Advice from parents for parent -- controlling dorm choice?

Parents Forum
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<p>We are heading into home stretch with oldest son, delighted that he is admitted to his first choice school. Early part of the college search process was tension-filled, as we fought about big (him) vs. small (us) school. Fnally had the "ahhaa" moment when we saw him lap up everything at his first choice school and we backed off the LAC bandwagon. </p>

<p>Now he is filling out housing preferences at his likely school (Wisconsin) and the conflict begins again. He has some maturing to do, and is capable of being one of those 18 year old boys who plays too much and works too little. So, we strongly think he should live in a learning community (in fact, for anyone familiar with UW, Chadbourne Residential College) to provide more structure and the possibility of more accountability. Chad is almost 600 kids in the neighborhood he likes. A distant second is the new arts residential community in Sellery. </p>

<p>What does he want to do instead? Live in one of the "party dorms." Of course, for freshman, most dorms are party dorms, so it is not like he is going to be sitting around studying all the time. </p>

<p>As we head into another showdown-- any experienced parents out there with advice? My alternative approach could be that, rather than insist on a particular dorm, we could require that he choose say, two options, from a "menu" to create more structure and accountability. For instance, we could say choose 2 options from among (1) First Year Experience classes (adapt to college and study skills for 1 credit), (2) FIGs (First Year Interest Group which is a cluster of 3 classes that a group of 20 students take together, with one of the classes a seminar, and (3) Residential community. </p>

<p>Or, my husband wants to just insist that freshman year, he does it our way. I want him to recognize he needs to create an environment which will enable him to be successful, so I don't want to dictate. Also, I am already much too much of an enabler, so he needs to work through this. </p>

<p>So, this is not so much a Wisconsin question as a "how do we let go while still holding on" question. Having it this far, I don't want fights over dorms to be what we remember from spring of senior year.</p>

<p>All advice appreciated, thanks.</p>

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<p>I think this is a good time to start letting go. Regardless of where he lives on campus, he will have to make choices for himself - when to study, when to party, how late to stay up. It’s really not going to matter where he lives on campus. There will be temptations everywhere. He will have to take responsibility for himself.</p>

<p>As much as you want to set him up for success (and I totally understand this), I really advise you to let him start making his own decisions and this is a good one to start with.</p>

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<p>You gave him the wings now let him fly. His choice.</p>

4

<p>Let your son know your expectations and give him a set of consequences. "We expect a GPA of at least . . . " whatever it is. “We expect you to give us regular updates on your classes & grades. We do not expect to receive any calls about alcohol violations.” Or whatever else you think is important. </p>

<p>“If you do not meet these requirements, we will have to reconsider your living arrangements/attendance at Wisconsin.”</p>

<p>Then let him make his own decisions.</p>

5

<p>…I struggled a bit with a decision freshman year about saying yes to our son joining a fraternity. Our son wanted our blessing and probably something from our wallet, although he had the ability to go against our wishes. We decided relunctantly to tell him to try it, as long as he would keep up his grades. To be fair to our son, he paid nearly all of the expenses relating to fraternity costs. What helped us to go along with his desire was a letter addressed to us that came from the university which explained Greek life on campus and facts about going Greek vs. not going Greek. I will say that Greek life was very good for our son. You just never know. The decisions do not stop with dorm selection ;)</p>

<p>I also agree with Chedva, but make sure that your son understands that you mean what you say. Also, make sure that you and your husband are on the page and that both of you will definitely follow through with whatever consequences you set.</p>

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<p>Does the learning environment depend on the dorm structure at his school?
I have 2 kids in college and I let them choose the dorm on their own. And I could not tell them what kind of GPA I expect because it’s not possible. I only told them to try their best.</p>

<p>If the kid is not sure how to interract with people then single dorm is preferred to avoid any disruption in study because of roommate conflict at least during the first year.</p>

<p>If for some reason the dorm he chooses will not work well for him then tell him try to live with it instead of complaining.</p>

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<p>Thank you all, this is so helpful. I was heading that direction, but appreciate the push.</p>

<p>My son just gave me a calm, reasoned response – very similar to what you are all saying – that the dorm choice does not dictate outcome, that he can succeed or not in a “party” dorm or a learning community, and that trying to control that choice about his college life tells him we don’t think he can make good choices independently. </p>

<p>Now I just need to get my husband on the same page.</p>

<p>Deep breaths. Thank you.</p>

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<p>If you are just concerned about potential behavior, I think you should set out guidelines clearly and stick to them. However, if there is an actual history of behavior that you consider unacceptable, then you would be within your rights to choose a dorm that would provide more structure. It’s all about how much trust he has earned.</p>

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<p>I think it’s perfectly fine to ask students to achieve a reasonable GPA whether a 2.5 or a 3 or whatever is needed to maintain a scholarship or stick with a particular major (and we did and they knew that we would follow through as we always have when we “lay down the law”). Other than that I probably wouldn’t dictate which dorm they chose. Everyone sends their freshmen off and proceeds to hold their breath… unless you are seriously concerned that he cannot stand on his own two feet and get himself out of bed and off to class in which case he shouldn’t go “off” at all. If he’s been pretty independent his senior year getting himself up, getting to school and work on time, getting his work done etc. then by week 3 of college the reality will have set in and college-ready boys find their balance.</p>

