<p>I’m wondering whether it’s a matter of “I haven’t met my future wife yet” or whether it’s “These students are so driven and compulsive, they’re all already thinking about the businesses they want to start, I don’t like this place and I want to go somewhere with Midwest nice.”</p>
<p>Stanford has many advantages, but Midwest nice is not one of them. If this student really doesn’t like the culture at Stanford and doesn’t want to spend another three miserable years there, he should transfer; Wisconsin is a fine school, and a student bright enough to be accepted to Stanford will do well there. But I agree with the other posters that the family should make sure the problem is not something that would travel to Wisconsin with him.</p>
<p>Then he can get his master’s at Georgetown or Tufts or Stanford or wherever. The problem is that this young man is “leaning” a lot of ways, as are many 18- and 19-year-olds. Many students change their minds about majors multiple times in college. </p>
<p>I agree with Cardinal Fang about “Midwest nice,” too. Sometimes a less competitive environment can be freeing.</p>
<p>Sally, I’m well aware of both the numerous studies done as well as the prestige of Wisconsin Madison (it’s a top 20 school in my field of study). I was simply pointing out that once enrolled, students tend to forget how their school is perceived by the outside world although for those truly dissatisfied by the first institution, it shouldn’t matter. </p>
<p>Also the OP indicated that his son switched majors like most students, myself included, do. So now that he’s probably not an IR major and doesn’t want to go IB or VC, a Madison degree would likely suffice for any career path he wants to take.</p>
<p>I would say that knowing about 100 students by the start of the sophomore year is pretty … remarkable. It is not that unusual for freshmen to know mostly other freshmen, and at Stanford that is more or less by design. And it is still a lot better than a places such as Duke with offers freshman exile dorms. </p>
<p>This might be a case of “excessive” expectations of what college life will be. For some the transition from high school takes a bit more time. My take is that everything really starts to jell by the middle of the sophomore year when different types of interactions and friendships develop. This said, I think that most students find that their first friends (mostly freshmen) form the lasting friendships through and after graduation. </p>
<p>As far as the academic transfers, there are no reasons to believe that they are bad ideas. For some students, it is the beginning of new start, especially with a better understanding of the school environment. Wisconsin happens to be one the great public universities, and a student might find it a more appropriate environment. </p>
<p>Of course, losing the TRULY quality football team might be a high prize to pay. Take that on the chin, Barrons! ;)</p>
<p>My son is a freshman at UMiami and he knows around the same number of students. Most of his classes are of 18-20 students, with the exception of one. He got involved in many clubs that he had a personal interest in to meet more people.Do not forget that transfer students sometimes have difficulty making friends because most groups form during freshman year. Some of the reasons are that the kids have more free time the first year and they are more open to meet new people. Most majors are not very exciting the first couple of years, specially if he is still undecided. Give Stanford another year. I really think that maturity and time might make him see things differently. Many schools look like fun, but if the person is not socially open they will encounter the same problems anywhere they go.</p>
<p>It sounds like this could well be a case of unreasonable expectations of the college experience. This seems to afflict quite a number of students regardless of where they attend - especially if they’re the type (including if the parent’s are the type) where the expected experience was overly built-up leading up to college - think phrases like “these will be the best years of your life” (which very often isn’t true - it wasn’t for me but then I didn’t expect they would be), “this is where you’ll likely meet your future spouse” (which obviously isn’t always true), and a number of others. This phenomenon may be even worse for people at the level of the very top colleges due to over hyping and too much emphasis the entire college experience.</p>
<p>When the expectations are high and then they get there and realize they have to do real work, the profs aren’t all ‘amazing’ and ‘exciting’ and some are downright awful even at the best of colleges, it’s not always the exact social environment they expected, they’re not instantly supplied with a set of pre-built friends and intellectual colleagues and bf/gf - they might actually have to pursue building those relationships themselves, and the realize they’re not quite as special as they might have thought they were due to getting accepted to the college since everyone else there was accepted as well.</p>
<p>Stanford isn’t a small college. There are thousands and thousands of other students with a lot in common with him (same age group, same location, same academic level, etc.). If he can’t form adequate relationships there why would he think he could do so elsewhere - especially as a transfer? That’s not even logical. Going to a U closer to home is only likely to make the situation even more difficult since there’s a better chance of a lot of people, including him, vacating the premises every weekend or at least more frequently than a place like Stanford. People only really have one to maybe a few really close friends. Beyond that they have acquaintances. He doesn’t need to worry about having hundreds of friends - just one or two or three. That doesn’t seem to be a significant challenge at a college with thousands to choose from.</p>
<p>I think rather than focusing on the particular college as the source of whatever disappointment he has he should take a closer look at why he was disappointed in the first place and maybe just adjust his expectations and maybe even make some changes in order to have those expectations met - i.e. being more outgoing, joining in activities where he can meet more people, not staying in the dorm room too much, etc.</p>
<p>Stanford does have a certain cachet that his state U doesn’t have. That doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with the state U but he’s already at Stanford and just has a little bit more to go so he really should think about the move carefully. If he switches and then discovers the same disappointments (or worse) exist at the state U then he might ‘really’ be disappointed.</p>
