<p>I went to Harvard with no idea about what I wanted to do. I figured they'd be good at everything and it was a family tradition. I took a wide variety of courses my freshman year. The freshman seminar I took led me to my major. At the time you had to declare at the beginning of soph. year. It's later now. I never felt a big need for advising per se. The core requirement do mean you get exposed a variety of fields. I don't think she should go to a pre-professional type school. My older son turned down Harvard for Carnegie Mellon which is very pre-professional. It's perfect for him - but he's been programming computers since second grade.</p>
<p>
[quote]
. . . she is unsure of her career path or passion
[/quote]
Most high school students are at the same place developmentally. I’m concerned about the message we give to our children when we imply that the only colleges to be considered are the Ivies. </p>
<p>There are many excellent colleges, a number of which have teaching, mentoring, and educational quality that rivals the Ivies. They just aren’t as well known, nor do they spend much time ‘marketing’ themselves for the US News and World Report rankings . . . </p>
<p>What's most important is that students and parents think about which colleges provide the right match for them. With the huge number of students applying to college this year, as in the past, the majority of students won’t end up at Ivies. How will your D or S feel if you’ve given them the message, either directly or indirectly, that going to an Ivy is all that matters?</p>
<p>Remember:</p>
<ol>
<li>You don’t need to get into the ivy league to be successful in life. </li>
<li>The college/university you graduate from does not determine who you are and your contributions to this world.</li>
</ol>
<p>This says it all: <a href="http://www.educationconservancy.org/smallposter.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://www.educationconservancy.org/smallposter.pdf</a></p>
<p>Consider the important work of the Education Conservancy, a non profit committed to improving the college admissions process: Education</a> Conservancy</p>
<p>D does not have to attend an Ivy, but she's already been told by Ivy coaches that she will be recruited by them, so it's not like we're putting undue pressure on her to gain admission to the reachiest schools. If you can have something great that so many others want too, why not? But there are 6 or 7 non-Ivies on her list too, including some D 3 schools.</p>
<p>"I'd still like her to adopt the expectation that at some point about half way through the 4 years she needs to decide on something marketable to pay back her college loans."</p>
<p>At whatever school your daughter attends, she will gravitate to kids who are primarily like her. So...even in a highly pre-professional environment like some of the schools at Penn, there are plenty of kids who are not heavily pre-professional.</p>
<p>What if your daughter decides to be an art major? Will you make her withdraw from school? </p>
<p>Be sure she is aware of the financial burden you expect her to take on...and then let her have some say in whether she is going to take that on. Or..maybe she would prefer to go to a school where she will have little to no financial burden -- but can study what she wants.</p>
<p>Thinking more on the subject. I don't think this is the way I'd winnow down my list. For me the urban/suburban/rural location was my only consideration. (I went for urban for what it's worth.)</p>
<p>Mathmom,
One big concern I have about D going to college in an urban environment is the amount of spending money required. Tuition is high everywhere, and room and board will already be a bit higher than at suburban schools. On the Columbia board, for example, kids were saying they needed about $150-200 per week, or about $500 a month. A friend's son at NYU spends about $400 a month. My D is not a partier (yet at least), so I doubt she'll have big club or alcohol expense. But since the kids tend to go off campus a lot for shows and food, no doubt it will more than say what S spends at Dartmouth.</p>
<p>GFG, Is your D a rising Junior or Senior? My D had no idea of what she wanted out of life during and through her sophomore year in high school. I could not even get her to look at colleges, let alone listen to me about them. That all changed by the end of her Junior year, and by then she knew what career she wants to work toward and which colleges appeal to her. Maybe you just need to give her more time.</p>
<p>
[quote]
but she's already been told by Ivy coaches that she will be recruited by them,
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Are verbal promises binding? I read on another thread that your D is only a rising junior, aren't the coaches being premature?</p>
<p>GFG, there are plenty of kids at NYU and Columbia living on modest budgets. If you give her $500 per month she will spend it- it is very tempting with so many wonderful restaurants, theater, jazz clubs, etc. If she has to live on significantly less she will do that as well, and will have plenty of company. There are free or cheap tickets to a wide range of wonderful shows, music, etc; she will learn to take the subway; she will avoid the $4 latte syndrome and learn to make a decent cup of coffee in her room like the vast majority of students in NY.</p>
<p>I think you are overthinking this so early in the process. Very few kids at her age have much direction. You have posted many times about the pressure cooker school and community your daughter lives in... why not be a soothing counter-balance and not get caught up so early on in micromanaging? After a few overnights she will have very definite ideas about what she likes and doesn't like; if she thinks she'd be happy at Columbia, your job is to provide a reality check on what you can afford, not to point out that you think she'd get more career direction and be surrounded by more ambitious people at Harvard.</p>
