which by the way are sweet. But the Florida school had one major advantage: they allowed pets. The ocean does not sound as bad when I picture The Baby right there next to me, in a teeny snorkel mask and flippers. So for a long time I debated between the two schools. But after having my best friend telling me over and over again, "Stephie, I will not let you plan your life around that cat," I decided I should suck it up and say good-bye to The Baby.

So I did, and here I am at Tufts. I was, however, incredibly close to becoming a marine biologist. My point in all this is that Tufts should allow students to keep pets -- or at least cats -- in their dorms. Even now, as next year's freshmen are applying to colleges, Tufts could be losing valuable potential students who cannot bear to leave their pets behind.

There is no real problem with having pets in our dorms anyway. They should just add another question onto that roommate questionnaire: "Yes or No- are you allergic to cat hair?" My RA, (although he is a big fan of The Baby,) informed me that having pets in the dorms presents health issues, but it really does not. There just needs to be a requirement that cats are up-to-date on their immunizations. Students can get their meningococcal shots and then go get rabies vaccines for their cats. If Tufts is really concerned about the roommates of students with pets, they could designate one dorm that pets would be allowed in.

It is not like they do a great job matching people up, anyway. I happen to love my roommate, but this girl in my hall told me, "I had to request a roommate transfer at the beginning of the year -- she was a chain smoker and I am allergic." How did the questionnaire miss that match-up? Besides, no one would turn down living with The Baby; she is way too cute.

So basically, I think that Tufts should reverse their pet policy for the sake of kids like me and cats like The Baby. I am just one girl but this is what I know: If I ever get to fill out one of those Princeton Review surveys on how much I like my school, I know that when I get to the "overall quality of life" section, I will choose that I am "somewhat satisfied" and not "extremely satisfied." Now, that would be partially because Dewick just does not have fried chicken as often as it should, and partially because there are way too many slutty girls on this campus. Mostly, however, it would be because Tufts (like most other things,) just is not the same without The Baby.

Stephanie Schnur is a freshman who has yet to declare a major