| "Did somebody point the OP to Andi's thread from last year? Did anyone suggest taking a gap year and reapplying to the reach schools? It can be done."
I don't recommend that this young man take a gap year and then reapply. Why? There's no evidence from what he posted that he did very much to research colleges and to do outstanding applications, including dedicated studying to get the best SAT IIs. Seems to me that he was riding on his impressive intelligence and good grades, and then assumed he'd get into an Ivy.
Right now, from what she has posted, sounds like as recently as when she first posted, he was saying he was so discouraged about the option that his actions resulted in that he wasn't feeling motivated enough to study. That doesn't sound like someone who'd flourish in an Ivy atmosphere because the students there are very self motivated by the love of learning, not by the idea of getting some kind of reward because of good grades. Indeed, students who work for the grades are the type of high achievers that the Ivies try to avoid accepting. They may do wonderfully fine in life just as the self-motivated high achievers do, but the Ivy atmosphere isn't a good match for them because there really is no prize to compete for. People tend to do their own intellectual and EC thing for the pure pleasure of doing so.
Anyway, my thoughts are that if the OP's son goes to Minn. and doesn't like it, the OP should let him make the decision to transfer, and handle all of the work about doing so.That could include using the wonderful resources at CC, which he is perfectly capable of doing.
It's not the OP's fault that her son has a college option that he doesn't like. It's not her problem to solve. If he goes to the U and doesn't like it and wants something better, it will be up to him to do the hard work to get excellent grades, EC and recommendations so he can transfer to a place that he has taken the time to research so he knows that it's a good match. |