04 Feb 2026

One conflicted student athlete, one fortuitous cookie, and a life-changing decision

Abby McClain of Twin Falls, Idaho was just a regular high school junior, focused on one of the first (and wildly impactful) adult choices of her life: Where to go to college.

As a student athlete, she faced some extra considerations: Several Division 1 volleyball offers, program and campus life comparisons, and just finding a best-fit team. All coming her way in a short amount of time, recruitment email after recruitment email overwhelming her inbox.

Choosing your college is a weighty decision for anyone — but even more so for McClain, who describes herself as someone who’s always believed in paying attention to small moments that feel meaningful, including those inside fortune cookies.

“I’ve just always been like that. It’s so easy. Why not read it and take it as a sign, and go about your day?”

Little did she expect a fortune cookie would enter her life, providing an all-too-clarifying nudge that would change everything. 

The Slip That Sealed the College Deal

The D1 recruiting process, Abby explains, came with unexpected pressure and a more fraught timeline than anticipated. Coaches were calling. Scholarship comparisons loomed. Almost overnight, her decision felt urgent. But her brain was caught in a cartwheel.

McClain began short-listing select campuses to visit to make her final decision. Eventually, she whittled down to two finalists: Idaho State and Old Dominion, both places she readily saw herself…and saw her dilemma exasperated.

“I enjoyed both visits so much. I was talking with my parents, and I was like, I don’t know what to do. I like both of these schools. I’m not sure. I was just kind of teetering between the two.” 

One Meal Can Change Everything

“Then one day, I decided to go to get Chinese food, and I got my fortune cookie.” What otherwise would have been a routine bite to eat, ending in that signature cookie, turned into a catalyzing inflection point altering the course of McClain’s life

Her fortune read: 

• "You don’t need to travel far to find the satisfaction you’re looking for"
  

The moment was like a jolt of lightning. McClain immediately went home to share the uncanny slip with her parents — and its implication: She had decided on Idaho State.

“I always read my fortune cookies. I always think they’re true. That’s just how my family is too. We always all read our fortune cookies, keep them, stuff like that.”

McClain was never the type to close off from life’s (often surprising) signals. Less than a week later, she signed her National Letter of Intent with the Bengals, and was their most sought-after recruit for the 2024 cohort, according to ISU women’s volleyball head coach, Sean Carter.

“I’m so grateful I got that fortune cookie,” McClain says. “Because I could have gone somewhere else and my life could have been completely different.” 

Crunching and Connecting with Consumers, Effortlessly

When asked why people give so much weight to fortune cookies, McClain doesn’t hesitate.

“I think it's so easy to take this piece of paper as a sign or something from the universe… because they're all unique. No one else is getting this, so clearly I need to see it at this time.”

McClain admits to another, equally powerful force behind the fortune slip: How they’re cherished and saved.

“I have some in my car, I have some on my bedside table. I always keep them.”

She’s not alone. Nearly 21% of people say they keep their slips after their meals, a clear sign to how influential, encouraging, affirming, and even inspiring these little slips are to the individuals cracking them open.

She laughs, also describing how serious her family takes it. “We go out and we get a fortune cookie and then we're like, ‘oh my gosh, what's your fortune?’”

The Big Power of the “Little” Nudge

McClain strongly believes in what she calls the “nudge” of fortune cookies. In fact, it was the small but resonating nudge held in her cookie’s single line that clarified her decision more powerfully than dozens of college recruitment emails, brochures, campus visits, and direct coach calls.

“It got to the point I was just deleting my emails,” she admits. “I couldn’t read any more… I mean, every school is saying the same stuff basically.”

“I feel like I see fortune cookies as a little influence…it’s just this little influence of oh, actually, that could be really cool. Or I was thinking about this already, but had never thought about it like that.”

McClain’s experience echoes how consumers today are all-but inundated with ads yet starved for connection and meaning. Americans are exposed to as many as 5,000 marketing messages per day according to research from the University of Southern California. And that number isn’t shrinking.

Fortune cookies work so effectively because, in her words, they don’t “push” like other ads do. “No one’s telling us to do anything… It’s very minimal pressure and stress.”

She continues, “Honestly, in my case, having a little fortune cookie slip that says you’ll find this near you. It’s just so simple. It’s just little words, so simple, but it really can change someone’s life for the better.”

McCain also notes many other industries outside higher education could benefit from a style of marketing that’s less pushy, more personal. Brands in retail, health and wellness, HR and recruitment — even popular streaming services and social media platforms like LinkedIn — feel especially well positioned. And as trends in physical media and IRL experiences make a resurgence, more and more orgs will find themselves reinvesting in audience connection outside usual mediums and urgency-based messaging. 

As for McClain, now a graduating ISU senior, her relationship to fortune cookies hasn’t diminished. If anything, “It carries a little bit stronger now.”

She explains further, “I mean, I think it's so fun how a little fortune cookie can do that, and how it can impact everyone's lives, and how fun it can be…I look forward to it after every meal I have with Chinese.”

How many marketing playbooks get to tout that?