<p>Many of us go through a similar doomed visit. I think that many kids, angry at feeling scared and overwhelmed, try to get a sense of control by blowing off one college their parents suggest for no real reason. There is a whole CC thread on ridiculous reasons kids give for not liking a school–and that doesn’t count the thousands who let a single tour guide turn them off.</p>
<p>I think the idea of meeting an Ithaca rep at your school (or a nearby college fair) is excellent.</p>
<p>I also think there is little harder than trying to persuade a child he needs a small school because he will benefit from closer faculty contact–the kids who most need it are afraid of it.</p>
<p>It may not be true generally, but at our HS very different kids head for Hofstra and Ithaca–Ithaca draws much more artsy kids and those very interested in communications.</p>
<p>Susquehanna was definitely a “doomed visit.” Thank you, that made me laugh. The whole thing is frustrating and definitely thankless. </p>
<p>Very interesting about the kinds of kids who go to Ithaca vs Hoftstra. My kid is not artsy at all. Still, Ithaca seems like a much nicer place to go to college than Hempstead, Long Island.</p>
<p>Some kids aren’t quite so into “nice,” though. My D is going to Adelphi, which is a stone’s throw from Hofstra. She certainly doesn’t find the area bucolic, but she turned down a few bucolic schools for very good reasons. She is appreciating the proximity to NYC, access to the train, and while not a mall type likes it that she can get things that she needs. Also she is very near major airports. Upstate would have been a much bigger hassle for her to travel home.</p>
<p>simpkin, I really feel for you, but I do think you have to remember this is all through your son’s eyes, not yours.</p>
<p>My D also might have benefited from a small school’s level of attention, but I know for a fact she would have felt socially suffocated. Academically it’s working well for her to be at a 5K-student school but in small, specialized programs. She is getting a TON of close professor contact. Socially I think she would have liked a bigger school - although she has friends at 10K±student schools that aren’t finding “their” people so easily, either.</p>
<p>I just drove past Adelphi a couple of weeks ago. I like that the train station is practically on campus. I don’t know if you’ve seen Hofstra – it’s kind of self-contained, in the middle of highways. I don’t think there is much you can walk to. They do have a shuttle bus that goes to the train, though. Ithaca seems more appealing because there is an actual town nearby. But you’re right, my son sees things through his own eyes. This whole situation is probably my fault for not insisting that he do his own research from the beginning.</p>
<p>Yes, we looked at Hofstra, too. Not as pretty a campus, I’ll agree. The disappointment my D has with Adelphi is that the train station is just about the only thing you CAN walk to - downtown Garden City is well over a mile, just enough out of the way to make her feel kind of isolated. There is a shuttle that takes them to various places, though.</p>
<p>She would love a town nearby. Location was really hard for her to deal with, and it’s been a challenge now that she’s committed to Adelphi. Even though she had visited twice, she couldn’t really know what it would be like. She’s getting used to making it work, though, especially by going into the City more often.</p>
<p>These kids are very hard to “insist” with. I don’t blame you at all. I tended to “find” schools and then D did the detailed research on them. In many ways she didn’t know exactly what she wanted (except a great BFA in theatre, if she could get in, the best academics that would accept her, and access to a city somehow), and her list was extremely varied. </p>
<p>For the record, she found Hofstra to be much less attractive than Adelphi and didn’t end up applying (their theatre degree isn’t as appealing, either). I completely understand your point of view. But as much as I like the Ithaca area, I know my D - even though she is very artsy! - wouldn’t have gone there. She wouldn’t even look at it, just doesn’t like the upstate area (probably too much like where we live now). She did apply to a few Hudson valley schools, where she could at least catch the bus to NYC.</p>
<p>Simpkin, please do not blame yourself. You could not have forced or persuaded him to do more. You did nothing wrong and came up with some very good options for him. Remember that you were the one who came up with McDaniel and the other good small school he liked.</p>
<p>He is probably doing some of this to cause you some agita. One of the sad parts of parenting is that often when you are being genuinely sympathetic, patient and understanding, your kids do not believe you–and are angry at you because they know you rightfully could be disappointed in them. </p>
<p>And, pardon the stereotype, but I see very few “regular” boys doing research on colleges–winning their Fantasy Football League or getting a videogame cheat game is much more important than their next 4 years and your $200,000 in tuition.</p>
<p>How is Hofstra’s 4 year graduation rate? I always found that meaningful.</p>
<p>Emmy, if your daughter is getting a lot of close contact with good professors in her major and enjoying exploring NYC, that is not a shabby result for the first 2 months. Most kids are just learning where the beer blasts are by the 2 month point.</p>
<p>Perhaps if she tries a lot of on campus clubs and even exercise classes she will find more of a “her people”. It only takes a few and a great kid like her will attract them.</p>
<p>Well, I know I have this vision of him attending a Colleges That Change Lives kind of school and having his life changed, you know, sitting around seminar tables having intellectual discussions with caring professors and engaged students, etc. It may be that his vision of college has more to do with beer and football games and if so, I cannot blame him at all, because that was exactly my dream at that age; I HAD to go to Penn State and wouldn’t consider anything else, certainly not a small LAC. </p>
<p>Hofstra’s graduation rate is not so great, only about 60%. S’s college counselor says that’s probably due to having a fair number of commuters and continuing students who may only take a class or two at a time. I don’t know if that’s correct because it seems that the graduation rate should only measure full-time students.</p>
