Guilderland is a town near Albany, New York, where Amy lived before the family moved to Peoria, Illinois around 2013-2014. She was approximately thirteen.
What's Known
A friend named Jessa Smith stayed in Guilderland when Amy left and told her she missed her. At some point, Amy's father Jason considered taking a job back in Albany. If he had, Amy might have attended Guilderland High School or Emma Willard, a boarding school in Troy, NY.
He did not take the job. They stayed in Peoria.
Significance
Guilderland is the place before the place. Amy's narrative begins in Peoria, but Peoria was not the beginning. The family moved to central Illinois for Jason's career, uprooting a thirteen-year-old who lost her friend Jessa in the process. Two years later, Amy would lose her mother.
The move from Guilderland to Peoria, the Interlochen application, the father considering a return to Albany: these are the movements of an immigrant academic family following work, with the children adapting to each new geography. By the time Amy got to Stanford, she had already lived in at least two places and lost the most important person in her life.