One of the top, elite schools has been the first (and really only) choice for our son for as long as we can remember. On M10 the excitement kicked in when he got the acceptance email.
We decided to do revisit, not so much to get sold on the school but to experience the campus in a way the tour won’t let you.
Parents and students split up for most of the day. He did his own thing on the student track. I sensed something was wrong moments after we regrouped. He was saying all the right things. That it was fun, he is making the right choice, its a great opportunity…but the passion and enthusiasm was not there. Given that his interest in BS is totally self-driven I was surprised.
After some coaxing he started verbalizing his thoughts. He said the student he shadowed seemed very unhappy and the dorm seemed cold and impersonal. He felt no semse of community or commaraderie between students. Nobody seemed all that happy to be there. He couldnt see this being his life for four years. He then moved on to his thoughts on the classes. He sat in on four different ones. He left underwhelmed and second guessing if the teaching methods here are a good fit for him. And that is what sold him on this school in the first place.He even questioned the academic rigor in that he thought the classes weren’t very challenging.
His position now is that this opened his eyes to the “boarding” lifestyle and he is convinced that he doesn’t want to board anywhere.
He has always had a great head on his shoulders and we have trusted his instincts but this seems like a big decision to make from a one day visit. Decisions meed to be made within days. Any suggestions?
Take everything on this board with a grain of salt – you know your kid best, and he knows himself best. It is true that boarding is not for everyone, and all the schools lose students for lots of different reasons, including the ones who never even come.
Size up your options. Sleep on it another night and re-discuss. If it seems right to go back for a game or performance, which is not big deal from the school’s view point, or to ask to sit in on more classes (a grade up? which you will need permission for, but would probably get), then do that.
My two cents is that somebody (head, teacher, student) should have gotten through to your kid, as they should to every single one that will matriculate, that this school will be a good learning and living home for them. There might be different ways to communicate that general idea or feeling, but it is far better if your student “gets it”. We compared several boarding and day schools with child #1 and he got that feeling at the place he has said is “worth it” four years later. Child #2 also got that feeling. For our family, this was important to making the big sacrifices right off the bat.
Best wishes for a resolution that all can get on board with.
I’m gonna assume you’re talking about XYZ, because I was there and the set-up was very similar to what you described. A lot of student guides tell their students terrible things about the school, but a lot of student guides also have glowing reports. It sounds as if you’re son had bad luck in his guide, but if he feels that he doesn’t want to come after revisit day, that’s the purpose of the day, y’know? I was sitting at a table of girls and asked them about the Math Club and one of the girls had a terrible experience with it. However, my tour guide assured me that the girl had been forced to do math by her family and it soured the experience for her. If you enjoy math, she said, you will enjoy math club which was relieving. Similarly, some guides really weren’t a good fit for the school or didn’t go there because they wanted to. He might have also been listening in on the wrong difficulty classes. I went to a 200-level computer science class and found it extremely easy, but I know harder classes exist and found the teacher highly knowledgeable and kind, so I wasn’t too upset.
Lots of factors could have gone into his bad day, but consider all your options!
Time to draw a line down the center of a piece of paper and work on Pros and Cons…
A few years ago, our family had a similar experience with a very “meh” vibe on a revisit day for a HADES school that had been a front-runner in the process from the beginning. What was interesting in our case is that we all got the same vibe…lots of little (and not so little) things just rubbed us the wrong way.
Many people will caution against making a call based on a revisit…but IMO that is the chance for the school (and its students) to get things right. To put their best foot forward. And if they can’t even find it in themselves to do that, well, that alone says something about the school and the students you encounter, right?
Honestly, I can’t say that making a judgement based on one, arguably awkward and somewhat scripted, day is all that wise — but sometimes you have to go with your gut. We did, and 7D1 went to another school that became a home to her and a large part of our lives for four years (and arguably, forever).
Whether or not your child is suited for the boarding life is another matter entirely. Hopefully you have other revisits to compare School X to?
See post #54 of this thread from 2011:
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/prep-school-admissions/1112976-2011-revisits-p1.html
So sorry to hear of your sons terrible revisit. That is one of the challenges of how some schools structures their revisit days in my opinion. They try very hard not to put on a “dog and pony show”. By not standardizing the experience- i.e.- anyone can act as host- no prepping, no special class prep etc… This can lead to inconsistent experiences for some. I would be on the phone today with your admissions officer explaining your sons experience. If you are close by, I would recommend having them set up another day for your son to attend with a different host and more appropriate classes. Good luck!! It also might be cold feet or the impostor syndrome although it sounds like he just had a bad day --that doesn’t reflect life at that school for most.
