<p>My daughter, who is a junior, is in the process of doing some college visits this spring. She goes to a highly competitive HS in Texas. Her first choice for college is The University of Texas. She is not in the top 10% of her class (top 25%) so UT will be out of the question for her. The problem in Texas is that if your child wants to go to a D1 school and they aren't in the top 10%, there are very few options..Texas A&M is also mostly top 10% but not as bad as UT. Texas Tech is the only other option. It is a very good school and she will consider it. The other options are out of state, ie, University of Oklahoma, University of Arkansas, Louisiana State University. </p>
<p>Here's where the problem is..since there are not many choices, many kids from her HS go to the same Universities. DD does not want to "repeat" HS. She wants to re-invent herself exclusive of her HS friends (who by the way she adores and wants to keep in contact with). Two of her best friends are interested in the same school DD is most interested in.. this is really stressing DD out. Has anyone eles her been in a similiar situtation and if so, did your child end up going to the same school as thier friends? How did it work out? thanks for any input and feedback!</p>
<p>My son went to same school as 30 of his high school friends. There are 7500 freshman at his college. It is a rare day that he runs into a HS friend unplanned.</p>
<p>It was great for him. A few old friends to ease his way into college and many, many new friends. He currently lives with 3 new friends and 1 HS friend.</p>
<p>When I went to college none of my friends came with me. Actually, I knew no one, and I was about 3 hours from home.</p>
<p>I made a lot of new friends and found the experience to be a good one. However, I like getting out of my comfort zone… my comfort zone is in ambiguity, is that possible? I did move 2400 miles from my home as well.</p>
<p>Hmm</p>
<p>I don’t think it’s so much about “re-inventing” but about finding who you really are. God made Abram/Abraham leave the land of his birth in order to create a new nation. The growth, the name change, the identity is found in not who you know but who you are.</p>
<p>We live in Colorado, and both of our kids attend the University of Colorado. At our large high school (2000 kids), many choose to stay in state and attend either CU or CSU. When our D started there almost 3 years ago, there must have been 30 kids, maybe more, from her graduating class that also enrolled there at the same time. I am sure the number was very similar for my S’s class this past fall. </p>
<p>Neither one of my kids was anxious to repeat the high school experience, and I am happy to say that they aren’t. At the schools you have mentioned, the student enrollment is at last 10,000 students and over 20,000 in quite of few of them. It is very easy to find “your” people and not always hang with those you went to high school with.</p>
<p>In our D’s case, her boyfriend is someone she went to high school with. His roommate also went to our high school. That’s really all of the high school folk she sees regularly. She sees the rest occasionally on campus. Our S pledged a fraternity and one guy from his high school class pledged the same house. They are friends, but not close. He sees 2 girls in his dorm that room together, as well as one of the girl’s boyfriend who all went to the same high school, but they are not his main group that he socializes with. He sees a few others on campus, but not regularly.</p>
<p>It is very possible to reinvent yourself and not come into constant contact with your high school classmates. Don’t allow your D to be pressured into rooming with any of them, that sort of defeats her purpose in making a fresh start.</p>
<p>The good thing is that the school that they are most interested in has about 20,000 students. I have told DD that it is unlikely that she will see those people every day or even at all. I also told her that if they do end up at the same school that they should try to live in different dorms. One of DD’s friends is very shy and tends to depend on DD socially…this is what has her stressed out the most.</p>
<p>Thanks Colorado mom! That makes me feel better. DD is just having a hard time picturing what it is like to be going to school with 20,000 students instead of 3000…She will definitley not room with any of them. I do keep telling her that it will be good to know at least a few people at first unitl she gets acclimated. She also plans to go through rush so this will help. I would be surprised if they ended up in the same sorority but it could happen.</p>
<p>Please tell your D that for the most part, large campuses don’t really feel all that large, unless it’s a home game on Saturday!! </p>
<p>You start making friends in your residence hall, in your classes, in organizations, in Greek life, through intramurals, and pretty soon you find a “mix” of people you enjoy spending time with, and the school begins to feel much more intimate.</p>
<p>Also, remember that she and her friends are only juniors. A lot can happen between now and then. They may actually wind up at different schools.</p>
<p>D is at FSU. Many kids stay in state and go to UF or FSU. Each take 5000 freshman. She loves it there, and it feels small to her now that she has made new friends.</p>
<p>My D wanted to go and not have it be like HS. She has had no problems doing so . She joined a sorority that no one in her class joined. She does not choose to hang out exclusively with the HS crowd of 10-12 that are there. She has a good friend who ended up across the hall in her dorm, but it has not been a problem. They have some lunches together, and share a class with study sessions, but other than that, she finds the campus large, and the chances of running into students from her school small. </p>
<p>There are kids who exclusively hang out with their HS friends. They choose to do so. The ones who are looking for a new experience seem to have no problem with that either. </p>
<p>I would not worry. If she wants a new experience, it will be easy. The dorms are plenty, the number of classes varied, and she will only hang out with HS friends when she wants to.</p>
<p>Thanks for all of the input for everyone…I am so glad to have “this place” to come to for information…so many messageboards are rude and hostile. I have been lurking here for over a year but never post. I am glad I did :)</p>
