Advice for college freshmen to avoid a rough start their first semester away

Parents Forum
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@GeorgiaMom50 wrote

The problem with this is while high schoolers may think they want this when they start as freshman, the reality is a LOT of them end up doing one or more of the things above. Opportunity+Environment > parental values for a lot of kids at school.

So putting these requirements on a rooming application probably has not worked out well for the schools that have done it, I’m guessing. One of my roommates with super helicopter parents did all of the above our freshman year, to my and my other roommates’ dismay/amusement/grossout.

Also, I’ve seen a very different take on how many classes to take freshman year, especially if your kid is on a scholarship with a GPA requirement. Instead of a light load, sign up for 1 or 2 more than you want to do and drop the worst one, that way if you get stuck in a class you hate or can’t be successful at, you can drop it without going below a full-time schedule.

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Yes, I can understand that some kids are going to use/abuse that freedom and may change what values they might have had or might not have been their own personal guidelines. Just hoping for a situation where she can thrive and hopefully have suite mates who she can at least have a peaceful existence with.

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Great thread everyone. I will use many of these posts for talking points with my son.

But like all parents, my son is a genius who knows everything. Does not often listed to the dumb, old fashioned parent since “it is not like that today”.

Hopefully a couple of these points will stick.