IMO, just tell her to do the best she can because it will lead to one of two results:
She gets great grades increasing her transfer options and gets exactly what she wants now.
She gets great grades and It makes her love the school and she stays.
Either way, she needs to put her head down and just crush it at whatever school she goes to. Otherwise, transferring won’t be an option.
I think “buyers remorse” is not unusual in some kids, especially when they’re not sure how to express their nervousness about a new chapter in life. Heck, I spent the first month after my youngest chose thinking about how we could change the decision. So might just be her personality. If so, being logical with her may not help anything.
Sometimes all the angst is just a way of dealing with nerves. Just reassure her that nothing is permanent, that she can change course after her first year, etc. Does the school have summer registration? If so that will give her a chance to meet some fellow students and remember the good things.
You didn’t mention cost. My D picked $ at local U and ended UG with money in her pocket for grad school. She was also in honors college and made some great, very smart friends. Is this a more local option? My oldest did t want to see all the kids she was at high school with. Youngest didn’t care but rarely ran into other kids from her HS and made lots of new friends from same town that she had never known before. In a effort to give her more of a feel of being ‘away’ we let her have a car so she wouldn’t have to deal with borrowing ours to do stuff. Now being local may not be part of it at all so YMMV.
Good luck
Just a side note that if considering options (ex gap year, transfer, new application) you all need to keep any budgetary constraints in mind.
STAY OFF SOCIAL MEDIA!
Comparisons are hard and looking at the manufactured “best life” of people that got into their dreams schools only makes it worse.
I also don’t think it’s that unusual for anxious kids to want to make their anxiety about the unknown your problem. I’d suggest some trips to spend time in the area, but a sparsely populated campus might not be the inviting picture you would hope for.
While I know college is right around the corner, these next few months are actually a long time of rollercoaster emotions. Not being with friends, not being at home, building a new persona… it may all be coming out as “this isn’t going to be the place for me”. Just strap in and hold on.
Maybe it is best not to validate her magical thinking. No one is forcing her to go to this school; she has options. Many people would be thrilled to have such options. If she wants to use one of the 4 years of tuition you pay for at that college, fine. If not, she comes up with a different plan that fits the current reality.
So she needs to take ownership of the situation. But one thing she can do is reach out to the school she was accepted to and explain her situation. Sure it’s a long shot but who knows what they would say if she guarantees acceptance with a deposit.
But maybe she should go to the accepted schools student Facebook and start meeting kids. Learn about activities and clubs that excited her in the first place. She really, really has to understand how fortunate she really is having college as an option. Many would trade places with her in a second.
Growing up is harder on some kids then others. She should of never applied to these schools if she didn’t want to go there. I agree high school is all about the noise. Once it’s over with if her friend’s aren’t happy with her school decision then it’s time for new friend’s.
I can definitely relate to that.
I don’t know if/how this might work with her personality, but instead of making suggestions that she can easily reject - call her bluff:
“Honey, I can tell that this continues to bother you big time - and it pains us (parents) to see you so unhappy. So we (parents) want to figure out with you, what we can do to fix it - because we’re serious about doing what it takes. So lets sit down together so that you can tell what you need from us.”
Now, YOU know already what the available options are: gap year (don’t want that), CC and transfer (that’s even worse), … at the end, she’ll hopefully have to conclude that the only other option is to “suck it up” for half a year, build up a great college GPA and with that, apply for transfer (with you knowing that the urgency might have vanished by then).
Once she’s grudgingly come to admit that the latter is the way forward (for now), ask what you can do to make it palatable, e.g., see if she’s willing to do some “practical” stuff related to that choice: figure out the layout of the room, go online shopping to look at college rooms to see what she might like - and which ones are just plain awful, invite a friend along (maybe browsing the local IKEA) to a decorating session to imagine what she might need/want for her room, etc. etc.
University admissions in the US is very unpredictable.
Two problems here might be social media, and other friends from her high school who basically have a teenager’s perspective on life.
Once your daughter arrives on campus, she will be surrounded by students most of whom are very happy to be there. She most likely will also find the classes to be strong, the professors to be very good, and find things to do.
Many years ago for graduate school I was turned down by my “dream school” and went to my #2 choice. I LOVED IT. I eventually realized that my #2 choice had always been a better fit for me. Admissions at both schools had figured this out way before I did. Rejecting me was the best thing that my dream school could have done for me.
We live in the northeast of the US. One daughter attended a small university in eastern Canada which is almost completely unknown in the US. Her friends in high school were bugging her about it and asking “where?” and “why?”. She and I flew up for orientation. We walked up to the customs agent and he asked why we were entering Canada. We said to attend university orientation, he asked “what school?”. My daughter pointed to her t-shirt and he immediately replied “Great school!”. The entire orientation went the same way, and was very positive and very encouraging. My daughter described the opening talk at the orientation as very welcoming. Her four years there also went very well (COVID was a pain, but that would have been true anywhere), and she got a great education followed by a great job back here in the USA.
