Meredith and Matt decided not to go to out of state colleges and choose to go to Dalcrest to stay close to home, and also because after everything they all went through together they didnt want to be apart from one another. Oh and Meredith would rather stay close to Alaric who is staying in Fells Church to keep an eye on things

Stefan compelled the admissions to get Matt and Meredith into college. Matt felt guilty, so he didn't want Stefan to get him a good dorm.

Meredith/Elena/Bonnie are rooming together.
Stefan is in the same dorm, but in a single.
Damon is in an off campus apartment.

Matt is rooming with a guy named Christopher who is also a football player in a small dorm.
Not long after he got there, he recieved an invitation to what looks like to be a exclusive society.

She is still in Vampire Hunter mode. She is always on alert and starting to think she needs to keep in constant training.
She came to college alone, as her parents know to give her the independance espec with starting college.

She is determined to be a new person at college. Someone who would be a leader like Elena and Meredith. Mature.
She also meets a new guy. Xander.

The girls hear an ambulance outside their dorm, and the police tell them some guy has gotten in trouble.
They suspect it's something more. Whether it's a person or a something.

I felt so sad for her. She makes a friend.. who turns out to be a hunter from a hunter family.. and she dies. Someone she could connect with moreso than Bonnie and Elena.
But she also became stronger and fought back against everything that was going on. And even toward the end.. Damon acknowledged that she has become stronger and better in her skills. Matt even makes an observation that it could be the beginning of a friendship.

His storyline was front and center, as what was going on with him was the main plot of the book. He was deep into it. If it wasn't for him.. the gang wouldn't have discovered what was going on and who the villian was.

At first I thought there was something off about Zander, her next boyfriend.. but it turns out he isn't bad after all. He is a werewolf, but he is one of the good ones. His bloodline goes from the original werewolves.

Early in the book, Elena made the choice to take a break from the both of the boys so that she can find some way to deal with the three of them, and also so that the brothers can deal with their new found relationship as brothers again. And so she can work out who she is as a person. Stefan said he would wait as long as it is necessary.
I applauded this choice, because I felt it was the mature thing to do and it separated her from Katherine.
But then Damon didn't stick to the deal.. he continued to see Elena, and then once Stefan found out.. and caught them kissing.. he told Elena he wanted nothing to do with her. He might love her, but would not be with her since he didn't trust her.
From that point forward, Elena thought since Stefan refused to talk to her, she would give Damon a chance. And so Damon and Elena went on to experiment to see what is between them, but in the end.. it just made Elena even more sure, especially after Stefan was in trouble..that while she might have an attraction/love for Damon, it's Stefan who she can't live without and whom she is in love with to a degree that Damon can't compete with.

Klaus is being resurrected by a newly vampire named Ethan, who was turned by one of Klaus's descendants.

Elena's parents agreed to a deal that their child would become the new guardian for this secret society at Dalcrest. The guardians, the ones that Elena dealt with told them that at age 12, they were to give up Elena to them. But since they refused... the guardians.. well, they always get their way, one way or another.
It's something that you need to read to fully understand.

removes himself from the situation.

We took a trip to the country fair, where Stefan kissed me on the top of the ferris wheel, just like any normal guy who would kiss his girlfriend on a normal summer’s night.

“I think we should take a break,” she said flatly.
“Stefan, I love you so much. Your my soulmate. Your IT for me. You know that.” She looked at him pleadingly, silently begging him to understand

Stefan looked Devastated. His face was so bleek, that for a moment it was hard to believe he was more than five hundred years old. “Whatever you want, Elena,” he said. He started to reach for her, but then started to pull his hand back to his side. “No matter what, I will always love you. My feelings aren’t going to change. Take whatever time you need.”
“Okay,” Elena said. She stood up shakily. She felt like she was going to be sick. Half of her wanted to pull Stefan to her, kiss him until that broken expression on his face went away.
Every time I remember the look on Stefan’s face when I took him I needed space, my chest aches. It’s like I can’t breathe.
I never wanted to hurt Stefan. Never. How could I? We’re so close., so wrapped up in each other that he is like a piece of my soul --- without him, I’m not complete.

Stefan had spent centuries searching for something to make him feel alive again, and he’d never felt as certain as anything as he did about Elena. She was It. The only one for him.

"Look," Matt said finally. "You can't control Elena. If there's one thing I know about her -- and I've known her for our whole lives -- it's that she's always going to do what she wants to do, no matter what gets in her way. You can't stop her." Stefan began to nod, hot tears burning behind his eyes. "But," Matt added, "I also know that, in the end you're the one for her. She's never felt the way she does about you for anyone else. And Y'know, I'm starting to discover there are other girls out there, but I don't think you're going to. Whatever's going on with Damon, Elena will come back to you. And you'd be an idiot not to let her because she's the only one for you."

