<p>Wow - such great posts!
mdcissp, congratulations to your son on his great choices!
On decisions and fit, this is the story of our D1 (an A student, but she worked very hard in academics and athletics, never really gained a leadership foothold in high school as she did not appear to be able to go after these things in an opportunistic fashion) for whatever it is worth:
She ended up with four choices: a very small, very prestigious LAC, our state flagship honors college (state flagship has 40,000 students), a neighboring state’s honors college (16,000 students) with a NMF scholarship, and one of the three top-ranked state universities in the country (20,000 students). We thought that she should go to the LAC - small classes, lots of attention, personal relationships with faculty, she would be “noticed”, the whole package. She thought she should go there too, and she had visited during the day three times, but then she went to the accepted students’ weekend. She came home and said, “There was ONE party, nothing else was going on, and everyone at the party was drunk.” The prospect of that being the social life, with no other social choices, totally turned her off. She does not drink, so that added to the turn-off. We went to the offer session for the state flagship honors college, she stayed overnight, and she was totally impressed - she then went there, had small classes, lots of attention, had relationships with professors and Deans, lots and lots of choices of activities, access to “tutoring centers” in any subject any night of the week; she was super-involved and had leadership not only in the university and Hillel but also the local Jewish community (small), and we never looked back. I have to add that non-honors students also can have small classes, attention, relationships with professors and Deans, access to tutoring centers, and super-involvement and leadership. The school has a reputation for partying - but she estimated that 25% of the students do not drink at all - so that is 10,000 students - and others drink moderately, so there are lots of people to “not get drunk” with. Recently, she was discussing with our S2 the PE classes that she was able to take - she chose skiing (for $60, they were taken to a local ski place and got a 1/2 day pass and a 90 minute lesson each week. That is $60 total, not $60 a week), squash, handball, and “running and racing” out of many, many choices. S2, who goes to an Ivy, was so jealous of those PE classes. I just have to add that this was totally counter-intuitive to us - we really, really believed that she would do better at a small LAC. We are glad that we listened to her on “fit”, but we are also glad that we did not initially limit her to a particular size of school at the outset. The other aspect of this is that she grew and changed a lot even from the beginning of senior year to the end - let alone from junior year to senior year!
I know that there are people on this thread who really, really believe that a particular size of school is right for their student, and you may be right. If you knew our daughter, you would have probably agreed that a small school would have been a good fit for her. But, as it happens, we were wrong!</p>
<p>Hi Spectrum</p>
<p>Your S2 sounds just like my S1…I wouldn’t worry too much about being lost in a class at a larger university. My husband and I both went to large universities and only in some of our intro classes were in a large lecture hall setting but once we started taking upper level classes, most of the classes were small and intimate. When we went on college tours at the larger universities, many of them now have mandatory small group sessions with TA’s for the large lecture hall classes. I believe Penn State has that. Penn State also stated that all of their Intro English classes were small as well. I think if a students want to do well, he or she will thrive at any college that they are happy to be at. On the other hand, some students may do better at a community college and then transferring to larger school setting. I think it’s so individual with each child. Like you said, fit is so important. For some students, if they have not learned time management in high school, college will be challenge in the first semester until they get the hang of it…so much freedom. </p>
<p>My S2 (sophomore) is complete opposite of S1. Not into sports…studies all the time (even on Saturdays) and already knows what he wants to do - engineering. He might enjoy the smaller colleges but i think the larger public universities have excellent engineering.
He is an A to A+ student but we’ll have to see how he does on the standardized tests. Very unusual, I know, to have a higher achieving second son!</p>
<p>Levirm - what a great story! That is great that your daughter found the right fit! You never know until you visit! </p>
<p>Mdscipp - those are all great choices for your son! congrats!!</p>
<p>Here’s a large university story anecdote for you that might alleviate some concerns.</p>
<p>DD, as you know, is at University of Delaware. She had two intro classes in the fall that were on the larger size (approx 100 kids, give or take I think). She always sat in the front and attended every class. On the last day in one of those classes, the professor wanted to make sure she had my DD’s name because she wanted to give her extra points for the class since she was always there, always in front, always paying attention. (In a smaller class, she would have known her name already, but anyway…)</p>
<p>I have a higher achieving second child too. Not that he studies all weekend; it really just comes easier to him. He says he does not want a large school but we will throw a couple in the bucket. As I mentioned earlier, Penn State (HUGE) is on my list because of his combined interest in biz/eng. Might just be a fall back for him. I was talking to DH last night about my plan to take DS to visit RPI and Binghamton over a weekend in March (DS has a strange day off on a Friday). While Bing is not huge, it’s bigger than I think he wants (but does not give the impression of the size of UMD - I’ve already been to Bing with DD, as well as to UMD). He will be able to compare at that time.</p>
<p>As has been said before here. there is more than one college that is good for every student, but of course we want to find a place that D or S is happy at! And, that works out, even after the initial thrill of the acceptance!</p>
<p>LINYMOM, have you looked at Lehigh, Rice, or Case for your son (all small-ish with engineering and business)?</p>
<p>Another anecdote about choice and fit:
A friend of my S2’s who is a Jewish B student was having a hard time deciding between the colleges that had accepted him - he had come up with a great list - so I helped him make a “decision matrix”.
