Transfer from Ivy league

Parents Forum
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<p>Amen to that. The problem is that high school students are making choices with absolutely no frame of reference. They don’t have any real concept of college life. For example, they can’t really understand that college is so much more fun when you are actively engaged with your courses, professors, etc.</p>

<p>We can see it from College Confidential, where the student’s talk is centered around so many irrelevant questions. Is there a “good” party scene – as if college students anywhere don’t have fun. How is the Economics department? As a result, there is very little focus on the many issues that will ultimately have much more impact: the implications of freshman housing, the interaction with professors, the prevailing campus culture. Instead, students are often making choices based almost on cartoon images of colleges.</p>

<p>I think an important role parents can play is to paint a picture of actual college life. To pick some relevant issues (diversity, freshman policies, TAs, whatever) and compare the schools under consideration. These are smart kids. Although they may say, “Oh…mom!”, they will take in information as it becomes available and process it. Parents need to help cut through some of the BS: the tour guides at an 80% Greek school who actually keeps a straight face when she says that there is “plenty to do for [GD]independents”, or “oh no, we don’t have TAs teaching classes” when the shool’s website says there are 725 TAs.</p>

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<p>For what it’s worth I don’t think it matters what school it is, let alone which Ivy. It is relevant for every parent of every kid who is unhappy with their choice.</p>

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<p>Given the way this thread has gone, it would take anyone who cared two minutes of research to figure out which school it is. But I agree with those who say this is an example of a common – though hardly universal, thank heavens – experience, regardless of school. I also basically agree with those who say that the whole “dream school” concept is a big part of the problem.</p>

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<p>This basically assumes that the experience at all Ivies is the same. Certainly the differences between Columbia and Dartmouth, or Cornell and Brown are greater than the differences between individual Ivies and 25-50 other institutions.</p>

<p>And, yes, “dream school” is an oxymoron.</p>

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<p>I agree JHS with the “dream school” concept issue. And it certainly doesn’t just pertain to ivy schools. I know students at many different types of schools who were seriously unhappy for as many different reasons. </p>

<p>Most of these kids could “tough” it out (my son included). But the question is why? Why invest all that money in a school where your child is not, as my son put it, “growing in a positive way”? (Exception to that would be loss of a scholarship…then a really hard decision)</p>

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<p>I could not decide from the OP’s various messages whether the problem was with the school, with the particular situation the student found herself in, with problems related to the freshman year that may dissipate later, or what.</p>

<p>For example, my S was in an all-freshman dorm, and his situation was less than ideal (crowded). But out of 4 suitemates, he got along very well with 3 and they’ve ended up roomming together in sophomore year. He also made friends with students across the hall and in different dorms (and years). I would not have tagged him as the most sociable kid. But perhaps it was this very trait that made him happy with his situation: he was not expecting to find a bff in the first months or year of college.
He’s not been disappointed by his college experience, although it has not been perfect by any means. But then, he did not have a “dream school” even though he is attending his top choice. He did think carefully about what size school and location suited him best and what mattered to him most or least. So far, these have not changed. A lot of students’ tastes and priorities do change, making decisions arrived at at 17 or 18 rather problematic.</p>

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<p>Well, as a partial answer to the question “why”, I can propose the experience of a young man I know at, as it happens, the same college I think we’re talking about in this thread.</p>

<p>He had a nightmare freshman year. He was one of two white students assigned to live in an African-American theme dorm, a classical and jazz musician in a hip-hop 24-7 environment (he has yet to develop any appreciation for hip-hop). He was incompatible with his roommate, spent many, many nights “sexiled”, and coughed his way through a haze of marijuana smoke when he was allowed in. He felt oppressed by what he saw as a pervasive pre-professional atmosphere, and described himself as intellectually starved. His family moved to Australia. He was miserable. He was certain he had made a terrible decision in deciding to go to that college.</p>

<p>He stuck it out. He founded two campus organizations – one classical music related, one a philosophy club – to find like-minded kids. He made great, diverse friends, which included a number of business-focused kids he might never have met elsewhere. He developed great faculty relations with great faculty members. He was the top student in his department when he graduated, and won a university-sponsored fellowship to do an MA at Magdalen College, Oxford. He wrote a novel about himself and his friends. He is now a JD/MBA student at Stanford, something he never thought he would do. </p>

<p>He absolutely “grew in a positive way” at his college. A big part of that was taking responsibility for making his own atmosphere rather than either accepting the status quo or looking for a more attractive status quo to accept. He would have done fine if he had transferred, too, I’m sure. But I’m also sure he grew more and learned more by not transferring.</p>