Stefan in danger. If he…if anything happened to him, if something happened while they were apart , while he was still hurt and it was her fault, Elena would never forgive herself. She wouldn’t deserve to be forgiven.
Guilt was like a knife in her stomach. How could she have hurt Stefan like that? She was attracted to Damon, sure, even loved him, but she’d never had any question that Stefan was her true love. And she had broken his heart.
She’d do anything to save Stefan. She’d die for him if she had to.

He was hurt. Tied firmly to a chair, he raised a pale face to greet her, his leaf-green eyes agonized. From his arm, dark red blood dripped steadily, pooling on the floor beneath his chair.
Elena went a little mad.
Charging across the room toward Stefan, she was only half away of one of the hooded figures leeping at her, and of Damon catching it midstride, casually snapping its neck and letting the body fall to the floor. Absently, she registered the smack of wood against flesh as Meredith caught another attacker with her starve.
And then she was crouching next to Stefan, and , for a moment, at least, nothing else mattered. He was shaking slightly, just the faintest tremors, and she stroked his hand, careful of the wound on his forearm.
“Vervain on the ropes,” he muttered. “I’m okay, just hurry.” And then, “Elena?” Below the pain in his voice, a dawning note of joy.
She hoped he could read all the love she felt in her eyes as she met his gaze. “I’m here, Stefan. I’m so sorry.”
She took out the knife Meredith had given her and begun to saw at the ropes, careful not to cut him, trying not to pull the ropes any tighter.
“You’ll have to cut through the rest of the ropes too,” he said. “I can’t touch them because of the vervain.”
She nodded and went to work on the ropes holding his legs.
“I love you, “ she told him, concentrating on her work, not looking up. “I love you so much, I hurt you, and I never wanted to. Never Stefan. Please believe me.” She finished cutting through the ropes around his knees and ankles and chanced a glance up at Stefan’s face. Tears, she realized, were running down her own face and she wiped them away.
The thud of another body hitting the floor and a screech of rage came from behind them. But Stefan’s eyes held hers unwaveringly. “Elena, I….” he sighed. “I love you more than anything in the world,” he said simply. “You know that. No conditions.”
“Stefan,” she began again, “the kiss with Damon – well, I can’t lie and say I don’t feel anything for him – but the kiss wasn’t anything I planned on. I didn’t mean to be with him that night, it just happened. And when you saw us, that kiss -- he had just saved my life..” She was stumbling over her words now, she let them trail off. “I don’t have any real excuses, Stefan,” she said flatly. “I just want you to forgive me. I don’t think I can live without you.”
Stefan was gazing at her, his sculpted lips were turned into a half smile. “Elena, “ he said and he pulled her to him for a brief and tender kiss. And then he pushed her to the wall, “please stay out of this,” and then limped over to toward the fight and pulled a vampire from Meredith and sunk his fangs into its neck.

Elena had taken Stefan’s hand automatically as they walked, and he had stiffened and gradually relaxed, so that now his hand felt natural in hers.
Things weren’t back to the way they had been between them, not yet. But Stefan’s green eyes were full of shy affection when they looked at her, and Elena knew she could make things right.
Something shifted in Stefan when Damon came to rescue him, when Elena untied him and told him how sorry she was. Maybe Stefan just needed to know that whatever was between her and Damon, he was first for her. No one was shutting him out.

“Oh Stefan,” Elena said. “I’m glad that you are safe.” She reached out and wrapped her arms around him and just like when she took his hand, he tensed for a moment before hugging her back.
“I’m glad that both of you are safe,” she amended and looked at Damon. His black eyes met hers coolly, and she knew that, without them having to discuss it, that things weren’t going to go on the way they had been. She loved Stefan. She had chosen.

Across the street, Damon stood in the shadow of a tree, watching Bonnie kiss Zander.
He had to admit he felt a little pang, seeing her in the arms of someone else.
There was something so sweet about Bonnie, and she was brave and intelligent under that cotton-candy exterior.
That witchy angle added a touch of spice to her, too. He’d always thought of her as his.
Then again, didn’t the little redbird deserve someone of her own? As much as Damon liked her, he didn’t love her, he knew that. Seeing the lanky boy’s face light up in response to her smile, he thought maybe this one would.
He huffed out a breath of self mocking laughter. I’m going soft in my old age, he thought,
Back in the old days he would have eaten Bonnie without a single thought, and here he was worrying about her love life.
Still, it would be nice if the little redhead could be happy. If her boyfriend wasn’t a threat.