<p>Bay and Blossom, I suspect you're right about it being too early for D. However, this is what is happening on our end. First of all, coaches from a variety of schools began contacting her by mail as early as freshman year, and then even more so in sophomore year. D looked into those schools and for some of them she sent back their recruiting information forms. Since it was recommended to us by many others who had been through the process that she start e-mailing coaches now, recently she did just that. In response, coaches have replied with varying levels of openness that she is exactly what they're looking for, to please come to their school she'll love it, and that as soon as they are allowed to, they will begin recruiting her in earnest. Several asked if she would be coming to the campus to visit this summer (unoffically, of course). </p>
<p>From what I've read on CC, athletes are doing much more in the way of unofficial visits and thus a lot is getting decided early on in junior year. Therefore, I wanted D to do some cool-headed research this summer and start visiting some colleges before Sept. 1, after which coaches can contact her in earnest and there will be more marketing going on.</p>
<p>For example, I've been following all the recruited athlete threads on CC lately. In discussing the recruiting timeline, parents have posted that for their rising senior athletes, verbal commitments have already been given, even though official visits haven't even happened yet as per NCAA rules. In their cases, the official visit was for those athletes who had already given a verbal to the school--it was not a visit for the purpose of figuring out whether they liked the school or not. That was a shocker to me. What that means for us is that we might not have all next summer and early fall to make visits and decide like we thought we would. It could all be over in July, and if we hesitate, D could lose out on a spot to those who already know what they want and are ready to commit in July.</p>
<p>D's sports schedule will allow very little visiting during the academic year, hence why we're trying to think this through so early.</p>
<p>If I'm wrong in my understanding of this, please let me know.</p>
<p>IMO you daughter will need, perhaps with your help, to identify areas beyond her sport that interest and potentially excite her.
I've had two Ivy kids so far, and in both cases their advisers had no idea of what courses were available in the areas that interested them.<br>
These are faculty, usually junior, whose compensation and advancement will not be impacted by their advising performance, and it shows.
My daughter has completed one year of college. Her roommate was a recruited rower who disliked all her classes and wished she could spend all her time rowing instead. This is a waste at more levels than I can get my mind around. The school is Princeton, but it could be anywhere.
I don't think you can rely on any institution to do what you would like here. You know your daughter best. Trust yourself and people who your daughter respects to help her access her own interests and possibilities.</p>
<p>GFG -- I think you've got it exactly right. Your daughter will probably have the opportunity to make a commitment to a school around July 1 of next year. It's very exciting ... and while nerveracking because it's not a done deal until you have the hard copy of an admissions letter in your hand, it's also wonderful because your daughter will start her senior year knowing where she's going.</p>
<p>Since her experience at college is likely to be athletic oriented, it's important for her to click with the teammates and the coach. If she was to research the programs of the different Ivies, read the bios of the current team, and immerse herself in the atmosphere of the athletic life of the school -- will something stand out for her?</p>
<p>For my son, Cornell was the only academic option, since he's more of a preprofessional kid that a liberal arts kid. Luckily it worked out for him, althiough there were at least two other schools and probably more that would have recruited him if Cornell didn't work out.</p>
<p>In the end, it's all about the academics. But ... at the beginning, it's the athletics that will give her the boost to get in to one of the elite schools. And if she is a committed athlete, it's the athletics that will help her stay there -- between the friends she makes on the team and the academic support and advising given to athletes.</p>
<p>If you need more info, PM me.</p>
<p>I just want to put in another plug for Dartmouth. There is only one college, so if your daughter decides she wants to major in economics, or engineering, or whatever, she doesn't have to do any paperwork or anything at all. It's a very undergraduate-focused school, so your daughter will get a lot of personal attention. I know people here who arrived knowing what they wanted to major in and never wavered, people who switched majors three or four times, and people who spent their first two years finishing distributive requirements and taking classes across many different fields, and then decided on their major at the end of their sophomore year. </p>
<p>I highly recommend it. </p>
<p>Feel free to PM me if you have any more specific questions.</p>
<p>ETA: If you are worried about her spending a lot of money on social activities, Hanover, NH is extremely cheap. Movie tickets, for example, are $4 ($3 matinee) for Dartmouth students. And, there are so many events on campus that are either free or $5-10. The one expense that might be an issue is if she decides to join a sorority (about 50% of eligible people - meaning, sophomores, juniors, and seniors) do, dues can get expensive (I pay ~$300/term). Most houses offer financial aid, however, and, because of the D-plan, you aren't on campus paying dues every term.</p>
<p>No doubt that Brown's open curriculum and strong advising are positives, but in fact I've found that distribution requirements have really forced me to explore areas/departments that I otherwise wouldn't have, and I think I've gotten a well-rounded liberal arts education as a result. </p>