<p>Glad grad…this student has more than “a little bit to go”. He will just be starting his sophomore year. He has way more to go than what he has completed.</p>
<p>My daughter went to college in CA at a school down the road a piece from Stanford. Her comment was that CA definitely does NOT feel like New England (where we are from). I’m quite sure it doesn’t feel like the Midwest where I grew up. </p>
<p>Some folks really like to feel “at home”. If this student will be happy at U of Wisconsin, then so be it.</p>
<p>But I go back to my original post…what made this student choose Stanford in the first place? He had some terrific acceptances…Georgetown, Oxford, UW, Stanford. So what made him choose Stanford, and what has changed since that decision was made? What? I’m sure he didn’t choose Stanford because he thought he would meet his future wife there! There are good reasons why he chose that school from the others. What doesn’t Stanford offer that he THOUGHT it would offer. And is he sure that U Wisconsin will offer what he wants.</p>
<p>Everyone is making good points. I would add that larger universities that accept a lot of transfers sometimes have dorms exclusively for transfer students that help give them a sense of community right away. UW definitely has this.</p>
<p>Cardinal Fang–you seem to know Stanford well! But the question we have as parents, is everyone like that? He has a small sample size of his freshman dorm and some fraternities (which he decided not to join). Isn’t it likely that he might meet some students that are interested in learning and studying, without regard for whether their studies will lead them directly into a career or make them rich? He is already tired of everyone asking him --what are you going to do with that [major]? We did college tours for our daughter this summer and he came along --he really enjoyed seeing liberal arts colleges like Swarthmore and Carleton and seeing Yale, Harvard, Brown and University of Chicago. We are thinking perhaps he might like the company of some of the students that did SLE their freshmen year at Stanford. He wants those late nights of conversing and discussing (for lack of a better word) “intellectual” topics and the “meaning of life.” His good friend at Yale says she has those types of conversations. He also has some high school friends who enjoy those types of conversations too; hence the interest in the UW.</p>
<p>The Fall Activities Fair is the afternoon of September 27 in White Plaza. Just about every student organization will be represented. I would encourage him to take a look at everything and pick out a couple groups to try out. I know plenty of Stanford kids who’ve changed majors multiple times and are not in the engineering school…Most of them have been able to find their people. I hope your son does too.</p>
<p>Just because some kids discuss “meaning of life” at Yale does not mean there are fewer driven kids attending Yale. Most of them are quite focused in what they want to do. They got to top schools because they have the drive to succeed in whatever they do, irrespective of whether they end up making money or pursue low income careers.</p>
<p>Many from Stanford seem to be pursuing non-profit ventures.</p>
<p>I simply cannot believe that this does not happen at Stanford. Your son can find like-minded kids there, I am certain of it. </p>
<p>UW is a great option to have, but transferring there primarily because there might be less pre-professionalism and more intellectualism among the students there than those at Stanford seems misguided to me.</p>
<p>“He has a small sample size of his freshman dorm and some fraternities (which he decided not to join).”</p>
<p>Then he’s doing it wrong, and that wrong approach will likely fail at UW too. If he is just planning to plop back into his group of HS friends who all went to UW together, well, it’s up to him, but I’d hope my child would make a different choice.</p>
<p>Speaking from first-hand experience, it will be MUCH harder to make friends and find a community as a transfer, especially at a gigantic school, and double especially at a gigantic school where most upperclassmen live off campus.</p>
<p>Yes, Wisconsin has a transfer house, but the OP’s son should not assume that he will get a place in it, especially as a mid-year transfer. He should research that if it is important to him. Transferring mid-year is going to ensure that friendships and groupings have already formed even among the transfers.</p>
<p>It’s true that sometimes a freshman dorm takes on a culture different from the university as a whole, but if that happens, it’s on you to join the philosophy club or take a Sanskrit class (not frat rush) and find the other people who aren’t just in college for their shot at Goldman Sachs. I promise they exist. IMHO, it will be a real shame if this student just gives up and goes back to HS (socially) rather than doing the work to find his new family at Stanford.</p>
<p>“He is already tired of everyone asking him --what are you going to do with that [major]?”</p>
<p>These people might just be making conversation, and he is wrong in many cases if he assumes they won’t want to stay up late talking about the meaning of life. I agree that something is wrong with the picture of meeting 100+ Stanford students and finding that zero of them are interested in learning and studying for their own sake. The something that’s wrong is that he’s likely writing people off without getting to know them. You can (for example) want to go into finance, and ALSO love nerding out over your linguistics paper.</p>
thumper: You’re right that he has more than halfway to go but he’s talking about transferring in January which means almost halfway done and I guess from my perspective (age) the remaining 2 1/2 years doesn’t seem like much.</p>
<p>I didn’t get from the posts that he was necessarily homesick but rather, looking for some nebulous thing that he may be just as challenged in finding regardless of where he goes.</p>
<p>But maybe you’re right and he really misses awful weather, bugs, etc. ;)</p>
<p>The students attending Stanford are a real mix of people from all over. If he’s looking for exactly the same type of people he grew up with then maybe attending a U close to his hometown is the answer but even then people are sometimes imagining an extension of their HS friends and that rarely persists into college regardless of where the college is.</p>
<p>Mostly he probably needs to ‘make it happen’ according to whatever that ‘it’ is in his mind and not rely on ‘it’ happening to him passively.</p>
<p>Note - I’m obviously just inferring and guessing based on the OP’s limited posts here.</p>