10

<p>Wisconsin was my D’s 2nd choice school, so we did look at the dorms there. Fortunately, Chad and Lakeshore appealed to her and the party dorms in the southeast neighborhood did not, so we never had to have much of a discussion about it. However, I would be very reluctant to dictate dorm choice for my child (unless it was a cost issue, like single vs. double, new more expensive dorm vs. regular dorm). My fear would be that if the child was unhappy, I would be blamed, even if it was something like a roommate issue that couldn’t have been anticipated. I’d rather have my child focusing her energies on solving her problems rather than assessing blame, which is what I know would happen if she was forced into something. If your son wants one of the social dorms, let him go for it, but give him firm guidelines as to what is expected for your support to continue.</p>

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<p>My advice - unless it’s a financial issue - stay out of it. This should be his decision.</p>

<p>You already said he can act like a ‘partying Freshman’ regardless of which dorm he’s in so there’s no point trying to control which one he’s in.</p>

<p>Instead, you might want to focus on your expectations of him and share those expectations and have him concur. These expectations might be something along the lines of he gets to pay for the dorms if he gets caught drinking/doing drugs/any other illegal activity.</p>

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<p>One more thought - every once in a while, a kid has a bad dorm experience - some problem with a roommate or the kids on his floor, a problem that the RA doesn’t manage particularly well. I hope nothing like this comes up for him next year, but on the off chance that it does, it would be better for all of you if it comes up in a dorm he chose, not a dorm you chose for him. ;)</p>

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<p>I totally understand your H’s concerns. At big Div I sports schools, there are frosh dorms that seem to be more “party-like” dorms…often they’re the ones closest to stadiums and Greek houses.</p>

<p>Does your son plan on pledging? This may also be a consideration. I don’t know how many kids pledge at UW, but at some schools, those who choose the stadium-close dorms or the Greek house-close dorms because they plan on pledging and location, location, location.</p>

<p>If you do let your son choose, then have some sort of agreed contract (in writing if you think that details will get mis-remembered later…lol). Depending on your child’s ability, you can set minimum GPA for staying in the party dorms (3.3?), and minimum GPA to stay at that school period (2.7?). I would also insist on knowing the periodic grades during the semester. If that means online access, then so be it.</p>

<p>One of my friends learned at mid-semester that her son was getting D’s in 2 classes! This was shocking because he had gone to a strong private high school and always had top grades. But pledging, video gaming, and partying caused his grades to drop. His family was several states away, but by having access to the grades, they were able to intervene, issue ultimatums, and “stop the bleeding”. Knowing that he’d have to come home and leave his beloved school put the fear of God into him and he brought his grades up to a 3.0.</p>

<p>I would let him choose, but make him “man up” and agree to some GPA minimums…and probably have him sign so that there wasn’t any confusion later as to what was the agreement.</p>

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<p>I know of too many kids that “flunked” out because they were forced to do what their parents wanted them to do. They eventually enrolled in the schools they wanted and studied the things they wanted and excelled. I agree, you are not living there, he is, let him pick. Just calmly explain to him that if he flunks out, he still has to pay his loans, find a job when he comes back home and live by the rules of your house…</p>

15

<p>He will thrive in any environment since you set the foundation . Let him make the choice and begin to let go</p>

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<p>Despite our inward reservations, we completely stayed out of our son’s dorm choice, beyond touring the dorms together and asking him what his opinion was. He requested the traditional-style dorms rather than “suite” style dorms, and wound up in the #1 party dorm. (He also wound up pledging with a fraternity his freshman year.)</p>

<p>I feel for you and your husband, as it was VERY hard to keep our mouths shut and let him go. We didn’t give words of warning or even the “I trust you” speech. I think we DID say “We know you’re going to have a good time and do well”. But that was pretty much it. We figured there was not much we could do at that point anyway, and this was his time to stretch his wings.</p>

<p>He actually did very well. (He’s currently a junior). We’ve hit some bumps in the road - particularly after a tough breakup - but our willingness to let him go has enabled him to come closer to us, if you know what I mean. Now that he knows we’re not trying to control him, he’s more willing to be open. </p>

<p>And because we didn’t play a role in his college choices, he’s free to completely own his successes himself.</p>

17

<p>The other thing to stay out of for those colleges tha have them - roommate questionnaires. These are definitely for the potential roomies to answer as openly and honestly as possible without any parental influence. Failure to do that can doom both your kid and the kid’s roomies to conflicts.</p>

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<p>Some friend’s son is at another Big 10 school and is in the honor’s program and in their honors learning community. His freshman year roommate had a ‘guest’ pretty much every weekend night and most weeknights, his sophomore roommate flunked out because he was partying more than studying, junior and senior year got stuck in an apartment with a drug dealer (friend of a friend deal). Parties happen everywhere…</p>

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<p>I think you might be reading too much into the ‘learning community’ model. It’s mostly about giving students a different format for creating a different way of thinking and learning and organizing your knowledge – I’m not sure where you’re getting the idea that it’s a better model for children who need more supervision, or the idea that some additional type of supervision is going to be provided. If you ask your son to choose a learning community based on those assumptions, I’m afraid you’re going to be disappointed. Usually one chooses a learning community because one is really enamored of the theme that students are studying in the community, or because one wants to have additional close relationships with classmates. In my years of teaching, I’ve never heard of anyone choosing it because they think it’s going to provide better supervision of a student’s study habits. The students who benefit the most from the model are often the most mature students, not the least mature students. I’m not sure that what you’re searching for is actually available at the college level.</p>

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<p>I would let the student choose but plant the seed that his dorm room will probably not be the best place for homework and studying. If you can get him to buy into the idea of setting aside time each day for studying and homework in the library or other quiet spot, he should be fine.</p>