Our D2 started looking at colleges in earnest her junior year after deciding what she wanted to study. The summer before her senior year she knew where she wanted to attend and for all intents and purposes it was a safety and she asked if she had to apply to any others. We asked her to apply to 3 other places all strong matches for her and she begrudgingly did. She was accepted to all and at least one was slightly cheaper and in most people’s minds would have been considered the better school. She stuck with her original choice and hasn’t regretted it. It has worked out for all the reasons she chose it. I still felt better knowing she applied to the schools we suggested but in the end it was her decision and a good one.
I think this thread is playing with my head. There is a school that has dropped down on my D’s list and may likely fall off, and all of a sudden I’m like - wait - I think that one is my favorite!
@wisteria100 What is meant to be, will be 
I feel the same way.
@wisteria100
Your reply made me laugh. I think I was really sad at first about Dartmouth because I thought the fit was ideal (maybe more for me than for my daughter.) It’s also the only school I got rejected from when I applied 30 years ago lol. I know it’s too remote for my daughter’s taste, even with all of the daily shuttles into Boston, so I have to get over it. Sad about Georgetown because it was the first school she started to apply to all on her own. I get that the subject test requirement now makes it unattractive, but the campus checks off all of the boxes otherwise. I still hope Williams makes the final cut because I think D will thrive there even though it’s remote. At this point, D’s #1 has the smallest admission rate, and is in a large city known for is ridiculous crime rate. Maybe she’ll change her mind when she visits in a few weeks. In the end it will all work out, and I’ll just have to suck it up and let her decide what’s best for her.
I have the same feelings too. D just let go a top 20 LAC that had offered her a slot for her sport after a positive pre-read. I thought D would thrive there, but not to be. Frustratingly, she has not articulated why she thought the fit was not right, although I do accept the concept of gut feeling. All she has come up with was it’s school related and not team/coach related. Just not to be I guess!
At the moment, the mom favorite and the kid favorite are the same. But my kid is only a junior, and if there’s as much growth in the next year as there was in the last, who knows what the favorite will be a year or 18 months from now.
Rhode Island does not qualify as a “big” city. just sayin.
Providence is a real place: crime, suburbs, urban decay, mobsters, the whole package!
A lot rides on how one defines “big city”. By some standards there are only a handful of them in the US, and others think any place with a decent array of restaurants and shopping counts. The Providence metroplex is #38 according to Wiki, peers with San Jose, Nashville, Virginia Beach, Milwaukee, Jacksonville and Memphis. You could do worse.
Parent pick was only for the application. I would never force my kid to attend. The parent pick for my oldest ended up in close contention with number one. Sometimes we know our kids. This particular kid’s number one priority was top academics and I thought he had a lot of unfounded prejudices about the school.
@StPaulDad - Wholeheartedly agree that “big city” is a matter of perception. As you note, NYC, Chicago, SF, LA are few, whereas there are a lot of ‘secondary’ and ‘tertiary’ cities that may well meet the student’s need. My S19 is not buying Troy-Albany as a “city”. His floor is more like Boston or Philly. While I would put Providence a notch below these in terms of size and city feel, I would note that while the smallest State in the Union, Rhode Island is not a city…
I get where you’re coming from, OP. Every time a school dropped from the list, or rose in the ranks we always told our kid it was his decision but we always asked why. We played devil’s advocate to help him think thru his feelings to get at the root. Our son’s list is tiny compared to some of his peers, but they all fit him really well & are all well thought out decisions.
That said!!!.. The school he ended up applying ED, he fought us tooth & nail to even consider for a very long time. He ended up listing it on a whim for athletics, & his love of the school grew from there very quickly even though they decided to not recruit him.
@ChaosParent23
That’s funny, because the school our daughter has decided to apply ED to is one she first said no way to. Very large, urban city that she just loves. We shall see.
Nope 
my hope is she picks one of the two state schools!!
Every MD, Engineer, Lawyer, NP, PA, etc has just gone to a normal school and done great.
No reason to chase a stat, percieved prestige, or aome other social crown the end game is a great career with a good expereince in college. Our state schoos can provide that and at a great price too
I will support her (them) wherever, but a LAC for 40-55k just isnt worth it to me, but I wont tell them that
Why do you assume people not picking state schools are “chasing a stat” (what does that even mean?), perceived prestige, or a “social crown”? There are hundreds of schools that aren’t state schools, and also aren’t any of those things. You’ve slammed LACs in other threads. But schools like the CTCL schools have been great for many kids and considered well worth it by their parents. You are entitled to prefer one type of school. But routinely making snide generalizations about other types of schools is just rude.
Especially since my “state” schools include UCLA, Berkeley, and UCSD. As if that wasn’t a big enough challenge, getting into Cal-Poly SLO, San Diego State and Cal State Long is also extremely difficult. LACs are just more her speed. BTW, SDSU will be about $30k, and UCs about $37K with housing.
The npc on ctcl schools we’ve looked at for my kid are all within range of our state flagship and we are full pay.
Slightly similar situation to the one in #60, except that we’re not going to make our daughter apply anywhere else. Her top choice, to which she’s just applied EA, is a safety school for her but leads its field, and she’s very set on it. We don’t feel bad about it, because she did consider and visit many other schools. She just doesn’t want to waste time applying to even one other place when she knows where she wants to go. I can kind of relate – I applied to three places but really only wanted to go to one of them, and I got into all three. My top choice wasn’t really a safety for me, so I did need options. Fortunate that our D is much more assured of her first choice.
^^My kids were both ‘one and done.’ They accepted that if something went wrong, they’d have to take a gap year or go to a local school. Nothing went wrong.
Certainly schools near big cities can simplify (and cheaper) transportation logistics. That seems a minor factor during college research phase. It can become a bigger factor once at college. I am actually really glad the DS ended up going to college in Boston rather than a more remote location.
Note - Do make sure the reason to drop schools is not related to fretting over the essay (a short term stress). When one of our kids decided late in the game to drop one school and possibly add a totally new candidate we were mystified. Then we discovered new one had no essay requirement.