I grew up in So Cal and know many who went. It’s a party school!!
Niche rates it A+ for party.
There’s many rankings and in some it’s been near the top in the past. Let’s say it’s social scene is known to be vibrant - but that’s at many schools.
I mean, look at the location. But it’s not like UCSB - which is at the beach.
As for this, typo - sorry - What are you doing to find the alternatives she might love similarly.
In other words, if she loves UCLA, then you should find other large, flagship types that will meet her needs - whether Arizona (not directly near a beach), SDSU, Cal Poly SLO, FSU, UF, etc.
You note she likes the small classes of LMU - that’s where there are no dream schools mantra comes in - because there will be hundreds of kids in class with her those first years.
In the end, you have the #1 - but now you need to find #2-5 and that’s got to be the focus I believe.
Not sure, probably just that it was quiet and in a residential area. She would like to experience life in a city. I thought Santa Clara had the nicest housing of all the schools and had a beautiful campus.
I have a friend whose kid was fixated on UCLA for film. He did not get in.
He was accepted to several highly selective schools, including NYU, Carnegie Mellon and Macalester. I will never forget what he told me when his kid was admitted off the waitlist for Michigan. He said his kid “needed the win” after a “disappointing” admissions season. I told him he was mistaken, his kid had great results.
His kid is now enrolled at NYU Tisch, for film! Yet, he and his son are still salty about the UCLA rejection. This is how the “dream school” mindset warps all perspective.
I don’t think it’s a great idea, not just because you may not get in (and needlessly dismiss great options) but because you may! And if it’s not what you thought it would be, it can be hard to address that because, hey, if I can’t be happy here, I may not be happy anywhere. It also makes it hard, if you get in RD, to fairly evaluate other options.
I think it’s fine to lump schools into tiers – top choices and great choices – reminding yourself that while they each have their own “things”, they all are good options. The interstate may be fastest, but the backroads are more scenic. They all get you there!
My kid got into their “dream school” last weekend - and five minutes afterwards when he could finally breathe again he said “thank GOD I got in but that was really risky to focus on a dream school.”
Many schools, especially larger ones, will have different social “scenes”. She will find her niche and can avoid those she doesn’t care for. Again, maybe helping her reframe her school as her “top choice” rather than “dream” might help.
Like many others here, I try to discourage the dream school mindset whenever I encounter it. At the end of the day, they are all just schools. And real life is real life, not a dream, and any given real school experience will have its pros and cons. The dream school mindset essentially denies this basic reality, and that can only be trouble.
So what to do when a kid does not immediately agree to take a more measured approach? I am not sure there is a silver bullet solution, but one thought is I see a lot of kids talk about how they are working so hard and they understandably want that to pay off in some way. And if the payoff is not getting admitted to a dream school, because dream schools don’t actually exist, then what is the payoff? Why should they work so hard?
Again there is not necessarily a single great answer to that, but I think one thing that is very important to discuss is how a good HS experience, defined in certain ways at least, can set you up for a good college experience as well. And that is really important, because how you actually do in college can in fact matter in a variety of ways.
And then at least in some circumstances, another payoff to working hard can just be more options, including but not limited to cases where the college budget is constrained. This may sound similar to the dream school concept in some ways, but the whole point is not to be narrowly focused on one school, but rather to end up with a nice collection of affordable offers you can then choose among. That’s really quite the luxury, many people do not have it, so if that is part of what you get as a reward for your efforts, that is a big deal!
Anyway, that’s the sort of thinking I try to encourage. I am under no illusions it always works.
I’ll give a slightly different perspective. I think that kids build resilience through trying things and failing. As in the Kipling poem:
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you…
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master…
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same…
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
I’ve always encouraged my kids to strive for things with a very low probability of success (often single digit percentage or less). That’s how I was brought up, and was always told by my parents (who didn’t even go to university) that I could do anything I wanted if I set my mind to it, but there were no free passes. And though I wouldn’t always succeed, the self-confidence to compete (and sometimes but not always succeed) for the most difficult opportunities was hugely beneficial in life.
My S’s dream college was Oxford and he was rejected after interview (he went to UCLA and loved it). During college he applied for some of the famous graduate scholarships (Truman, Marshall etc), again he was a finalist but didn’t win. My D has wanted to be a professional ballerina since elementary school, she’s one of a handful left who is still on that path, but it’s also been a story of hundreds of auditions with constant rejections.
But they’ve also had amazing successes and won great prizes, scholarships, internships, jobs, even elected office, while learning that life has its challenges. They enjoy the competition: in line with Kipling’s “If you can make one heap of all your winnings, And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss”, S actually played poker pretty seriously in college.
For many kids, college applications might be the first time they’ve ever failed at something really big that they’d set their heart on. It’s good to start with smaller disappointments at an earlier age (in our house the kids only won games when they deserved to, however young they were). But they’ll also meet with triumph and disaster many more times in their life.
I personally don’t think someone having a dream school is a problem. I want my child to have dreams…dream schools, dream careers. But as long as they know that, depending on the dream school, rejection is highly possible, and they need to have a backup plan, to me, that’s fine. Make sure they have a backup plan they would also enjoy.
Dream schools gives students something to aspire to and to achieve. If they get in…awesome! But if it does not happen, that’s life. I remember my dream school back 35 years ago was UCLA and Brown. Didn’t get into either. I was upset that I didn’t get into UCLA (it’s just a basketball school that I wanted to go to since I was 5!). Sad I didn’t get into Brown, since both brothers did. But I got over it. I don’t forget it, but it does not bother me. That’s life. Most get over it. A small few might not. But again, that’s unfortunately life. It’s good for people to have aspirations. Just temper it with realism.
