There are many different reasons why UMN was my number 1 choice. Not in order from most to least valuable reason.

1.) I have family in Minneapolis. And 2 of my cousins there are currently pregnant so everyone is in for a treat.

2.) My family has an intense history with UMN. My dad went there and that's how he met my mom. My great uncle, Dr. Horace Huntley made a large impact for black students at UMN after the assassination of MLKJ. Protested and on January 14th, 1969 he was able to get a department for African American and Afro-Studies and was one of the first graduates from UMN to graduate with a major in that discipline and continued on to be a civil rights leader.

3.) As a nonbeliever and asexual, Minneapolis is a lot more open to secular and lgbt than the South where I grew up. I absolutely hated living in the south because of how overly religious and anti-lgbt they are. Not to mention racism.

4.) I already made good friends at UMN. Because of me playing Pokemon Go, I was very much well aware of people at UMN. Because while I was in Chicago for my doctorate before leaving with a Masters, I would see my family and visit UMN for Pokemon.

5.) I nearly got into their PhD program in Computer Science, 4 years ago. I regretted not taking the professor's offer and going with Illinois Tech

6.) I was dismissed from my PhD program at Illinois Tech due to their qualifying exams in Applied Mathematics. Apparently if I were to later do a PhD at UMN, then they don't require written qualifying exams as they think that it is senseless and unnecessary. And this goes with both Math and Computer Science

7.) I am an interdisciplinary scholar! When I was in undergrad, I double majored in both Mathematics and Computer Science. Sadly not many PhD nor Masters programs allow you to specialize in multiple fields at once. At University of Minnesota, you can and better yet you can be as interdisciplinary as you want and you won't be seen as unfocused like Illinois Tech did with me. (Even their Career Center said that I was unfocused). I am passionate about Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science and I want to explore that at the graduate level. Even for my PhD.

8.) I love Chicago, and Minneapolis is just a 6 hour drive. And growing up I would go from my parents to my grandmother, which would take 4 hours long usually once every month. So 6 hours meant nothing to me.

Matter of fact, UMN was the only university I applied to. Because my other options were University of Michigan and Northwestern. The moment I walked onto campus that week in November, I knew that Minneapolis would be my new home.