We put all of the factors that were important to him in the left-hand column, and he rated, from 1 to 10, how important they were to him and put that in the next column. We put all of the colleges across the top. He then had to rate the factors with a number for each college. (For example, maybe sports was an 8 in importance, but it only rated at 4 for how good it was at a particular college.) Then, we multiplied and put the product in each square, added them up for each college and came up with a score for each. Of course, this was totally subjective but it gave him an idea that went a little beyond the typical advantages and disadvantages list.
The funny thing was that he had listed some things that you would expect - academics, a particular department, sports, his sport as he is an athlete, location, etc… My husband and I then went out; when we came back, we saw the matrix on the counter with an added category: “Girl Scene”. Haha.</p>
<p>levirm, I love it! I had to laugh when I read your post about the decision matrix because that sounds like something I would do but that wouldn’t actually help me make the decision at all. I’d just like playing with the numbers. 
In the end I’m thinking gut feel, intuition would probably play a really important role. I liked the area where I went to college, a pastoral college town. For my daughter, I think it was the overnight visit that sold her. She narrowed in on where she wanted to go over the course of senior year. Had she realized sooner she wouldn’t actually want to be super far from home (all the way across the country), that would have simplified things quite a bit, lol.</p>
<p>Loved your sentimental post, too. Working on moving forward…</p>
<p>LINY-Alfred University has a world recognized ceramics engineering program (which is a state run program with lower tuition) and a business school. If your son is high achieving he would no doubt get there highest merit award. It is a small town and a small university. They do have a Hillel.</p>
<p>^ Hey Holliesue:
What does “ceramics engineering” mean? Interesting. I put Alfred on my list to look into.</p>
<p>Kathiep: Thanks so much for sharing your list! Several of those schools are on my list too, but since S2 is just a freshman, lots can change between now & junior year…good, though, to have choices! I know, for instance, Wentworth is in the middle of Boston, right near Northeastern, and Champlain is in rural Vermont…it’ll be interesting eventually to look at the different options to see which way S will go. He was deferred at WPI? Do you mind sharing his stats? I do see that my S could major in Mech. engineering and then go one more year there for a Masters in Robotics…do you know of other schools on your list that also offer that? Thanks for your help! :)</p>
<p>ccc-not an engineer AT ALL…but I think it has to do with “materials engineering”, (whatever that it!). very marketable degree apparently.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>EmmyBet, our family loves that film (and Billy Elliott, which is a similar message). Thank you for making the point about how it showcases the “you’re not good enough” vibe. </p>
<p>D2 (9th grade) is all over the place about size of school. On the one hand, she’d like rah-rah, and football, and a greek system, which she’ll be paying for. 
On the other hand, she heard a presentation from a graduate from her high school who is going to a very very small college. The grad raved about how nice it was to have professors who were supportive and who you could call at 1 AM to ask questions and who were more like friends. So now D2 is saying that she’d like something small. I’m looking forward to taking her around to local schools to see what she ends up liking. I’m also looking forward to her visiting her sister next year in Boston and seeing what she thinks of the East Coast and cold weather.</p>
<p>Linymom: I love your anecdote. S2 was just this year diagnosed with ADD. He had flown under the radar partly I think because he taught himself to compensate. One of his strategies was to always sit in the front of the classroom. How nice to know this bears the possibility of earning extra points as well.</p>
<p>Stayathomemom: Thanks for writing. I think I worry about large lectures because I sat in way too many of them. At my particular school there were many international profs speaking with accents that were difficult for me to follow. I remember being a sentence or so behind by the time I had figured out what the prof had said. I guess those are the lectures I remember, I don’t remember anything about the ones that were more straight forward. Oddly enough these weren’t in a large school but in my PT program that was really small. The thing is these classes combined all of the nursing school, and allied heath making for a large lecture. </p>
<p>Levirm: Thanks for sharing your D’s experience, it seems that sometimes it isn’t the size but the way a particular school manages their program. Fitting into the social life is so important. I think right there is the dividing line between both my boys preferences.</p>
<p>[New</a> Approaches to Kashrut on Campus](<a href=“http://www.hillel.org/about/news/2011/jan/12jan11_kashrut.htm]New”>http://www.hillel.org/about/news/2011/jan/12jan11_kashrut.htm)</p>
<p>Not sure how many of our readers have this concern - but interesting article about colleges adding Kosher facilities. Efforts at Muhlenberg, Dickinson and Franklin & Marshall are highlighted.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Thanks for the suggestions. Right now, Lehigh is the absolute gold-standard, front-runner. We went there in November and he absolutely loved it. I hadn’t considered Rice or Case, but will research.</p>
<p>As for Alfred, I’m not too excited about it. It would not be good for him to be among the highest achieving students there. He really needs the most intellectually challenging environment he can and would be better off if he were in the middle of the pack. Thanks for the suggestion though. I am curious and will look at their website anyway. If we’re going to go the inexpensive SUNY route, I would probably opt for Binghamton (even though it’s on the bigger side).</p>
<p>as holliesue mentioned the state run program at alfred- i just want to mention the SUNY environmental science and forestry program housed at Syracuse U. It may be good for those interested in science, environmental resource engineering and even HS science teachers. OOS tuition is under $14,000 and kids live on Syracuse U campus.</p>
<p>I apologize if this program was mentioned before- as I only occasionally do a quick read of this thread. I could have used this post 5 years ago when d was in HS.