Which leads to the obvious question, does your daughter’s school offer an orientation or some sort of admitted student event?
I graduated from a couple of rather famous universities (bachelor’s and master’s). Ever since I have worked with many coworkers the vast majority of whom came from far less famous schools. I have seen a really, really hard problem that stumped two MIT graduates solved by someone who just happens to be a U.Mass graduate. No one cares where we all got our degrees. People care about the ability to get your job done.
And I have two close family members who got their bachelor’s degrees at schools that are ranked in the 100-140 range among US universities, and who then went to graduate school at an Ivy League or “top 5 in the world” graduate program. You really can get an excellent education at any one of a huge range of universities and then either get a great job or get accepted to a great graduate program. What you do as an undergraduate student is more important than where you do it.
I think that it is far too easy to look at rankings, and far more difficult to notice that many, many universities offer an excellent education and the top students at moderately ranked universities are just as strong as the students anywhere.
And we have seen some threads here on CC from students who are unhappy at whatever school they are attending in September. In many cases by the end of the thread the student has decided that they like where they are and have decided to stay (which I regard as good news in most cases).
Good ideas, along with someone else’s suggestion of getting on the accepted students FB group.
DD’19 grudgingly went to a public 2 hours away that was clearly a good fit but not “special”. She got on the accepted students FB page which helped her see that it was a bigger world than imagined, with some pretty cool people. She got on a Snapchat group of the kids that were invited to the scholarship day too.
To make it more palatable she asked me if she could be in a Learning Living Community for her major which had a better dorm with suites at slightly more cost. That was an easy yes to make her happier about going there.
Wishing OP’s daughter the best in coming around too, or finding the right solution.
Ask if there is anything you can do to make it better (you can’t change the weather). If not, then ask if she feels the college is worth the $$$ you have to pay for her to go there? If yes, say that’s the end of it. Decision made.
She picked the school both when she applied and when she accepted. It’s not too late to take a gap year if that’s what she wants to do, but IMO you have the right to tell her it’s time to make an adult decision about spending YOUR money and be happy about it. In or out, no more complaining.
Can you tell I’m the mean mother?
One thing I think your daughter is missing is the getting excited about college, the planning, the getting to meet a roommate, thinking about classes, about who is bringing the lamps and throw rugs. I think you’d be doing her a favor to say “Snap out of it. Be happy for all you have.” (But I’m the mean mother)
Also transferring isn’t all that. Many classes might not transfer cleanly. She might have to retake classes. There is no guarantee she will even like the school and the whole having to meet new kids etc.
My daughter transfered to a new school her junior year. She had sound reason and got a Presidential scholarship which was over half tuition.
Once your daughter gets excited about going, things will change. Soon she has to pick a roommate. That should be your focus going forward.
Going to college is a privilege. She has to understand that.
Totally agree with this. This sounds like a “problem” that only time and greater maturity can solve. It doesn’t sound like there’s anything wrong with the school she’s headed for, other than the fact that it isn’t one of her top choices. Rather than approachng this as a problem to be “fixed” maybe the best you can do is just validate/acknowledge her feelings of disappointment while expressing confidence she’ll end up with a good outcome.
We’re in AZ and I know plenty of kids who were disappointed as high school seniors that they had to “settle” for ASU Barrett Honors College instead of their dreams of elite privates. But 4 years later those same kids are in great shape with great jobs and prospects. Their attitude is completely different now. Hopefully it will be the same for your D.
If she is going to look at social media, I suggest she look at the Honors College social media feeds for the school she is attending. If it is like DD’s school, it will feature profiles of all kinds of interesting students doing cool research, being selected as Fulbright scholars, heading off after graduation to further their education at Harvard, etc. it just underscores that it is less about where you go and more about what you choose to do with it. And if you are fortunate enough to do it at a less expensive school, all the better! (Don’t know if that applies here.)
I’m amazed at some of the schools on that list. OP should definitely look hard at that.
I also just took a quick look at the list (largely out of curiosity) and was a little bit surprised to see some excellent schools on the list. This includes schools that my daughters applied to and very seriously considered attending, and the school that my first boss graduated from.
Not sure if this has been mentioned yet, would you consider having her visit her dr and go through a depression screening? Referral to a therapist could be warranted too. She may be just venting, but it could be more and then even harder to be in her own at school.
Especially because transfers usually get less aid.
Author Harlan Cohen posts a lot of good video content with advice for college students. He recently posted a good video about not going to your first choice school.
I bought the Naked Roomate for my son. I thought it was a great book for kids entering college. Didn’t realize it was this guy… Lol
Wow… just in the first few pages you have Allegheny, Beloit, Earlham, Coe… four high-quality LACs.
Belmont for a somewhat larger, urban environment.
And I was just skimming, didn’t even make it to the D’s.