<p>My daughter is a current senior, and as she sorts through all of the schools she’s been accepted to (not her top choices ), I feel like my head is about to explode. All have some pros and significant cons. She’s asked for my help in evaluating her options, and I’m starting to realize that I have no idea how to evaluate academic strengths of various organizations, let alone all of the other factors that may ultimately contribute to a happy, productive college experience with lots of like-minded friends. </p>
<p>So, I thought I’d turn to the parents of current college students. For parents of kids who are particularly happy, what were the intangibles that contributed to a happy college experience that were identifiable at the time they made their decision? (A great roommate can make all the difference, but that wouldn’t count here because you couldn’t have evaluated that ahead of time). </p>
<p>And for parents of students who regret their decisions (but that who likely would have been happier somewhere else): What were the factors that your kids should have considered more heavily? Were there red flags that your student should have paid more attention to?</p>
<p>Bonus points for any stories that relate to students who can be a little insecure socially, a little scared of new situations and who are/were really worried about finding a social fit. </p>
<p>Anyway, I realize that these kinds of individual experiences cannot be extrapolated, but I’m just interested in hearing people’s stories. </p>
<p>My D1 was really happy with her college choice (graduated in 2012). A couple of things that I think contributed:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>She had an option of living in housing with others interested in the same freshman seminar subject she chose. It wasn’t “honors housing”, but it was a group of students who definitely were more interested in academics than just socializing at college. I think they turned out to be some of the smarter students at her school (a significant % of the Phi Beta Kappa kids in her class were in that housing setup with her freshman year). Her actual roomate, by the way, was terrible… but she switched rooms in January, and it all worked out. She still credits that freshman housing arrangement with a lot of her happiness and making it easy to find the kids at her school that were more focused on academics.</p></li>
<li><p>The school was considered fairly strong in her major areas of interest. She liked the classes she sat in on (professors and quality of student discussion), and thought the selection of courses offered looked interesting.</p></li>
<li><p>The campus appealed to her (pretty). And she knew people stayed on campus over the weekends (not a “suitcase U”), which improved the social environment.</p></li>
<li><p>She went to accepted students weekend to be sure. I highly recommend this. D2 is in the midst of this, and has learned a TON about her top choices this past week by visiting for a longer period. She will have a much clearer picture of the pros and cons of each by the time she decides.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Good luck to your D, my D2 is also having a terrible time deciding (she rolled dice today with friends at school who are also having trouble… hoping that is not how she actually makes her choice!).</p>
<p>Things that have turned out to be annoying about my younger son’s school:
Lots of complicated distribution requirements
A major with even more complicated requirements
A major (IR) which requires 8 semesters of foreign language in addition to all those requirements
A major which won’t give him any credits for courses taken abroad not offered by his colleges own study abroad programs (and none are offered where he could study the language)</p>
<p>On the plus side:
The food is great
The location is great
The course that got him intrigued at accepted students weekend was great
He’s enjoying the junior year abroad despite the landmines
He should be graduating on time</p>
<p>One thing to keep in mind is going to college is to get an education, not to find a permanent place to live. Another thing is your kid didn’t have much of choice when it came to where to go for secondary school, and most of them seem to have made it through without a lot of angst. What I am trying to say is a college doesn’t need to be a perfect fit for it to work for your kid. As long as a school ticks off a lot of boxes for your kid then it is no better or worse than another school, make that choice and don’t look back.</p>
<p>My son loves his college. The admitted students weekend sealed the deal. The campus was beautiful; the kids were smart and motivated, yet friendly and laid-back. The weather was perfect when we were there (in a much warmer climate than where we live). His overnight host took him to parties (all organized by kids in the dorms–there are no fraternities) and on a brief tour of the town. The opportunities to explore his academic interests seemed impressive, and everything was incredibly well organized and thought out. He just “saw” himself there, and was really excited to immerse himself in an unfamiliar culture.</p>
<p>Now, almost a year later, I can say everything has lived up to or exceeded our expectations. He has grown in so many ways and is as happy and engaged as I have ever seen him. He has forged some strong connections with several of his professors and they are giving him good guidance on potential majors.</p>
<p>I should say, in case this is an issue for your daughter, that my son was in no way motivated by status or rank or anything other than what felt right to him. He was admitted to better-known schools and also offered generous scholarships at most of them. No one he knew from high school had ever attended his college. It sort of surprised me that he was willing to go into such uncharted territory. But so far, it has been great.</p>