Anyway site is [SUNY-ESF</a>, SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry](<a href=“http://www.esf.edu%5DSUNY-ESF”>http://www.esf.edu)</p>
<p>Linymom: Another possibility for engineering and business for an A student might be one of the Claremont colleges. Each school is really small, combined the campus has about 5-6000 students and for all intents and purposes it is one campus. Students can cross register and even major in a subject at a different college if their school doesn’t offer it. Harvey Mudd is highly competitive but an amazing technical school. Claremont Mckenna has the Robert Day school of Economics and Finance. I am not positive but I think that there is a program that combines both. The other Claremont schools are also great schools I just mentioned these two because HMC is the most techy and CMC is the most business oriented…</p>
<p>Enough of that now back to the B student agenda.</p>
<p>BTW: I just drove home and it was 18 degrees here! This further reinfored S2’s desire to stay in warm climate…I may have spoken to soon. They are talking the possibility of snow Friday!!! </p>
<p>I just received a note from the programming director at the TAMU Hillel offering to visit and tour with us and also mentioning the planning of a perspective Jewish students weekend. TAMU keeps looking better!</p>
<p>Spectrum: TAMU really does look like a good fit for your son. Sometimes one school just has the most appeal and stays at the top of the list. After a visit to GW, my daughter looked for similar schools in the Fiske Guide and asked to visit BU. She loved the school even though we visited on a gloomy, rainy Saturday in December. We visited other schools from DC to Mass., but BU remained her favorite.</p>
<p>Levrim, your story about your daughter’s experience at a big school is interesting. Both of my daughters ended up choosing schools that were bigger than we expected for similar reasons. They wanted a lot of academic and social choices. I do think that a student with a tendency towards slacking off might be better off at a smaller school. It can be easy to skip class when you’re in big lectures. A friend of mine told me that she had some personal issues while a student at UMDCP and manged to flunk out without anyone noticing. When her brother at Brandeis skipped a few classes, he got a call from the Dean.</p>
<p>My D1 fell in love with her school on a cold, rainy day, too. Sometimes they just know. And she did ED as yours did, momjr. And everything we learned about that school, and other schools, just kept pointing to that school over and over again. </p>
<p>D2 has an absolute favorite (hint: maybe she and your D will meet next year) but in her heart felt she needed “the thrill of the chase,” or whatever this process should be called.</p>
<p>momjr, I am totally impressed that a Dean at Brandeis would call a student who missed class! Brandeis is not even that small.
I do know students who have recently flunked out of smaller colleges, unfortunately.
Before my kids went to college, my brother took it upon himself to tell them that they needed to study for an hour each day per class, outside of class time. They listened to him more than they would have listened to me. I have to remind him to tell D2!</p>
<p>So true! I can’t begin to count how many times D3 came home and very seriously told me that her viola teacher said XYZ and therefore we needed to do 123 immediately…which of course was exactly what I had been saying into one ear and out the other for days. (And sometimes I had even had a conversation with the viola teacher and let her know my opinion beforehand!)</p>
<p>S2 brought home his first semester report card today - 4 Bs and 3 As - pretty good - about what I was expecting. DH and I attended 2nd semester Back-to-School night last night - which was very sparsely attended - so we had the opportunity to speak one on one with a few of his teachers for a few minutes. The theme we heard consistently is that he is very quiet in class - does not participate very much - does not raise his hand, etc. His teachers seem to like him - but I am concerned now that they won’t have much to say in a teacher rec. So - I spoke with him today about trying to speak up more - participate - ask questions, etc. I didn’t get much more than “uh-huh” in response - so who knows. So, now I am going to worry about the quality of the teacher recs he will be able to get.</p>
<p>It also makes me wonder again about our ongoing “fit” conversation. Maybe he would be better off at a larger school with larger classes and a reduced expectation of class participation. Maybe a smaller school where “engaged learning” is key might not be a good fit for such a quiet kid. Or maybe he needs that environment to bring him out of his shell a bit. DH’s theory is that he is just tired at school - getting up at 6am rarely works for a teenager - and would participate more if he had classes later in the day. Thoughts?</p>