A connotative meaning is a secondary meaning that includes the emotions or feelings that a word can transmit or convey. People usually associate a word with a past experience or emotion. In this case, the word that has the strongest connotative meaning is <em>slammed</em>because it not only creates a visual image of the situation, but it also provides a notion of movement that the reader can relate to previous experiences.
It can be really stressful to have to defend your decision about college, especially when everyone is going to be asking you about it as you go through your senior year.