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<p>I agree this kind of mis-match problem can happen at any school. Parents and students are just more surprised when it happens at an Ivy or other elite school. You can see all the dream school talk on the student forums and, to a certain extent, we parents buy into it too. I think some schools do a more thorough job than others at matching roommates and “taking care of” freshmen. They should all be taking this seriously, particularly considering the price tag.</p>

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<p>Great story JHS! And I’m sure you’re right --this young man would have been in that group my father always called “bloom where you are planted”!</p>

<p>For some kids, though, the unhappiness (and it sounds trite to term it that, it really is more serious) spirals and does negatively effect many aspects of the student’s life. </p>

<p>My son ended up with 2 emergency surgeries in 3 semesters. Now I really do know that these things would have happened to him at home, or at any other school…but somehow he can’t shake that little nagging thought that his “psyche” caused his body to “break down”. In reality, I think these physical stresses added to his discomfort and inability to ever get “things going” where he is.</p>

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<p>I’m told that housing decisions at S2’s college were done by hand by one of the Freshmen deans. She did a great job on the whole (only 1 out of 4 roommates turned out to be a misfit). I also believe there were a number of dorm-related events that allowed residents to get to know one another. The freshman dining hall, besides resembling Hogwarts, was another place to make friends.</p>

<p>I don’t know how things were done at S1’s college. All I remember is that both S1 and roommate had described themselves as neat on their housing questionnaire. Their room, however, when I visited, resembled a pigsty. There’s only so much housing staff can do with inaccurate self-descriptions. I believe both S and his roommate hoped that, if they described themselves as neat, the other guy would be neat and thus the room would be only half as messy as it turned out to be.:(</p>

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<p>Of course I’m not suggesting that no one should transfer. And I don’t really think that anyone makes a decision to transfer lightly, although the volume of transfers seems to be way up.</p>

<p>The story of my young friend isn’t exactly a “bloom where you’re planted” story. He wasn’t making the best of a fourth-tier regional state college; he was at a world-class university. His attitude was that he had been handed a Stradivarius violin, but it was not going to sound great until he had really learned to play it, and until he had made himself a good enough musician to get something special out of a great instrument.</p>

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<p>On the pre-professional piece of it… parents, you can help your kids a lot with this one.</p>

<p>I’m astonished by the number of parents you meet in the grocery store or at the dry cleaners who proudly tell you that their 16 or 17 year old kid is “pre-med” or “pre-law” or whatever, as if a high school requires you to declare a profession before you can get the darn diploma.</p>

<p>Here on CC we’ve got parents of first semester freshman proudly proclaiming that their kid is getting a PhD, applying for post-grad fellowships or whatever. Your kid doesn’t even know how to check a book out of the library yet, and you’re pushing grad school??? Parents are bragging that the kid chose a merit award because it offered “research opportunities” at a world class lab… what lab? Let the kid get to college first for pete’s sake before you’ve got him/her curing cancer.</p>

<p>It’s ok to tell your kid that you can become a physician while majoring in philosophy; that you can get into a wide range of fine law schools with an undergrad degree in Slavic Studies; that many CEO’s studied comparative literature or psychology and it doesn’t seem to have hurt their careers.</p>

<p>It’s also ok to point out to your kid while visiting one of the notorious pre-professional diploma mills that “hey, we haven’t met a lot of kids who have interests that seem to mesh with yours”. I sat through the admissions presentation at the U the OP is discussing, and by the time you were done hearing about the school’s fine (no, astonishing) record with grad school placement, there was no time to discover if there was an early music performing group, an opportunity to do archaeological field work in the area, or a regular forum for kids and professors to discuss the erosion of consitutional rights or how important a flag-burning amendment might be (I have no political axe to grind… so I’m just being illustrative.)</p>

<p>I think most schools do a decent job presenting themselves during the dog and pony show. Parents should be more directive IMHO in helping their kids see past the ivy covered walls.</p>

<p>I graduated from Brown back in the 70’s (the dark ages I know.) At my last reunion, a bunch of classmates noticed how many had ended up as doctors… academic medicine, private practice, public health, even a well-known science writer with a medical dgree. The surprising piece of it is that only one of them was “pre-med”, and that’s cause she was in the 7 year med program at the time, actually doing her “premedical” work before the med curriculum kicked in. Everyone else was majoring in something wild and fruity and impractical…and yet, ended up as a physician.</p>

