This is meant to be kind of a funny story and a bit of a cautionary tale! My daughter (D26) was insistent that she wanted an out of state college, in the northeast most likely, but she was open to all over the country, must be in a city, must have public transportation, must be walkable to the rest of the city, maybe even an urban school without a distinct campus. And she wanted it to be on the smaller side, not a massive university. All these check boxes. I made a spreadsheet. We have pretty high financial need so that eliminated a lot of schools. But in the beginning, I didn’t understand that and we toured everything. I’m telling you.. everything. We went down to DC and toured schools. We drove the East Coast and toured schools. We even went to Seattle and toured.
We made some fun vacations out of the tours, but I felt like we weren’t getting closer to the school that was going to be the one. She basically loved all of them. Then I started running NPC on each one and eliminated most of them. We toured our State University and she hated the flagship school. In her defense, it is large with a Greek presence that you can’t ignore. Definitely not her cup of tea. We toured one of the state University schools that’s more like an SLAC, it checked a lot of boxes, but she did not like it. mostly because she was stubborn and it was in state and she wanted to go out of state.
So there we were over the summer, just a few months before application season and kind of running out of places to tour and schools to choose. She had one she liked down in Massachusetts, but it would stretch us financially and has no way of getting home via public transportation.
At the end of the day, she decided that she didn’t want to be more than a few hours from her boyfriend. And that became the biggest checkbox of all. And dictated exactly what schools she actually ended up applying to. She chose her number one school which just so happens to be extremely generous with aid, but for that she has a roll of the dice odds of getting in. (Colby) And her number two school? The state school that is like a SLAC. (UMaine Farmington) this also just so happened to be the school that I was trying to get her to love back in the very beginning of the search as it checks, a lot of the boxes for vibe and cost as well as offering exactly what she wants to study. Maybe sometimes Mom actually does know something lol
So my cautionary tale leaves me with a couple of big lessons:
do not tour schools until you run the NPC on their website. It’s a waste of everyone’s time and gets your kids hopes up that they can go to George Washington University and go into hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. When they can’t.
Their mind will change. 1000 times over it will change. Shoot, her mind might change going forward even still. I’ve stopped falling in love with the school that she says is her number one choice because I don’t want to be disappointed. It’s not my place to be disappointed in her choice. it’s not my train. I’m just a passenger.
Now we have the waiting game. If she gets into Colby, that’s where she’ll go. If she doesn’t get into Colby, UMaine Farmington is where she will go. It’s a crapshoot to be honest. In a month we can make plans! She’s been somewhat ambivalent about the whole college search until recently. The thing that got her excited? Pinterest. Lol. Pinterest of dorm rooms.
Did you also look at Bowdoin? Admissions would be no more likely than Colby, but it is at least another very good small school in the area.
I agree with this. We did tour a few schools that were way over budget, but at least we limited this to schools that were nearby (eg, none more than one hour from where we were already going to be). We did tour some schools that required an overnight stay, but these were ones that we knew would be affordable, or at least the NPC said that it would be affordable in one case (and the actual offer ended up matching the NPC exactly).
We have two daughters. One changed there mind quite a few times. One just did not come to a decision until after a lot of time and thought. I do not know if the process was all that different inside their minds, but what we could see from outside seemed quite different. Both ended up with a university that was a good fit for them and also fit the budget.
This process might be more fun years later when you are looking back at it, with the knowledge that it did come out just fine in the end.
UMaine Farmington is a wonderful school. Cute town, things to do on campus and outdoors (obviously, it’s Maine) and a friendly, smart student population with a creative bent. Love, love this school for your kid. Can’t wait to hear how things turn out for your student.
From the title, I thought were going to say they all boiled down to letting you know where not to step if you want to graduate.
But seriously, I think seeing it as a process of self-discovery for your kid can be helpful in terms of managing expectations and staying positive about the process. I also think that framing helps explain why if money and/or time is tight, you can do things like just sample a variety of close schools, or schools in one convenient travel location. Even if those are not the actual schools being considered for the list, that sort of process can plausibly still capture most of the self-discovery benefit.
And then of course if time and finances allow, you can also do a short list of post-offer visits. I tend to think that is when many kids are finally ready to make the tough decisions, including about what they REALLY prioritize, with a four-year commitment to a place right in front of them.
S23 went from a recruitable athlete majoring in engineering at the beginning of our search (late sophomore/ early junior year), to not wanting to play in college and a completely different major by the end of Junior year. I think there are huge changes junior/senior year, and frankly, that’s a great thing.
He ended up at the school that I knew would be a perfect fit for him despite crossing it off of the lists that both his college counselor and I (seperately) made for him. Once he did his own research and put it on the list, he was gung-ho. After visiting, he couldn’t picture himself any place else.
Cautionary tale from two of my daughters’ friends - make sure there’s something on the list if they break up before May 1st! One of my daughter’s good friends turned down her original #1 school to be close to the boyfriend- who broke up with her one week into their college journey - not a whole lot you can do with that one! But one of her other good friends, built her entire list around schools which were good for both her and her boyfriends’ desired major. Apps went out and the broke up in the middle of senior year. She really wished she had one choice that didn’t involve the boyfriend! Best of luck!
Oh for SURE. She confessed she liked Farmington back last year but was just being headstrong about leaving Maine. If they break up, at least she’ll be at a good school!! And Colby seems amazing and she loved it instantly.
Awesome! And I agree Maine-Farmington looks fantastic- my 25 briefly looked at it- and was impressed - has an honors program- too, I’m sure your kid would be eligible for.
Is this the daughter who was considering the Air Force Academy here? Colby IS a big switch, but I agree with you, kids do change their minds. Mine started out looking at film schools. Ha!
Air Force for a hot minute. Smith was a favorite for a month. GWU for a month. She was thinking university of HI for Korean for a hot minute lol. I’m not joking when I say it’s been a JOURNEY.
I agree! And two buildings on campus have precast concrete trim that I detailed. My daughter went to jazz camp there during high school and enjoyed the area.
My daughter went to jazz camp there during high school and enjoyed the area.