<p>Here is some advice everyone should give their kids who have been admitted. DO NOT BECOME A FACEBOOK CELEBRITY ON YOUR COLLEGES FB PAGE! Seems like every school creates a FB page for the incoming class. My oldest is a junior and she says the kids who made fools of themselves on FB, are still remembered (picked on and laughed at, usually.) Some kids are just too fired up and post way too much.
Now my middle D has been admitted and although she has joined the FB page for incoming freshman, she hasn't posted anything. We have already seen things that will never be forgotten, by anyone.
They think it is harmless and it should be, but it is a different world we live in now. But this still holds true....you only get one chance to make a first impression.</p>
<p>^Very good advice! Thankfully neither of my kids uses Facebook much anyway. But I have seen kids who “own” the incoming class pages before they arrive, and they come across as kind of ridiculous.</p>
<p>My advice to my kids was “set it aside until June and enjoy the rest of your senior year!”</p>
<p>When I saw the title of the thread I was thinking about posting something along the lines of “make sure you find the FB page for accepted students” and I will stand by that. My older son (and I) found the page very helpful. He met some of the students he knew from FB at the accepted students day and continued to be friends with them right through graduation. I also think your advice is very sound and should extend beyond the accepted students FB page.</p>
<p>Be aware that joining the facebook page before you’ve decided to attend can backfire… or be a benefit I suppose. My daughter joined a couple groups for schools she’s gotten into. One has been helpful, relevant and mature improving her outlook of the school tremendously. The other has been overrun by enthusiastic but frankly very immature teenagers starting long and pointless posts about their favorite colors and the like. She had been interested in this school prior and got into a specialty program that’s a good fit but now, she can’t shake the feeling this college wouldn’t be any different from high school. It’s no longer on the list of potentials and it’s unfortunate for the school as I’m sure most of the kids aren’t like that.</p>
<p>She’s hesitant to join any other pages.</p>
<p>There always seems to be a few people that dominate the admitted students fb pages. My kids have universally chosen to be occasional readers only. Having said that the kids that said more then they should have, or stuck their foot in their mouths were allowed to move on when school started. Maybe it’s different in significantly smaller schools (?), but kids were too busy to remember what happened once upon a time on a fb page. Not everyone joins those pages, or frequents them enough to know who did what as fb has become far less popular. College is not high school where the cool kids pick on any easy target. By all means you don’t need to tell everyone your life history or be everyone’s BFF, but there’s really little risk of permanent social banishment unless you do something seriously egregious.</p>
<p>There was a student out here a couple of years ago who had made a big splash on the freshman facebook page, and it caused that person a lot of grief later on campus. So agree that it is important to join the group (lots of info out there that doesn’t seem to be easily available in other places). But keep a pretty low profile.</p>
<p>I thought this might be a general thread about advice for admitted kids. Here is mine – do NOT talk about/brag about your admissions around other high school students. Inevitably someone is hurt because they were not admitted to (or can’t afford) some of the colleges their peers are admitted to. My kids were instructed to keep a very low profile – no posts on their own FB pages about acceptances, and not to talk about it in groups.</p>
<p>Great advice, OP. You don’t want to be “that” kid. Ds’s college class FB page was open so I would occasionally see what was going on. I cracked up that the kid who was most “vocal” on the page I actually ended up meeting during the whopping 36 hours I was on campus for move-in. What were the chances? He obviously was angling to be super-high profile. He was, but not quite the way he probably wanted.</p>
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<p>I would think this is exactly why she would want to join. While she is deciding between schools she can get an idea of some of the people she will be at school with and what they are like. Now of course, they don’t represent the entire student body, but it is a good sampling. </p>
<p>One thing I would suggest is for them to start reading the student newspaper on line. It will give them a real glimpse into student life and the comments on the articles will probably provide more info that the actual articles.</p>
<p>^ I don’t know. Again, it depends on the size of the school/program, but my kids never felt the tone or personality of the dominate people on fb groups were anywhere near representative of what they found on campus. YMMV</p>
<p>Reading the student newspaper is an excellent idea, as is the local newspaper if it’s a smaller area. Both will give you the unvarnished version, as opposed to the sales pitch you hear from admissions.</p>