<p>Brown takes the rap as a “crunchy-granola” kind of place, but some school’s reputations are actually based on facts. It is very different from other “ivy” schools-- and many of those other schools’ reputations are well-deserved also. Don’t base your kids undergrad experience on rumors, but don’t ignore some pretty well-defined differences between schools either.</p>

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<p>RE: the “being in love with your school” issue – we’ve suggested to DS that he not fall head over heels in love with any school. Instead, he ought to look at developing a list of schools he would really like to attend, based on his criteria. He’s developed a nice list, and each one offers something a little different – but if you know my kid and who he is, you can see why he picked each.</p>

<p>I think I will have him read this thread because I don’t think the real issues of roommates and social choices haven’t really crossed his radar, and I can see that being a big issue. On the other hand, he has several friends who attend (or are looknig at attending) several of the schools on his list, and they have been sharing impressions, notes, etc. <em>Very</em> helpful.</p>

<p>But on the dorm experience – DS visited five colleges last week, and not one offered a tour of the dorms. It’s such a visceral part of one’s adjustment to life away from home! I’ll grant that the two-person cubicle will be different from a suite, but give the kids some glimpse, for crying out loud! Last summer one school refused to show us dorms, citing “security.” It was the dead of August. Noone was on campus. WTH? At another school, the tour guide took us all to her room. Virtual reality!</p>

<p>DS went to that pre-professional school in the time of the dinosaurs. First job out was $24K/year for a major computer manufacturer and boy, was he happy! I-banking jobs were two-year boot camps of minimum 60-hour weeks through various departmental rotations, and <em>then</em> you’d find out if they wanted you to have a permanent position.</p>

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<p>Counting Down -
For those in current I-banking jobs for new college graduates, 60 hours per week would sound like PART TIME work! My son is going through it right now, and when I tell people unfamiliar with these jobs the hours he and the others put in, they think I am exaggerating or not telling the truth, when I am actually being very factual !!!</p>

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<p>CountingDown</p>

<p>My son took the “8 favorite schools” approach and got into all of them. We’re doing the last minute re-visits and he’ll be staying in dorms so he’ll know what they look like–but we visited 20 campuses last year and most, if not all, let us look at a dorm room. I’m hoping the revisits will provide the needed info on fit. If not, maybe they’d all fit fine.</p>

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<p>WildChild has had to “bloom” in some very difficult places over the course of his teen years. He has no adjustment problems and makes friends very easily. He has been flying by himself to sports camps since he was 12.
The fact that he was so disappointed in his chosen college is quite telling and was something I immediately took seriously. As disappointed as I am, he does have the place pegged- at least his part of the place. He likes his dormmates- he is on the dorm council. He knows he could stay and make it work. He would live off campus and remove himself from some of the temptations. He would change his academic focus, but he isn’t as impressed with this school with respect to his new academic desires as he is some others. I am actually glad that, for one of the first times in his life, he is actually considering the value of what is being spent and whether it is worth it. His conclusion is that for HIM, at this particular school, it is not.
He claims that just about everyone that is not a geek is in a frat, by the way.</p>

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<p>One way I think about the dorm/social life issue is by whether or not someone finds being with other folks draining or re-charging. For some kids, speniding time with friends and doing things together is the nectar of life; it gives them energy and focus. For other kids, while they may enjoy the social stuff, it is draining and they ultimately need a quiet place to go to think/recharge their batteries, etc. I have one kid of each type, so remembering to make sure each gets what he needs is a consideration. As they’ve gotten older, they are able to articulate this more clearly. I can absolutely see this as a criteria for school choice.</p>

<p>He is going to sit in on classes at a couple schools in the fall, and will be overnighting on campuses then, so I hope this will help DS1 get a handle on what to expect. He has a bunch of friends who will be at some of the schools he’s considering, so he hopes to get the real down-and-dirty vs. the sanitized version of life as provided by the admissions folks.</p>

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<p>Very good point countingdown. When I think about it, my kids who always liked more alone time were the two who had the most problems with dorm life.</p>

<p>Son would invite kids over to spend night frequently and all through high school. However, about 1am, he would leave them in basement and go to his room to sleep by himself. Dorm sure doesn’t allow one to escape!!</p>

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<p>This is my biggest worry. Our D asked the other day if she could transfer after 1st semester if she does not like it. I told her that she had to give it a year, but talking about transferring before she has made her decision of where to start is crazy. This came from having no first choice school and only applying to ones she really liked, which I thought was a good idea at the start of this process.</p>

<p>If I google “pretty purple cow,” will I find what college it is the mascot for?</p>

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<p>Save you the trouble: Williams.</p>