<p>bazcat89--I agree with all you said. My DD is a freshman at flagship U. I was concerned that it would be HS Part II because so many of her friends are there. </p>
<p>In three weeks she has made new friends. Her observations are that noone cares what you wear to class or even if you are in class. She loves the fact that when she is done with a test she can just get up and leave. </p>
<p>She sees some of her HS friends but is starting fresh and embracing the experience. It IS what you make of it!</p>
<p>Ive gone to both Public and Private. I can say that they baby the hell out of you in private schools. In Huge publics, everybody is really on their own.</p>
<p>I agree with the original poster; I felt "unburdened" in the sense that I felt less social responsibility, and people didn't seem to mind if I decided not to join them for dinner or whatever. As far as I know they still don't mind. My school is really uncliquey and I looove it. It's awesome.</p>
<p>it seems that social structures in college tend to be more similar to those in the real world than those in high school (unless you're in a frat or still hang out very frequently with a group of people).</p>
<p>one of the reasons why i dislike grade schools in general is that they tend to insulate people from the outside world in totally unnatural ways (on the other hand, one could say that there are some interesting things that do come up when everyone knows each other)</p>