@Lolalou I am so sorry that everything seems to have turned on its head for your family. This sounds like us exactly up until…revisit. We go Thursday. We know two kids that decided against schools after their tour. In one case the thought of living in a dorm with a roommate was a shock to the system. In the other we don’t really know. Those were dream schools for both. They completed their apps and were accepted but are not going. Given how you have described your son I would do as @charger78 suggests. Sleep on it, discuss dispassionately and objectively, discuss options and don’t be afraid to change your minds. If I had only listened to my gut when I was getting married the first time…
LOL, Center.
Boy, this is a tough one. What are your son’s alternatives?
My opinion is different from others. This is an incredible opportunity. Even if I were unsure, I would try it for a year.
Even revisits are imperfect, and in these quite large schools one can usually find a niche or a group that works.
@6teenSearch Well said!!! And, I would definitely try to remind him of all the reasons he wanted to go in the first place! Maybe if he played around on their website and looked at the blog with the commentary from students why they selected it that might refocus him on the positives.
I disagree. But a part of it also depends upon the alternatives.
When I was looking at schools, there was one school in particular that I hated after visiting. I thought that all the administrators had sticks up their butts and the students were cold and impersonal. On the flip side, it is also a school that many people here rave about, and every other post on these forums seems to refer to this school as a “dream” school.
All I can say is good for those students. One of them may have ended up going there in place of me, and I’m totally fine with that, since I am very happy with where I ended up. However, there was no way I planned on setting foot on that campus for another minute, much less “try it for a year.” A year to a 13/14 y/o is a very long time, and if he had that visceral of a reaction, I truly doubt that it will change.
Perhaps after a couple of days of reflection, his opinion will change. If so, great. If not, I would not force it.
On another note, the OP did not mention the school. so please do not turn this into a guessing game. What some students/parents may view as less than desirable may be exactly what another group craves.
So many factors to consider: it could have been an off day, maybe the hosts ate something bad for breakfast or had a test that was making them anxious - any number of innocent and normal vagaries. Or maybe your son’s instincts were true and he felt that something was not right for him, which is ok. Better to break off the engagement than get into a bad marriage. As @Charger78 noted, accurately as usual, “you know your kid best, and he knows himself best.” The school is undeniably great in accepting and producing powerhouse kids, but what good is that in the absence of happiness? Your collective investment in this choice should be as much about your son thriving emotionally as academically. At the end of four years, who will your son be? A well educated, Ivy-bound kid who says about the school, “I got a great education but I’d never do that again” or a happy warrior off to a great college with a bunch of lifelong friends that he made at a different prep School?
I really liked the low-key, candid approach to revisits. I personally had a humorous moment with the Math guru teacher in which he attempted to explain to me several times how math placement is done at the school. My kid liked the campus layout, the Grill, and how close the dorms are to the gym.
I am contrasting this experience to another HADES school that I thought was a bit slick and smug (sorry!) in its approach to revisits.
All kidding aside, I think this thread is a good reminder that A) Sometimes that school that has looked so amazing on paper can have warts when viewed up close and B) not every school is everyone’s cup of tea. We can see above how two different parties had rashomon-like experiences at the same revisit.
My DS had a similar experience on a revisit some years ago. I feel like there is a divide at another school, the off the charts brilliant students and the jocks. They have to do a better job at finding a happy medium. Overall it’s an awesome place. I do believe that revisits should solidify your choice. We are in the home stretch with our DD. One more to go and we are still unsure (sigh)… First world problems.
@Lolalou, is it also possible that your son just has cold feet? Meeting other students and attending classes may have made this all seem “real” to him for the first time, and maybe that seemed a bit scary. I think it might be hard (even for him) to separate out whether the concerns he’s now expressed to you are the real issue, or whether they’re a bit of a defense mechanism because it all seems scary. I know at that age that’s exactly what I would have done – come up with some plausible sounding reasons not to do something that seemed difficult and challenging to me (indeed, perhaps I’m still known to do that on occasion). It’s so hard to know whether this is one of those things that once you just do it, then you wonder why you’d been worried about it in the first place, or whether these really are more deep-seated concerns. I would say, though, that I find it highly unlikely that any of the schools we’re talking about on this board would be academically challenging enough, so that might be at least a bit of a clue that this is more about jitters.