<p>My son was down to the wire and was 99% sure he was going to pick School A. He did a last minute overnight stay at A and came back pretty unhappy. Although A had lots of positives, he said that when he asked the students about the classes, “nobody complained that they were too hard.” He visited a few lectures and got the same impression. He ended up at B, which wasn’t as outwardly “fun,” but he knew that he’d be challenged. For him, a rich social experience was less important than intellectually challenging academics. For me as a college student, friends and social connections were critical. So take a good look at your D’s values and preferences, and go with the school that is most likely to support those qualities.</p>
<p>I’ll add my son was aware of most of the issues before choosing his college - it’s just they’ve turned out to be more annoying than he thought, once he decided to take the entire junior year abroad and not just a semester.</p>
<p>nottelling, one thing that made a difference to my shy-ish D is that her college has a large and active group for her lifelong EC. From the very beginning, it gave her a place to go and people with whom she had that in common.</p>
<p>Things that were annoying at D school:
THE WEATHER! We live in SoCal and D thought that she was tired of warm and sunny weather. Goes to the northeast with bad storms this year. Thought she could handle the weather change, but it’s proving very difficult. I don’t think that we could have predicted this because she said that she wanted to move to cold weather and my H, who had lived in northeast before, explained what it was like, but she thought she’d like it.</p>
<p>My daughter is a current freshman and loves her school. She was originally planning to go to school A ( different school) but changed her mind because it was too big (25,000). Her current school has 6,500. What made her fall in love with her current school was the " warmth" and " coziness" of the school. The school is beautiful, the kids are friendly, and there are things to do that interest her besides academics. Some of the schools that she was accepted to may have been slightly better academically, but did not have the " fit" that she needed.</p>
<p>I would ask D to describe to you what she envisions when she dreams of college. As you see above, some kids would talk about an intellectually stimulating place full of other kids who also like studying and discussing subject X. Others will envision a group of friends strongly interested in a particular EC that they do in addition to school. Still others are mostly thinking of social interaction, with schoolwork as a necessary evil. Whatever it is your D seems to dream about most, make sure that aspect takes priority in the decision.</p>
<p>My D dreamed of finding smart, serious, ambitious friends like herself, so we focused mostly on social fit. She has never been happier.</p>
<p>I probably sound like a broken record, but we talked about the longer term, as in, how much debt will you accummulate at each option? As mentioned above, college is not forever. The experience will be what you make of it, especially since any kid changes a lot during college. Sometimes “good enough” is really good enough. But debt? Well it lasts a lot longer than the college experience did. In the end, oldest d did choose one of the no debt options.</p>
<p>Oh, and d is an introvert. The first bonding experience at her chosen school? Pack all the kids on busses and haul them out for an overnight weekend in the woods for activities. Yes, please, drop off the introvert, load her on a bus with hundreds of her newest, closest friends, and then send her to a place packed with activities and no alone time to process. Honestly, it was almost as bad as I thought it would be. But, she survived. Even the less than intrepid (at least socially) do manage.</p>
<p>D1 did not consider the type of students with who she would be attending classes and living with for 4 years when she chose her school based on her major, rather than the school as a whole…she was fine, and I will be flamed for posting this, but we, as her parents, were not thrilled with her social experience…she graduated, is well employed, so educationally, she was fine, so whatever…no debt(merit money) so no real regrets…</p>
<p>What helped my older two was re-visiting their top choices in Mar/Apr of senior year. Getting a second look after having narrowed down the choices made it a pretty easy decision. I think for oldest, it was the kids he saw on campus (i.e., that intangible “fit”); for middle he decided in the end that he preferred a larger school. FWIW–oldest graduated in four years from the school he started at; middle is on track to do the same. I call that a successful college search.</p>
<p>(Middle is very shy, introverted guy. He found a few (and I mean FEW) friends that are his buds + joined a club sports team. To the OP I’d also say that a lot of the freshman adjustments are issues that would happen at <em>any</em> school–for most kids, you can’t avoid a little homesickness, . . . . So expect some unhappiness first semester, start of second semester regardless of where your D ends up.)</p>
<p>Dd wanted to attend a small college with bright students. We wanted in-state prices. We got what we wanted and she loves her college. Her choice was not our financial safety but she and we are more comfortable with her social environment.</p>
), I feel like my head is about to explode. All have some pros and significant cons. She’s asked for my help in evaluating her options, and I’m starting to realize that I have no idea how to evaluate academic strengths of various organizations, let alone all of the other factors that may ultimately contribute to a happy, productive college experience with lots of like-minded friends. </p>