<p>On the other hand, my kid wished he had spent more time on FB because he showed up for freshman orientation and found that groups based on FB interactions had already formed. Fortunately, this was a temporary problem.</p>
<p>Besides being cautious on Facebook, it’s a good idea to be considerate of your friends’ feelings.</p>
<p>If yours was an Early Decision acceptance, recognize that there are people among your friends and classmates who might have liked to apply Early Decision but couldn’t do so because their families need to be able to compare financial aid packages. And there may be others who were rejected Early Decision.</p>
<p>If yours was a rolling admissions or Early Action acceptance, recognize that some of your classmates may have applied only to schools that don’t have these options. They are still waiting to get their first admission officer, and their feelings may be very different from yours.</p>
<p>Good advise. Like many things in life, it pays to hang back a bit for a while. Also I think it’s important to not make too many judgments based on a college FB page - it’s not necessarily a representative cross section.</p>
<p>There is alcohol at college. You don’t have to drink it all the first week. It will still be there next week, next month, and next year.</p>
<p>Don’t be “that” kid. The one all over the newly admitted class FB page. The one who comes in drunk and throws up in the dorm hallway the first week of class. The one that sleeps with everyone he/she meets. First impressions can be hard to undo and reputations linger. </p>
<p>Don’t expect that your roommate, the kids you meet in orientation and the kids in your first freshman writing class are going to be your BFFLs. It can take a while to find “your” people. Do expect to be homesick and feel uncomfortable for a few weeks or months. Everyone is new, everyone is feeling everyone else out, and everyone feels a little awkward. The kids who have been the most comfortable in high school are often the ones who have the toughest time adjusting to college, because they’re not used to feeling unsure of themselves. You’ll get through it and over it. Most people end up loving their college, but it doesn’t always happen the first day, week or month. If you expect everything to be perfect you’re setting yourself up for disappointment.</p>
<p>Be open to new experiences, use common sense, and take advantage of the incredible things college has to offer - lectures, shows, sporting events, brown bag discussions, service opportunities, study abroad, undergraduate research, work-study, late night philosophical discussions, silly escapades, meeting people from other places… Try a new intramural sport. Join the dance club. Or the newspaper. Or a religious group. As my daughter’s college’s president tells incoming students, “Metaphorically speaking, you have just entered an incredible banquet. Don’t leave having eaten a bologna sandwich.”</p>
<p>And call or text your parents a couple of times a week. They’ll appreciate it.</p>
<p>You should read the student newspaper before applying, a great thing to do on a campus visit or online if available! But that is not the topic of this thread…</p>
<p>My D thought some of the FB posters were really obnoxious in her freshman group, but said it was irrelevant once they got to campus.</p>
<p>intparent, I agree with you about not posting on FB about acceptances. I am surprised so many kids do it. Mine didn’t, but he said others did. I even saw some posts by parents on their FB about their kids’ acceptances.</p>
<p>I don’t think most kids think twice about it unless they are told by adults that it could hurt someone’s feelings. Parents and GCs should make this point… but it doesn’t always happen. And the kids are so excited, they often are just a little thoughtless about how it makes other people feel. It can also trigger that awful spring game of “how come HE/SHE got in when I didn’t, that is totally not fair, I was more qualified in X way!” Some of that is inevitable when final decisions are revealed in May, but no point in inviting it.</p>
<p>As my kids were preparing to set off for college, I offered each of them good luck but also some advice and an admonition.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>You can major in anything, but also look for courses that are interesting or that other students rave about – no matter what discipline they are in.</p></li>
<li><p>Graduate in 4 years, because we can’t afford to pay for any more than that.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>If you have any bad study habits, work on getting rid of them now during your last semester of high school. </p>
<p>Look over the EC’s on your college website and find one that interests you. Make a point of joining them once college starts.</p>
<p>In the beginning, no matter how it feels, it is probably not true that everybody else has made life long friends except you.</p>
<p>Do not spend all your time on Facebook, Skype, whatever staying so connected to the friends back home that you ignore the potential friends surrounding you now.</p>
<p>If you seriously feel like transferring, get your papers in order but wait until Christmas break before turning them in. From what I’ve seen, the Thanksgiving break is short and intense when friends gather. The longer winter break allows students to discover if they look forward to returning to campus or not.</p>