It was small LAC with a big scholarship vs mid size T20 with great financial aid. 3200 undergraduate only vs 6300 undergraduate + graduate, law & med schools. The bigger school has a bit of a party reputation, which was off putting for her. She felt very comfortable on the smaller campus. But she really liked both schools. She went to elementary and middle school in larger public schools & high school was a parochial prep school with a graduating class of 120.
Once she got to the school she chose, she found it to be too small. Academically, it honestly was not challenging for her in the way that she wanted. She realized pretty early that she wanted to transfer, so she did a lot of investigation into transfer schools. Once in college, she was able to more accurately identify what she wanted in a school. Academic rigor and a wide range of courses were her primary concerns. She decided that the school she didn’t choose had everything she wanted, and she was less concerned about the party school aspect.
She was able to transfer, which was not a given - the school accepts very few transfers. Instead of majoring in biology or sociology, her original plans, she was able to take a wide variety of classes and had a unique major that focused on healthcare delivery. She was able to host a radio show, serve on the board of a group that put on an annual music festival, head up a spring break trip, intern for a music label, and do research for a professor … and did a semester abroad. These were all things she couldn’t have done at the other school. But I honestly believe that she needed to be at the first school to understand what it was that she wanted.
Kids 1 and 2 had schools they really wanted and when they got in, they committed immediately.
Kid 3 floats through decision. Didn’t really care where they went as long as it fit their parameters (big school, south, sports). So we made it end of April without a commitment. Child had many important things to consider such as best on campus food court, school colors, mascot, and smell of dorms. One school was eliminated on the spot because the tshirt they received at the school tour had a small hole, and child could not find sweatshirt in the preferred color without giant logo at the bookstore. Child thought it was entirely reasonable for me to spend 80,000 extra over 4 years because one school had a mascot on campus. Child revisited this decision only after being told that we would be writing them a check for anything left in their school fund.
Thank you all! Totally his decision at the end of the day, but sometimes the choices these kids are making are not based on sound criteria (see previous response about colors, mascots and dorm smells). The latest reason is that he “doesn’t know anyone going to either of the final 2 schools”, so now #3 (my lowest choice of the 16 schools he applied to), is back on the table. Just because he knows people who go there!!! I am staying calm and rational, I will share data with him when he opens the door to hearing it…but, this was not this hard with our first kid!
If it helps, I think it is virtually impossible to predict in advance which exact college will actually be optimal for a kid. Hopefully they are all decent bets to be good, but I think this is far too complex of a situation to predict which will be the absolute best.
Given that, between us, I think any process which ends with the kid excited and confident is a good process, even if it is not the process we would use.
We are visiting WUSTL and Vassar this weekend, Carleton next weekend. It is going to be a bit of a whirlwind (particularly this weekend), but I think he is looking forward to the experience of visiting as an admitted student.
I think there is a decent chance one will really stand out this time!
It will also be interesting to see how the dynamic changes with Mom (and even Sis) involved in these visits as well as me (it was all me in pre-application visits). I follow certain pretty rigid internal rules about expressing my impressions, because I want him to have as much space as possible to make his own decisions. I suspect Mom, and likely Sis, are going to be less cautious in their commentary.
Without being too specific, I grew up in the Great Lakes, my wife grew up on the East Coast, and we currently live somewhere kinda in between. I think this means all his colleges are basically just a half-step away at most culturally, and all are a reasonable direct flight (although somewhat ironically, Vassar is closest in the sense of being drivable, and trainable if you want to spend a leisurely day, but actually a bit more of a pain in terms of flying).
And in fact kids from his HS go both of these directions for college, with WUSTL being a particularly popular application (and often choice).
Carleton, though, does not get as many of our kids as NESCAC LACs, and then Vassar has apparently not matriculated anyone for years (I actually am not sure if anyone has even applied–there was no SCOIR data). Same deal with Haverford (which my S24 was admitted to, but is not currently on the short list)–no recent matriculations and no SCOIR data.
I guess this happens with LACs, but I think it is part of why he is not yet decided–there is just not much peer knowledge/support at his HS for his LACs. Hopefully, though, meeting some other admitted students and such will help assure him that many people are in fact excited about these colleges.
My D23 waited to decide until May 1 last year. She had four good options for film school - Emerson, Chapman, UNCSA and Ithaca. She wanted to commit to Emerson but there and Chapman were above our budget. We had gone back and forth with those schools for weeks about increasing her merit and finally on May 1, Emerson came through (Chapman did too but she never felt it was where she belonged). She’s had an incredible first year in Boston.
We felt bad because her high school decided to have their commitment day before May 1 because AP exams were the first week of May. She wore an Emerson sweatshirt with a UNCSA t-shirt underneath but appeared in few photos because she felt she wasn’t fully committed.
My husband grew up in the same city as our state flagship (his dad was a professor there), left to go to a small LAC in the midwest, and still 30 years later sometimes says wistfully that he probably should have just gone to the state flagship with all his friends. So…road not taken and all…any choice you make closes off all the other choices, and very often it’s not that one is universally the better choice; they’re just all different.
Our oldest came down to late in the day on the very last day of the deadline to make a decision, after having asked us to organize two last minute trips to those schools. For the most part every visit just caused front runners to drop off the list so it was looking like the winner would be whatever was left standing.
Then got a waitlist offer two days after the decision deadline and switched.
This is an excellent point. You make the best possible decision with the information that you have in the moment. But, the what ifs often come after anyway! I think realizing that there are lots of paths to happiness and a great career is the only way to think when looking at this whole process!
In fact a lot of my HS peers went to colleges with friends, and some of them regretted thinking that way!
Things are going to happen, not everyone is going to be perfectly happy, and then some will wonder if things could have been better. But as you say, life is a series of just taking your best bets at the time, because what is the alternative?
I watched my older sister be miserable at her ivy league. When I fell out of love with my uni I transferred - and loved my next school. This was all 30 years ago, and I’m told it’s much more common now. Sometimes you have to pivot.
For my S going back to his top few choices made his decision clearer and he was able to commit. I think he saw the schools through a different lens as an accepted student. So here is one more vote for revisting the top options if possible.
Other than that, don’t stress. Just have everyone agree on a decision deadline – maybe 2 days before decisions must be sent in to avoid any possible computer/technical glitches.
