When I got accepted into Oakland in 2014, alumni I knew automatically started telling me stories of the ball held at Meadow Brook Hall. They told me tales of good times in the prettiest place on campus.

So, this year, I finally went. Crowds aren’t my thing, but my friends coerced me into getting all gussied up and going.

Aside from the Meadow Brook Ball itself, a big part of the experience is sitting in line for hours to get a ticket. As awful as sitting on the ground in the Oakland Center may sound, many laughs were had and lots of homework got done. It’s not all that bad.

But of course, the actual night-of is where the fun is at.

The mansion is absolutely massive. Even if it wasn’t all decorated with its under-the-sea-theme this year, the building is gorgeous by itself. The intricateness of the ceilings is especially beautiful; it’s hard to believe that people used to actually live there.

In order to soak in the whole mansion, we were allowed to walk around wherever for about the first hour, then they closed off the second floor. This gave my pals and I ample time to see most of the rooms and figure out where the perfect spot to take our picture was.

While we were walking around, we came across this girl whose job was to sit on a sea shell-shaped blow up in a mermaid costume. Her job was literally to sit there . . . imagine how the people working coat check felt about that.

After everyone was constricted to the ground floor and basement, people flocked toward the room with the food. Speaking of the food, it was pretty good. There was lots of pita bread and fruit, among other things. And I didn’t grab one, but I heard the brownies were the bomb.

Plenty of people also went to the caricature drawings and tarot card readings around this time, but the lines were long, so my friends and I opted out of that.

There was also a “Finding Dory” scavenger hunt in which participants would, you guessed it, find people wearing Dory signs, so they could enter a raffle. We did do this, and it was pretty funny to watch people trot along after the designated Dorys to get their signatures.

WXOU was there all night DJing. After playing lots of hip-hop songs that I didn’t know any of the words to, they got down to the good stuff. We all sang “Hollaback Girl” and “Tik Tok” until our throats were sore. The “Wobble,” of course, also made an appearance.

When the slow songs for the couples started playing, my friends and I went for the photo booth. The line moved quickly, and the prints of our photos turned out nice.

Not long after that, we drove back to our dorms and took off our high heels. It was close to 1 a.m., and the ball was just about over. Time had flown by (and I didn’t think it would).

If you’ve never gone to the Meadow Brook Ball, I hope this gave you an idea of what it’s like. It’s quite the experience; I hope this did it some justice.

Rating: 10 out of 10, would recommend.