College Mistakes - Redoing my application process?

College Search & Selection
101

After reading the entire thread, I think you should take a gap year. Your later posts sound more like a student just starting out on his/her college search than a senior making a final decision. While I believe you will more likely find your fit at Syracuse than at some random small LAC you just discovered a few days ago, I’m not going to suggest you attend this fall. You’re not ready to go off to college. If you were, you wouldn’t essentially restart the entire college search process in May.

There’s something going on and I’m not convinced it’s a sudden discovery you dislike and cannot attend Syracuse. You rushed through the college search and application process last fall and now, you’re doing the exact same thing but at the back end, in the spring. A gap year will help you step back and go through the college selection process at a more orderly and normal pace.

I agree with @dadof1, you’re careening from rock (Syracuse) to rock (Lawrence) to rock (Grinnell) without much thought. Grinnell is a fantastic LAC; it’s also in the middle of nowhere, about an hour east of Des Moines and an hour west of Iowa City. This is not an urban or even suburban environment.

Slow down. Absolutely, do not feel like you need to commit to Syracuse if you are this unsettled about the school, or for that matter, any college. You will need to talk to Syracuse at some point in the near future about your options. I think if you rush through this decision the second time around, you’ll just repeat the same mistake (choose the “wrong” college for the wrong reason) and doubting yourself in August as well.

102

What the last four posters said. Also, beware “meeting full need.” Colleges may have a different idea of “full need” from what you and your parents have.

103

@Mom24boys Your post is really confusing to sift through, but I understand your point about visiting during the academic year to truly get a feel.

@travelerfromtx I agree that I COULD find my environment. I also agree that I COULD find my environment elsewhere. I simply think that I need to take time to /truly/ think out college options, because I haven’t found a place that intrigues me yet. It seems a little disappointing to be forced to go to an environment I already have bad feelings about and struggle to fit in and find my group. That could potentially make me miserable at the college. Personally, I think it would be better to take a gap, reevaluate my situation, make sure I actually enjoy the environment at these colleges, and see them for what they are before I commit to them. Throwing myself out into the precarious ocean of Syracuse seems like collegiate suicide, especially when I do NOT feel like a fit, and even more especially when nobody out of a slew of people viewing this post can say a single thing about Syracuse that matches me as an individual other than “try it”. I can’t just “try it”, transfers are horrible with aid and I’ll likely be stuck. That is why I disagree with this position.

@Dadof1 see above. Furthermore, I think it’s ironic you use this “rock” analogy, because I think my decision is FAR worse. Instead of searching for my home at multiple places I just impulsively turned one rock over for no reason other than emotional pull and expected that to work for my entire college experience. It was profoundly stupid. You’re right, I did not know what I want, I still do not completely know what I want. But to me, it makes MUCH more sense to actually go about the application process - finding a fit, seeing schools, weighing options - than to just abandon the process altogether for being too “impulsive”, when the real impulsive decision lies within Syracuse.

@SlackerMomMD I agree that I was not mature enough for the college situation and I didn’t think ahead. I didn’t know anything about college and my parents weren’t very concerned with my college so it made for an overall apathetic environment at home. Growing up and researching colleges and recognizing how important it is has made me realize that you can’t just stick an ED application on a random school and expect life to turn out fine and dandy. I didn’t do any preparation and I absolutely did rush through college search when I didn’t need to (I disagree with the criticism of me rushing now, I kinda have to considering how late I am in the game. I have to make a choice, can’t just sit on the bubble forever.) I believe you are right that a gap year would suit my interests, allow me to go at a normal pace, weigh options, evaluate schools, and actually put myself out there in terms of college applications instead of applying ignorantly to a single school.

@porcupine98 As long as the schools can offer better packages than Syracuse, that’s fine. Syracuse was a bit of a reach to pay for but could have been done. If any other school that I was better fit at provided a similar or better package, it’d be great. Syracuse is not even close to meeting full need so i’m sure other colleges would provide a better package (considering merit aid does not stack with need anyways).

104

I find it interesting that when someone says they didn’t like a school because of some little thing their tour guide said or did or was wearing, many people respond “Drop it! Go with your gut!”, but here, the OP has a lot more behind why they don’t like Syracuse, but so many people are responding “Give it a chance!”.

Sure, the circumstances are different – the main one being that here an ED offer is involved. But still, his rationale for not liking Syracuse and wanting to look at other schools is pretty strong.