<p>I agree with others - some of these state schools are so large that the friends from HS will usually only occasionally see each other in passing unless they make an effort to get together. I think your D’s oulook of starting fresh and being open to meeting new people and looking forward to new interests is a good one.</p>
<p>I went to the same college as six girls from my class including my best friend. I also had friends from the class ahead of me. I took a year off as did at least one other of us. I was amazed at how little I saw my old friends, even my former best friend. My high school class had 80 girls, college class about 1500. I don’t think I was ever in a class with one of them and I didn’t live in the same dorms as any of them either. I actually wish now that I’d made a bit more of an effort to keep in touch with several of them.</p>
<p>Not a problem at the large state U’s. One advantage of knowing others from your home town, especially for parents, is that they can keep in touch just enough (even just through parents) to arrange to share rides home for breaks, especially if the drive is significant. The atmosphere at these schools is also conducive to dropping HS friends- she will meet many others who also know people from their HS and also want a fresh start- she will get support in her efforts from new friends who understand her feelings.</p>
<p>This reminds me of my youth. I desperately wanted to leave town for college, grew up in suburb of best instate school, but couldn’t afford to (no need blind admissions in those days). I was lucky enough to live in the dorms instead of commuting. I saw the next door neighbor who had been in almost all of my HS classes (we both took the kinds that meant our schedules dictated such) but not a friend in HS (different outside interests/personalities) only a few times on campus in all 4 years.</p>
<p>I am glad to hear your D would not be rooming with anyone from high school. That just sounds like a good way to wind up continuing all the high school drama. My D was excited to go away to a school where there was NO chance she would see anyone from her HS. My S will probably do the same.</p>
<p>Yeah Bengalmom…I agree about the rooming thing…DD actually thinks she wants to go potluck. That could be great or horrible…in fact she may be glad that she has some friends there to fall back on if there is a roommate issue. She even said that the ideal situation would be to be in separate dorms where hopefully each of them would meet great new friends that they could introduce to each other. I am feeling much more hopeful about this situation. I definitley would not want her to “not” choose a particular school because someone eles was going there.</p>
<p>There have been some threads here involving drama when a Friend A insisted on rooming together and Friend B did not want to. The solution is to kindly but firmly say “No, thanks, I really want to meet new people, we’ll still stay in touch” right up front, the first time the subject comes up. Repeat as needed in the same manner.</p>
<p>i can sympathize with you SWT. we are kind of in the same situation school-wise. but i tend to find that most kids want to go to UT or A&M and nowhere else. to me it seems like the next choices TT et al. are quite ways different than UT and A&M. my DD liked A&M, but tht quickly faded when we visited baylor. now she wants a smaller school, so we, also, are looking OOS. arkansas, alabama, south carolina, oklahoma. she doesn’t want LSU for some reason.</p>
<p>my DD kind of wants to reinvent herself in college, too. not sure how that will work out … but we will see.</p>
<p>i went to school (A&M) with many kids from my high school but rarely saw any of them.</p>
<p>My daughter and one of her closest friends from home go to the same college. While were all in the visiting stage , mothers included it was discussed that if they get lucky enough to get into this school, they will not room together. I have never heard of two girls that are friends already making good roommates.
It is a small school and they do see each other , but certainly not every day . They have different majors. It has worked out beautifully for them. Still friends and get together socially sometimes, but each of them forged their own way.
The one thing that was a worry was the thought of one of them getting accepted and not the other. Thank goodness that didn’t happen !</p>
<p>Both of our S’s go to big instate publics. They went to a big h.s with almost 3000 kids so lots go to the same state u’s. Well over 20 fr. S1’s class went to his univ. A dozen or so fr. S2’s class started with him last Fall . That doesn’t even count the dozens fr. our town already there, the ones fr. older classes and the ones who went from the other h.s. in our town. </p>
<p>Both my guys really like having kids fr. home there. Both roomed with a h.s friend for freshman yr. It worked out well for them. I was a little worried when S1 announced this plan but he informed me that most of that “drama” I hear about relates to females, not guys,lol. They are three and four hrs. fr. home and never had a minute of homesickness Having familiar faces around helped the transition I think. </p>
<p>They share rides to/fr. sch. A couple of times a kid on his way back to sch. after a weekend at home has swung by here and picked up something to take to one of my kids for me. When S needed a ride home once, he rode with the parents of a girl fr. his h.s who had been visiting the college and were glad to give him a ride. </p>
<p>There really are a lot of perks to knowing some people to start off.<br>
Both my kids regularly see the ones they chose to see and the others might as well be on another planet…never see’m. A kid who grew up two doors down fr. us was one of S1’s best friends most of his life. They go to the same college. S1 never sees him. The neighbor joined a Frat. S1 joined ROTC. They are totally different people than they were in high sch.</p>
<p>Yeah Mike, my DD feels the same about LSU… I don’t know the reasoning behind that is. She is most interested in OU because it is “most like” UT. I do like the size of it…only 20,000 students. We will be visiting there in a few weeks with a few of her friends…that’s what got her worried about this…she is afraid that they will all fall in love with it.</p>