<p>I keep hearing about "fit", and that a student will know it when they experience it. Well, leave it to my D to throw that concept out the window. </p>
<p>She has been deciding between UVA and W&M, but has been leaning heavily toward UVA (an 80/20 breakdown as of last night). Today she had her visit to W&M and followed a student around for the day. </p>
<p>After the visit she is now 50/50. Why? Well, she says W&M seems to be the best fit for her academically, but that UVA is by far the better fit socially. Her exact quote was "I can go to W&M and learn more and do better academically, or I can go to UVA and have the time of my life while still learning a lot, just not as much". </p>
<p>DW thinks D will regret it for the rest of her life if she doesn't go to UVA with her friends and have the better social scene (D is incredibly social). I say she will have a great time anywhere she goes, and that since W&M is a better fit academically that she should go there. </p>
<p>Hm. No one has any way of knowing if a young person’s characterizations are accurate but the trend toward W&M suggests that your D’s heart is really there already.</p>
<p>Give her time, she’ll get there (meaning her own choice.)</p>
<p>Either school will provide an excellent education.</p>
<p>I think a kid who is “incredibly social” will find her fun, or make it, wherever she goes. If W&M is an academic fit, it’ll become a social fit soon enough. (Surely they know how to have fun in Williamsburg, too!)</p>
<p>Well… at our house this would be a no-brainer. We are not paying big $$ for college for the social scene. Our kids are there first and foremost to get an education. Not that fit isn’t important for my kids, but if my kid had two choices with a 50/50 preference (and I could afford both), academics would win hands down. I personally do not plan to spend over $100,000 so my kid can have the time of her life socially. I want her to have a social life and have friends/have fun. But just because her friends are going there is a poor reason to pick a school.</p>
<p>My older D is also very social. Because of this, she makes new friends very easily. Going to a school where she did not know anyone was no issue for her. She has made fabulous new friends, and grown far more as a person than she would have if she had gone to a similar school near home where a lot of her friends went.</p>
<p>I’m with psychmom. These are 2 wonderful choices and the academics are fine at both. Social fit IS important. These are 2 pretty different schools socially and most kids do seem to have a clear preference (and attract different types of students). She’s just going to have to give it some thought and figure out where she feels she will be happier,will fit in and will do her best. The sports scene is different too so that could be a consideration if she 's in to sports at all. Good luck to her with the decision. She won’t go wrong either way.</p>
<p>Going to school “with her friends” would be a big red flag for me. Sounds like a lot of kids from her high school will attend there. I would not be in favor of that. Maybe suggest that since so many of her friends are at UVA that she can visit them and get the best of both worlds, a good education at W&M while having the OCCASIONAL option of spending a weekend with some friends at UVA for the “social scene” and us, not being 17-18 years old know full well she will meet plenty of new friends at W&M and the pull to UVA will disappear. Not that UVA is not a good school but it sounds like your DD is looking at it more as 4 years of a party…</p>
<p>I think this is a decision she should make – and there is no wrong answer.</p>
<p>She has the good fortune to be able to choose between two excellent schools, and she will probably thrive both academically and socially at either of them. Having pre-existing friends on campus is not necessarily a disadvantage. In fact, it’s the normal situation of many kids who attend their state universities.</p>
<p>I’m not sure what she means by saying that she’ll “do better academically” at W & M. If she just means in terms of her GPA - if she might be acknowledging that she could find the more intense social scene at UVA distracting - does she know how important it is in many careers to graduate with a strong GPA? For law and med school especially (though those may not be in your d’s future plans)? </p>
<p>If this were my d, I would want her to own the decision - but I would also want to know that she had a clear understanding of today’s job market in her intended field. It’s tough to find a job with a sub-3.0 GPA. I’d also want her to know her parents’ expectations about academic performance. </p>
<p>I don’t know what the average undergrad GPA is at UVA, but at W & M it’s lower than at many comparable schools: 3.26 for the overall student body. So W & M, like UVA, is a school at which she’ll have to work hard, even if the undergrad academic vibe there suits her better.</p>
<p>I agree with the advise you’ve gotten here that it has to be here decision. I would try to get her to elaborate on what she means by academic fit. Did she also shadow a student at UVa or did she simply attend Days on the Lawn and attend a class? If so she may be responding to the one on one time she received with the student at W&M. It’s a much smaller school and a different atmosphere. There is no ‘wrong’ decision here, only the decision she makes for herself. They are both amazing schools! Best of luck to her!</p>
<p>She will have a great time anywhere she goes. Plus, the idea that you will go to school with your high school friends and remain friends with them simply doesn’t work.</p>
<p>I think the idea of hanging out with high school friends in college is a bad idea - you should be making new ones. I agree with others your job is helping her to figure out what she wants, but it has to be her decision. What are her academic interests?</p>
<p>I would likely push her toward the option that diversifies her experiences - or word it as diversifying might be very valuable to you in the future. Who really wants/needs to continue “going to high school” after high school!</p>
<p>These are both instate schools and there will be kids from her high school at both schools. My kids both went to Virginia schools with other kids from their high schools. In both cases, their best friends at their colleges have been kids they met after they got to school. I wouldn’t let that issue be that big a deal.She just needs to figure this all out for herself. The fact that she really liked Clemson for awhile and that most of the kids she now hangs out with are more interested in UVa, would suggest to me that UVa might be more her cup of tea. But ,you never know. Either way, she’s lucky to have narrowed it down to two great choices.</p>
<p>Well, last night she told me to pay the deposit for UVA, then was a bit upset because she still had doubts: when I didn’t act overly enthused (I was trying to be supportive but still make sure that she was sure) she really lost it and spent the rest of the night sobbing that she might have made the wrong choice. I bet there has never been anyone so upset after choosing one of the top schools in the country. The problem is that I bet she would have been the same way if she had chosen W&M.</p>