Also, while it’s clear that he didn’t put much thought and information into his initial approach, he is showing signs of being more deliberative now.

Anyway, back to the ED, which has gotten a lot of discussion lately, and is obviously a serious factor.

I don’t really know that much about ED offers, and what can happen if you back out of one. It certainly seems they don’t rise to the level of being legally binding. One can even make a good argument that the whole idea of making 17-year olds make such a commitment is unfair and unjustified. And in most cases (like this one), it isn’t hard to make a case that the financial aid is insufficient. I’m not saying one should take such offers lightly, but in some situations – and I think this is such a situation – I’d say it is reasonable to decline them.

Regarding applying to other schools while one has an ED offer, that’s different. Besides the fact that schools can communicate with each other about this kind of thing, it’s hard to justify applying to other schools while holding on to an ED offer.

Following this reasoning, it suggests the OP needs to decide what to do about the ED offer before proceeding. Which limits his choices to sticking to it and going (perhaps considering transferring later), or dropping it and looking at other schools (for the coming fall or Fall 2017 after taking a gap year). And hence the OP would need to more seriously consider the likelihood of getting a comparable (financial) offer as the one at Syracuse.

Also, some people are pointing out that the OP is showing signs of following up an earlier rash/impulsive decision to apply only to Syracuse ED, with a rash/impulsive process now of quickly investigating one or two schools (and schools that others suggested to him, not ones he found himself). While that’s true to some extent, it does seem like he is being more thorough and deliberative. Still, that might argue for his taking a gap year to do a more comprehensive search process.

105

@csdad2, you nearly completely contextualized my whole situation while providing good insight to why I shouldn’t be looking elsewhere this fall. You input was not only very helpful to the context of this thread but also reassuring to me that my search isn’t just out of ignorance, and I really appreciate it. Also, good point in the first paragraph, I think there is some bias on this website where posters regularly enjoy adhering to unconventional reasoning behind college selection.

So, I’ve narrowed it down to two decisions. Gap year or Syracuse.

Let’s go ahead and assume the ED is not an issue. (It shouldn’t be, big college w/ waitlist they have loads of ppl willing to pay full ticket price for my spot as well as them not giving me enough aid and me genuinely having a good reason to not like the school.)

What’s the best option for me? Is Syracuse a match based on my interests? If not, what should my path be? I’ve already got paths set out, but I want to hear from you guys, I like the crucible of opinions and disagreement.

Thanks so much for everyone’s input, even those I disagree with.

106

I believe you should volunteer for a political campaign or organization, and take a gap year where you’ll build a carefully designed list of colleges to apply to, starting with two affordable safeties.

107

@foodoos Sorry if my post confused you. The point I was trying to make was that even though my son spent well over a year carefully crafting his list of colleges visits can/will change everything.

108

Have you told Syracuse you aren’t attending yet? They are probably starting to go to their waitlist, if they are using it this year… not only did you take an ED slot from someone else who would have liked to have had it, but if you haven’t notified Syracuse yet, then you are also holding a spot now in the class that they would want to know will not be filled. They have also reserved your FA for you – could give it to another student if you turn it down. You can’t stay on the fence.

109

OP, you have asked for opinions about Syracuse and I have a few thoughts. First of all, Syracuse is relatively diverse (approximately 25% minority students and 10% international students) which is something you said you were looking for. While Greek life is important, it does not dominate - approximately 24% of males join fraternities and 28% of females join sororities, which leaves a good number of students not involved with Greek life. Syracuse has some very strong academic programs, particularly the Newhouse school of communications, the business school and the Bandier music business program. As other posters have said, there is pretty much something for everyone at Syracuse and the strengths in music and communications mean there are a number of relatively artsy students on campus. Syracuse has a great alumni network, eager to help each other, and of course, it has a very strong basketball team, which, even if you’re not a sports junkie, can be a lot of fun.

If you’re interested in law school, you have to watch out for your GPA and Syracuse doesn’t have a reputation for harsh grading or anything like that. In terms of political science, Syracuse offers a Washington semester program, where you work as an intern and take courses.

While I don’t think that Syracuse is the most academically oriented of schools, with an undergraduate population of approximately 15,000, you can probably find a group of people who share your interests and your academic passions. I’m not saying that Syracuse is the right school for you, but it’s not clear that it’s necessarily the wrong school either, if that makes sense.

110

I just looked – their Washington semester looks stronger and better than many that other colleges offer. Most just have you spend a semester at American, but Syracuse is one of the few that has their own program with their own housing.