My S is at Stanford and I can honestly say that it has been an awesome experience for him. At the time of his decision, I wanted him to take a closer look at two other schools, but his mind was made up. Looking back now I must say, he was 100% right. The opportunities that he has had, the people he’s met and the friends he has made from around the world are amazing. We just dropped him off at the airport after a short 4th of July visit home. He’s returning to finish his summer internship with a Silicon Valley startup - a position made possible by the parent of a friend he made in class. Any other schools I wish he had attended? Nope.
I thought this was a school you wished your child attended thread. There’s already a brag thread.
I wanted her to go to Williams or Amherst. Not what she wanted.
I’m sorry
Don’t be sorry, @Rivet2000. I don’t think you or anyone else here is bragging.
For my older D, I think she is at exactly the right school for her. Younger D will attend next year, and I’m hoping hoping hoping the same will be true for her.
Another Stanford parent weighing in here. My D will be a sophomore in the fall, and after her first year, it’s obvious that the school has been a great fit. My main concern was the distance from home (other side of the country), especially since she’s our first kid to head off to college. There are times I wish she could get home more frequently, but that doesn’t mean I wish she had gone somewhere else.
She spent the summer between junior and senior high-school years at an 8-week program at Stanford, so we did have an introduction to what it would be like for her to live so far away. (And some confidence that she could navigate in an environment considerably different from the rural area where she grew up—“Really? You took the Caltrain to San Francisco by yourself?!”)
My husband and I were initially hesitant to let her commit when she was accepted REA and thought she should apply to a shortened list of schools regular decision so that she had some options in case she changed her mind about going to the West Coast. But we knew Stanford was where she belonged, so she accepted and didn’t finish her other apps (and the financial aid offer helped too!).
Regarding an earlier comment about Stanford being a competitive environment, I would say that, yes, the students are ultra-talented and doing amazing things, but that doesn’t seem to translate into competition with one another. Most students are remarkably humble while being self-motivated to make an impact in some way. It’s been a very collaborative and supportive environment for my D.
So if I didn’t answer the question directly enough, no, I don’t wish my D would be going to another school because I know she’s happy where she is and has many opportunities. However, selfishly, I sometimes wish I could move her school closer to our home!
I wished that my son would have gone to Stevens Institute of Technology. Maybe I can convince him to go to Stevens for Graduate School.
A small part of me wishes that one of my kids would have chosen Yale (my alma mater) and either Grinnell or Swarthmore. If I couldn’t have gone to Yale, I think I would have gone to either of those two. I still have one more who’s a rising senior but she’s interested in large schools, so none of them seem likely. But only a small part of me. Just because I like Yale, Grinnell, and Swarthmore, doesn’t mean that all my kids would. My S3 goes to Duke which I would never have chosen for myself but he loves it, even if I don’t know why.
She didn’t pick it, but D3 was seriously considering Colby for a long time which I knew wasn’t a good fit. I was more than thrilled when she chose Kenyon.
I’m just thankful none of them chose Harvard.
Mixed feelings. Since we had an excellent flagship that suited our (son included) liberal personalities it was hard to justify choosing private schools with lesser departments in many fields. He did not get accepted to MIT, his first choice. Globally gifted so ahead a couple of grades. Not interested in getting perfect grades. Not sure if he would have thrived or survived the intensity there. Became a math major but while top quartile on the math GRE (900 scale) it is a brutal field for worldwide competition. He also was a top tier honors math major at UW but knew there were others better at it.
So- part of me worried about the stresses he would have faced at MIT, he ended up at a school he could be as intense (or not) as he wanted to be.
Being gifted means being out of synch with one’s chronological age. Looking back it would have been bad to keep him with agemates. He was with his cohort from elementary school onwards and was an active part of his HS. He finally told us how bored he was there a decade later- no online learning like today.
Know of someone who got math degrees at U Chicago and MIT and had trouble finding a job. Also consider how many get that PhD and end up needing to work at lesser colleges with a student population not of their caliber. So, his choosing to add CS when he overreached for grad schools and working as a software developer/engineer works. He gets to live in Seattle and be intellectually satisfied. We have gotten used to him not choosing grad school- in his field he can self teach. Plus, development, not research (he pointed that out once) seems to be more his thing.
There are so many different good possibilities and only one can be chosen. A satisfying education can be had without the Ivies et al. Son refused to visit Harvard when in Boston, and bypassed Yale on that trip when he and H went to Princeton (would not complete that application- the mind of a 16 year old). Being in the Midwest so many east coast schools were never on the radar- flagships honors programs meant why bother going out of region for most top students.
I would have liked my D18 to go to my alma mater (U of Miami) but when she weighed all the options she decided elsewhere. Even though she got substantial scholarships there, can’t beat free like her choice ended up costing.
Two of my kids went to the University of Chicago, and one went to Lehigh. They all loved the schools they went to, and they were perfect fits. Secretly, I would have liked them to go to my alma mater, but it really wasn’t the best fit for them.