We just completed sending my freshman D off to college, and I’ve come to appreciate the importance of my D being emotionally invested in her college choice. This may be of more importance in our case because D’s college is 1500 miles from home. D was nervous at the beginning of move-in day, but this quickly changed to excitement after meeting her roommate and going to orientation sessions. By day two, it was getting close for us to leave, and D became emotional over the impending physical separation. This was not unexpected, and I am sure she will overcome this shock and thrive. My expectation would be vastly different if her final choice of college wasn’t made by her and she had reservations about her college choice.
I guess my point is that the academic part of college selection is very important but one shouldn’t dismiss an emotional attachment as well. Sure, one can learn to like most places over time, but the first semester/year can have a large impact on the total experience. Emotional investment in a college is important to make the most of that first semester/year.
“95 percent of students who go away to college experience some form of homesickness.” I think this is one of the most important bits of information a parent can have before sending a child off to college. Almost all (95 percent!) of college students feel this way. I think parents should talk to their kids, prior to dropping them off, about just how normal this feeling is.
My older daughter left for college in 2010. About a month into school she called home sobbing that she hated school and that nobody there appreciated her gifts and talents. Her roommate called her a weirdo and they were always fighting about toilet paper and taking out the trash. I told her to go talk to someone in the counseling center. Needless to say, I was very shaken by this call.
This scenario repeated itself about two weeks later. This time I told her if she really wanted to transfer to a school closer to home she had to finish out the semester and during that time she needed to apply to a college near home. (I knew that doing more applications was the last thing she wanted to do!) I also told her again to go talk to someone in the counseling center.
A few days later, a very sheepish sounding daughter called me and said that she went to a group counseling session, and guess what, it turns out she was homesick. As soon as her situation had a label, things started to get better. By the time she returned to campus after Thanksgiving, she was a new person. She found “her things” to get involved with and she had the best 4 years of her life.
In my first post, I didn’t want to give the impression that D was clamoring to leave college. My point was that her choice of college was hers alone, and she was invested emotionally in that choice prior to college starting (in a positive way). This has and will help her overcome any feeling of homesickness.
Throughout the college selection process, I always listened to D’s thoughts on our visits to many different colleges. The importance of letting D be The Decider didn’t hit home in a big way until after dropping her off at college.