<p>I wonder whether the graduation rate has to do with a fair number of Hofstra students transferring to less expensive SUNYs (many would be instate for SUNYs). Last time I checked Hofstra’s FA, it was not good. They were very generous with merit aid for my older child who was a B+ student in HS with very good SAT scores for a typical Hofstra student, and he would count as a kid from outside of NY. The problem with merit aid was that the GPA climbed over a period of 3 semesters to keep it. I was not sure that my son would be able to keep his merit aid, and with lousy FA, I was not willing to take a chance. Additionally, I pulled a student who led our tour aside and asked more probing questions regarding support in a science lab. She was very candid about her experience and how she was struggling, and that just was another negative for me. All of that said, I know a few people who were students there years ago (when they accepted less qualified students) and they loved it.</p>
<p>Yeah, Hofstra is pricy enough that you have to wonder if tuition is really worth it compared to a SUNY school. I don’t expect that my son would get any merit aid from them . . . I have no idea if he’ll even be admitted. I’m wary of the SUNYs given NY’s budget woes but I’m not ruling them out. </p>
<p>I’m not sure why he’s so in love with Hofstra. It started the moment we arrived on campus. Then the info session was entertaining and our tour guide was a nice, down-to-earth kid. It was Saturday so students were hanging out and relaxing. It could be that despite his supposed hatred of Long Island, he’s actually nervous about being away from home.</p>
<p>I can’t answer whether Hofstra is worth a difference in cost of a SUNY. I would imagine much depends upon the student, the major, instate vs. out of state, merit and financial aid, and family resources. </p>
<p>We took SUNYs off our list since we are OOS and the OOS tuition surged for our younger son to a point where it was going to cost the same as our instate schools. My son is at private U that is not costing us any more than SUNY as an OOS student or our instate public Us.</p>
<p>It’s hard to know what makes a school click for a student. Can your son tell you what he loves about Hofstra? Maybe then you can find similar schools.</p>
<p>One thing my son liked about a medium sized school was that he could be anonymous if he chose yet it was also possible to have close contact with the professors. He would have been very unhappy to be put on the spot in a small seminar situation. He’s fine participating in classes but only on his terms.</p>
<p>On our way home from visiting his now #1 choice he was able to tell me exactly why he felt this would be the best school for him. I found out some of the things he told me were important to him were things I had not thought of.</p>
<p>For reasons that escape me, there are relatively few 4,000 to 8,000 student private schools for B students, except for some Catholic ones. </p>
<p>If football games are part of his vision, he should learn that Hofstra dropped it for lack of student interest. Your “fear factor” idea may be right on target.</p>
<p>Have you shared your regrets about your Penn State decision with him?</p>
<p>Same for A students, as I recall from going through this with my daughter. </p>
<p>I did talk to him about Penn State, and he says he doesn’t want something that huge. Ironically, if he went to PSU, I’m pretty sure he would not be admitted to the main campus as a freshman and would have to spend the first two years at one of the much-smaller branch campuses. </p>
<p>proudwismom, I can’t get much out of him about the appeal of Hofstra. He liked that there were lots of kids around. It definitely seemed livelier than some of the LACs.</p>
<p>I don’t know about University of Hartford; I’ll check it out. He wants cold winters, crazy kid, so Tampa and Elon are probably out.</p>
<p>By the way, I know I come across as very negative about Penn State, but the truth is that the problems I had in college were entirely the result of my own bad choices.</p>
<p>Most of the Pennsylvania State U’s in this tier [Welcome</a> to the PA State System of Higher Education](<a href=“http://www.passhe.edu/Pages/default.aspx]Welcome”>Home | PA State System of Higher Education) have 4,000 -10,000 students.All are great for B students, and especially good for those that want the all around college atmosphere but don’t want the super big state U’s, don’t want to pay the big price tag, and might not get into the flagship colleges.</p>
<p>I think it is insightful to take responsibility for past bad choices (which we all make) and often smart to tell our kids about them.</p>
<p>I think it is very hard for kids who are new to a huge campus and anxious to fit in to avoid a prevalent drinking culture. It is hard at any campus, but I think the realization of how huge some flagships are makes many kids even more insecure, although a larger student body should offer more chances to find similar kids.</p>
<p>When I was looking at colleges back in prehistoric times (the 70’s), I also found the 4000 undergrad size ideal, thinking smaller would be too confining. Oddly enough, with high school reunion Facebook pages, etc, I realized that my 600 member HS class had hundreds of kids I never got to know, many of whom seem very nice and interesting. This leads me to think that it is important to be sure that going to a 5000 student school vs. a 2500 student school will yield more opportunities, such as activities and courses of study, rather than just larger classes and a harder time getting a leadership position.</p>
<p>I didn’t know everyone in my high school class of 300! His GC talked to him about how 2500 kids is actually more kids than he will ever really be able to get to know, and he seemed to get it, at the time. </p>
<p>I can’t remember if I already posted this, but I did let him apply to the University of Kansas rather than continuing to argue about it. Now he wants to apply to Pace. Why? “It’s in the city and one of my friends wants to go there.” Oh, okay then. At this point, I have to just accept that I have no idea how this will all turn out.</p>
<p>At least if he applies he will have acceptances and then choices. Maybe by the time he has to decide between them he will be better able to articulate what he wants and why.</p>