I agree that the alternatives here matter a lot.
I also agree that first and foremost he needs to be happy.
But I am not sure if revisits are really conclusive, that’s all. And I do regularly hear people make assessments of schools that are diametrically opposed!
Best case is if he could visit again.
many many kids come with exalted expectations of themselves, perhaps based on their old middle school, and even looking at the course catalog, assume they would be placed way up, only to find themselves dropped from their math class in the freshman year. These are academically tried and tested tough schools, not for the faint hearted. That said, students can very well cacoon themselves in easier classes and have a pretty good time, but that IMHO defeats the purpose of coming to such selective schools. As for getting the vibe at revisit, listen to it. He is not cut out for it, then no point in torture.
I trust admissions; i doubt that the problem is he is not cut out for it. Just my opinion.
It doesn’t surprise me if at least some kids feel it’s not a “warm and fuzzy” place. It’s not the first time we’ve heard of it. The challenge for theses schools is that kids as well as their parents could have such high expectations coming to revisits. Other than that factors, I have a couple of thoughts. 1. Schools do have developed somewhat different cultures and vibe over time. While competitive schools are stressful in some ways and at certain times at least, the overall students experience in different schools can be different. If you have gone through college admission process, you might’ve heard about how Harvard is cold and cutthroat while Yale is warmer and ‘friendlier’. In BS side, Andover does have the reputation for a more relaxed vibe and less stressful student body. Whether it’s substantial difference and whether a kid is “cut for” one or the other is different story. 2. I wonder if there’s a cultural shock involved here. I know for many, this is the first time they get up close to the “New England elite culture”, which still is the dominant mainstream culture even in a BS with such diversified student body. It takes some time to get used to.
Full disclosure FWIW, my son didn’t have a great revisit in Andover back in the days. The student paired with him didn’t seem to be enthusiastic about being there. He kept ignoring him so he had to be more proactive in mingling with others on his own. But he didn’t have other concerns other than this unfitting revisit buddy, so we eventually chose Andover. The experience? From parents perspective, I think it’s somewhat mixed. There were difficult times for sure, acdemically and socially. But four years later, my son said it was totoally worth it and he would let his kids to attend in the future.
I know it’s a difficult situation. Do some more research and reach out to the school of you think if may help. At the end of day, no matter how enthusiastic you are at this point of time, you will have your share of disappointment and dissatisfied at some point after you have attended. Such is life. On the other hand, if the revisit is so bad that he is even questioning the school’s academic rigor, it might be his right call. There’s a point where you say it’s just not worth it.
I would encourage you to take your son’s feelings seriously. While disappointing, this doesn’t surprise me too much as there are great efforts made at marketing and brochures that portray an idealized BS life. My son found his favorite school (on paper) to be cold and stuffy in reality and he totally changed his mind after visiting.
He also had an underwhelming experience at revisit day at his current school. He very nearly went somewhere else and questioned whether he wanted the whole BS experience. He was able to discuss his feelings with someone who knew him and knew a lot about boarding schools and most of his reservations were addressed so that he could start the year excited about attending. However, the things that bothered him during revisit still bother him – certain classes are underwhelming and he is bored in classes where he cannot take an appropriate level. He sees a certain smugness in sectors of the school that he finds tiresome. It is cold in the winter and dark in the dorm, which isn’t nice. There is a lot of competition for a spot in anything – sports, orchestra, clubs, electives – and this means that he often does not get what he wants to take or do. It is very hard to leave a family and siblings who are close.
At the same time, there are things he didn’t get a good feel about at revisit day. I think there was some sense of being overwhelmed at the workload based on interactions with his host and concern that everyone would be anxious and studying all the time. This has not been true for him at all, nor for his friends. I think he worried about managing everything on his own, which has been challenging, but has led to great growth. I think he felt somewhat intimidated by the mandatory activities and yet these have been a revelation in growth and development. Being forced to pick certain elective classes and do a sport has been extremely worthwhile for him. Teaching, overall, has been fantastic.
I agree with the suggestion to try another revisit experience if possible. It’s a major decision to make after one day there. I’d encourage your son to express as clearly as possible whether the negatives would overshadow the positives. I think this board tends towards emphasizing the positives and there are many negatives as well. For my son, he finds the overall balance justifies his attendance there and he’s been happy with his choice despite reservations, but the reservations he felt on revisit day have been real and ongoing.