My S20 had a first choice school. Santa Clara. He got rejected. Appealed. Got waitlisted. Then got accepted. He chose the University of Portland over SCU. He realized that his desired school wasn’t so desirable and fell for UP. Graduated in four years and enjoyed every minute of it. I just asked him today if he would change his mind? No! He said (unless he got a job from Meta earning $125K)….
D24 had a dream school. Cornell. Applied ED. Deferred. Waitlisted. Given the TO option. She chose UC Berkeley. She likes Berkeley a lot. She has a 99% of getting into Cornell TO (maybe less). But she chooses not to apply TO. She likes it at Cal and the program is better.
My kids and I are examples of those who had number ones and dream schools. When they were given the opportunity to attend after essentially getting “rejected” they chose to move on with other “better”opportunities. The same with me although not given the opportunity.
Life takes us to many different places. Sometimes we get into are dream school. Sometimes we cannot get into our dream school, field, career, or job. But that’s life. And there’s nothing wrong with having dreams, as long as we know that sometimes it works out as planned and sometimes it does not. We just need to seek our dreams but be prepared for other twists and turns in life that can work out even for the best.
Every year this forum is littered with transfer chance me threads by students who got into their dream school. Every school has downsides. EVERY SCHOOL. Those things go undiscovered or intentionally overlooked when idealizing a school. I’m with @momofboiler1. Identify desired qualities and build a list around those. Rankings never entered into our son’s search. They easily lead aspirants astray. TLDR; I’m in the dream school is a bad idea camp.
Many times when there is too much focus on a perceived “dream school”, the importance of “fit” is overlooked (arguably one of the most important criteria when selecting a college). This can lead to disappointment and ultimately a transfer to the “right” college, as @eyemgh mentioned.
As I said in another post, for most students, college is four years of life. Those four years move quickly. The peak of your life should not be where you got admitted to college. There’s so much more life after that and plenty of time to make your mark!
D2 did not get into her #1 college. After her freshman year, I asked her if she wanted to pursue a transfer into the #1. She declined, saying that she felt she was where she was supposed to be. We’ve had several conversations during her four years where she mentioned being relieved that she did not get into her #1 because she wasn’t sure she would have been happy there. Sometimes life intervenes and puts us on a different path for very good reasons.
There’s a difference between aiming high and thinking that something will fulfill your dreams. The latter is almost certain to disappoint. The former, if you like doing the work that allows you to aim high, will be fulfilling.
I’m not suggesting this is easy – indeed many of us go through life trying to find joy in the everyday while working toward something-- but one shouldn’t need a dream school to apply themselves in high school.
My kids had goals. Aspirations. Always taught them to “Bet on yourself” and go for it. But if they didn’t get it then they would move on. I just think for many having dream schools can be unrealistic expectations. Not in this case but I think families feed into their kids expectations. I think a talk about the chances of getting in are low for all and start looking at other schools on their list to learn about those opportunities also. There is a reason you have a college list. It’s not about not believing in your child it’s just about setting realistic expectations.
Agree. A realistic “dream” for your kid is that he/she will find a community in college, whether it’s students who share the same passion for anime, a professor who gathers the kids who love talking about Renaissance fresco for lunch and learns, team members who have each others backs (gymnasts, debaters, whatevers).
An unrealistic “dream” is that your kid who hates to read books and meandered through HS on auto-pilot is going to be transformed into a robotics expert by getting into CMU and having proximity to a bunch of high-performing, self motivated robotics geeks.
Ran into a friend yesterday who happily outlined their college visit schedules for their current junior. He didn’t ask for advice so I just smiled and nodded. But I know the kid. Whole lotta magical thinking going on. I did ask “are you finding the guidance team helpful?” and got an angry screed that they are so busy helping current seniors that they haven’t focused on the juniors (which of course is appropriate…) I pointed out that they surely know the right pace and timing so the juniors don’t burn out too early- and he admitted this was probably wise.
First of all @Inmcabound, I loved the breakdown of your UC campus tours.
Great thread, very robust discussion. Yeah, hard to deny how low admit rates really discourage any talk of highly-rejective “dream schools.” The only thing I would add is thinking of a “dream school” in the abstract - “I want a large campus, brick buildings, fraternity row, more (or less) than 10,000 students, professors that engage students on a personal level, GAME DAY-level sports” and go from there.
Encouraging a “wish list” rather than a dream school might be best practices in 2025, I guess.
Our experience was that our older son had a “dream school”, though it was never referred to as such. It was like the elephant in the room that nobody dared to acknowledge, but we all knew that it was there. We did have a healthy list developed and we tried to keep the focus/discussions on the list, rather than “the one”. Our younger son seems to be the complete opposite so far.
I think that being “focused” (rational) on getting into a particular school is OK and it really depends on the kid. Being “obsessed” (emotional) is probably not OK and should be toned down, if possible. Easier said than done…
You didn’t mention the San Diego schools - did you manage to get that far south? Lots of similarities to the LA schools. We’ve known a handful of kid that went to University of San Diego in addition to the publics.
My D was rejected from her two “dream schools.” She was sad, but when the acceptances started rolling in, she felt better. She ultimately got into and attended a school that was the Perfect Fit for her (better fit than the dream schools IMO). She loved her school, but even then after a year there she commented she’d probably would have been happy at any one of the schools she applied to. Yay for perspective!
I grew up in LA, and have known many people over the years who’ve gone to UCLA. It can be a party school – big-time sports, big Greek scene, weather that is conducive to fun. But it’s also a place of serious academics and top-notch research. It’s a huge university, and for any student, it’s what you make of it. (I went to Michigan and Wisconsin for grad school, and the same can be said of these schools, minus the weather – though one could argue that cold weather encourages a different kind of party vibe).
Yes, it’s a party school. But not for everyone, and it’s not an either-or situation. It’s big enough that it means different things to different people.