<p>Of course I am partial, but I think the undergraduate focus at Princeton is unbeatable. The most surprising thing is how accessible professors are and how much they really care about the undergrads (of course we outnumber the grad students). While many students come not knowing what their interests/majors are there is ample time for exploring and by the end when you finish your senior thesis you become quite an expert in your discipline, which is a really satisfying feeling. Also because Princeton is relatively smaller, there is a greater percentage of athletes and they mingle really well with the rest of the students (no real stereotypes). </p>
<p>Of couse, I have to caveat that Princeton tends to push you towards banking and finance in the sense that you feel like all your friends are doing it and it's all you hear about sometimes, but there's also a lot of support for non-profit work, graduate school, etc.</p>
<p>Well...it's hard to get tone across on a message board, but I think you're going about this all wrong. That's not meant to be rude. </p>
<p>Unless your D wants to apply to a business, engineering or similarly vocationally-oriented program, it really doesn't matter which college she goes to in terms of finding a "marketable" major. That's because the first job out of college rarely has much to do with the subject you major in. It's just not on the top of the list among employers. It is true that they don't like to see "gut" majors, but it makes little difference whether you major in English, poli sci, or biology for MOST jobs. Moreover, when a school has excellent academic advising, that doesn't mean it has good vocational advising--they are two vastly different things. </p>
<p>If what you're really worried about is her ability to earn a living, then the thing to do is to do a little research about what recent female athlete alums are doing. I know that at the college my kid attended, there was a truly wonderful network of former varsity team members who gave employment to team members during the summer if they wanted it and helped with that first job after college. It really didn't matter what the heck the kid's major was. As I understand it, most of these jobs are in business, particularly in marketing.</p>
<p>My own kid had a major that sounds less than marketable, but she took a few econ courses and did very well in them. She had good grades and she spent a lot of time on ECs--none of which were sports, however. She had NO trouble landing an internship for the summer after junior year in the financial sector paying a very high salary.It wasn't about her major at all. It was about her grades, the fact that she has an aptitude for math, as demonstrated by SAT scores (yes, they asked) and grades in econ courses,her ECs, and her personality during interviews. She decided business wasn't for her after the summer program, but that was her own choice, not one forced upon her. One of my young neighbors, who majored in Latin, went into one of the two year training programs at one of the top financial firms. A young woman who is doing quite well at Goldman Sachs, and who is now about 30, majored in French literature at all female LAC. </p>
<p>Many of the Ivies have ECs that are business oriented. Investment clubs have surged in popularity in recent years. There are entrepreneurial societies that sponsor business plan contests--and often give seed money to the winners. There are summer employment programs. Kids who are interested in business participate in these and it's things like this that often leads to jobs. </p>
<p>So, if I were you, I'd be looking to see what the recent alums in her sport are doing now and how much help they got from the school's network. To me, it sounds like that's really what you're worried about. </p>
<p>I'm still not sure that should be the deciding factor. How much she likes the coach and teammates are probably more important. As long as she does the OTHER things necessary to make herself marketable--summer internships and jobs, leadership positions, etc., she'll be just fine.</p>
<p>Cornell and UPenn seem pretty preprofessional, and it seems like to navigate within the colleges of those schools, you'd need to already know what you want. Princeton and Dartmouth have a nice undergrad focus, but at Pton the academics are so rigorous you can't even double major. Not so nice for someone without one goal. Columbia students can fall victim to being "alone in the big city." I'd say Brown's curriculum and LAC-like feel would hold her hands while allowing her to explore.</p>
<p>Thanks to all for your thoughts. Jonri, I think your suggestion about researching alums is a good one. Is it just me, or do coaches always like to tell prospectives about their athletes who have graduated and now work for sports-related companies? I was already starting to wonder if those are the most common types of networking connections the athletes will have, or is it just what the coaches think is really cool and will impress.</p>
<p>Coaches see out of their own set of glasses. They live sports and that is what they tend to remember. I know at my son's prep school, there have been some marvelously successful alums who have gone on to great schools, fantastic lives, but the ones the old football coach remembers are the ones who went on to sports in college and even beyond. The guy grimaces every time my son comes up as he went on to a theatre program.</p>
<p>I suspect it's just what the coach thinks will impress high school kids. I don't know that much about it as I don't have any kids who played sports in college.</p>
<p>However, I do know my kid commented more than once about the fact that the kids who played sports never had to worry about getting a summer job. I also know that one team used to set up interviews during spring training in Florida.</p>
<p>My daughter will start her second year at Columbia. Believe me, she doesn't have $150 weekly to spend. However, she has told me that most of the kids are very wealthy and love to shop.</p>
<p>She really likes the core curriculum. I do not think the advising has been anything great, however.</p>