<p>They are all different. I'm on the second time and both my kids were very emphatic about whether they liked or disliked a particular college. I had kids that bought sweatshirts if they liked the school and have kids that refused to get out of the car at others. They have always been rather vocal about liking or disliking places we have traveled to. I casually mentioned to S2 that maybe he should pare down the list of colleges we need to visit this year and he looked at me in horror and said "you can't tell whether a place is good or bad off the internet! They all look the same and say the same thing." Although S1 did cancel a few schools off his list because "he didn't like the kids in the pictures on the web." No one would say my boys are wishy-washy that's for sure. Makes it kinda easy actually. S1 had an "this is the one" and is now a happy sophomore.</p>
<p>ZM - sometimes the best thing you can do is nothing, and I think this may be one of those times.</p>
<p>I started my D's search with a college (a good one, but a horrible fit) that I knew she'd hate. And it didn't take even a second for her to figure it out: "You brought me here intentionally!" Have a little faith that your 17 years of parenting have done some good.</p>
<p>Falling in love with a college doesn't necessarily mean that the college is a good match.</p>
<p>My daughter fell in love with Columbia, but after thinking about it for awhile, she realized that she didn't like its restrictive Core Curriculum. She didn't even apply. Despite her feelings about the place, she didn't consider it a good match. She's now at Cornell, which inspired only a lukewarm positive feeling when she visited, but has a curriculum better suited for her tastes.</p>
<p>Similarly, my son liked the University of Delaware better than the University of Maryland after visiting both colleges. But after being admitted to both, he chose Maryland because it had a better program in his major. </p>
<p>Sometimes practical matters win out over gut feelings.</p>
<p>OK, this was stupid. My H and I bought mugs at every college we visited. Two years later, we have all these mugs. When we serve coffee, someone says, "Oh, does someone in your family go to XXX?" </p>
<p>What were we thinking? :-)</p>
<p>My son was more pragmatic. There were a couple schools he didn't like overmuch, but he didn't hate them either and would have seriously considered going to either of them if that choice made the most sense based on other criteria.</p>
<p>There were 3 or 4 that he liked a lot, but not as though he "fell in love" with any of them. He was more pragmatic about it. He did figure out that he liked small LACs best, but outside of that he was willing to consider the pros and cons of most of the schools we visited.</p>
<p>We made a decision together based on academic strengths, finances, sports, pleasant campus, etc. But he would have been very happy to go to several of the schools he was considering.</p>
<p>Count yourself lucky, zoosemom. When kids get their heart set on a certain place, it can be really disappointing if it doesn't work out for any number of reasons.</p>
<p>ZM -- is this the D that you described as "quirky" a year or so ago? (am I remembering correctly??) If so, I remember thinking then that she sounded a lot like my D in terms of temperament. </p>
<p>We visited probably 15 schools, some were duds, most "would do just fine", and a couple she really liked. She did not fall in love with any of them. Applied to 5 schools, accepted at all. The one that really rang her bell when it came time to decide was in the "would do just fine" category. It was her safety. She turned down Brown, Penn and Michigan for the University at Buffalo. Everyone thought she was crazy. But by spring she'd had four more months to consider, research, evaluate -- and by then she felt strongly that it was the best fit FOR HER and her goals of all her choices. </p>
<p>In hindsight I think she knew exactly what she was doing and exactly how and why she was making her judgments and assessments, all throughout the process, even though it seemed bewildering and downright opaque to her parents and I'm not sure she could have verbalized it.</p>
<p>(And so far, she's having a great experience)</p>
<p>The other side of the school visit coin is - what's to love? Its a bunch of buildings, a dorky tour guide, an interchangeable adcom (dorky tour guide growed up), a dorm room like every other dorm room, and a salad bar like every other salad bar. Not to mention overbearing parent going "well?"</p>
<p>"...a dorky tour guide, an interchangeable adcom (dorky tour guide growed up)"</p>
<p>ROFL! How true...........</p>
<p>zooser, your daughter sounds like mine. It wasn't until September of her senior year that she "knew" which school was her number one, and was able to list, in order, her top ten. </p>
<p>The good news is, she was quite able to discard lots of schools over the course of her junior year: huge swaths of the US were discarded, schools over or under certain sizes were eliminated. If she visited a school and the students in the classes she sat in on were not prepared or the professor was not a skilled lecturer, the file was burned, as were files of schools where too many girls looked like Barbie. </p>
<p>I finally found some satisfaction in this backwards approach to a final list. Celebrate the elimination list.</p>
<p>I also came to respect my daughter's willingness to live in limbo for a long time. Many kids will choose quickly because they don't want to entertain many options over many months. Your daughter should be praised for reserving judgement and staying open to lots of options, even though it may make YOU crazy. It will be OK.</p>
<p>drb,</p>
<p>"...Not to mention overbearing parent going "well?"..."</p>
<p>I love that!</p>
<p>A wise friend who had been through this before gave me a strategic bit of parent advice: if you yourself have a favorite college that you want to make sure your kid gives some serious consideration to, make sure your kid spends an overnight in the dorm at that college. This lets your kid really picture himself/herself as a student at that school.</p>
<p>FWIW, what made my daughter fall in love with her college was sitting in on two classes in her major there during February of her senior year of high school. She had a number of acceptances in hand, including to that college, but once she sat in on two classes in her major there, she just saw herself there next year, and that was all there was to it. It helped that the two classes were back to back and a prof had told us there were some kids in both classes; before the first one started she asked the girls in the hall if any happened to also be in the second one, and she was able to walk between the two classes with them. This gave her a nice bonus chance to talk to current students in the program.</p>
<p>One of the two classes was so advanced that she could barely follow a bit of it. She still loved it. :)</p>
<p>So much wise advice here, Z. It is true that a dream college can turn into a nightmare, especially since there are expectations attached. It took my kids a while to decide what they liked and wanted.</p>
<p>My S was just like YouDon'tSay's: cheap and practical. I knew which school he had chosen when he came home wearing the sweatshirt after the accepted students event. Until then--no interest. After being deferred from the school he fell in love with first, he was careful to not set his heart on any one place.</p>
<p>I'll add to the chorus and say that my daughter didn't fall in love with any colleges in fall of junior year -- it was too soon. She liked the idea of college, but no one particular place. She took things much more seriously in the spring, but didn't commit herself until the fall of senior year. </p>
<p>There's still plenty of time to tweak the list. She may add more schools this summer, and fall in love with a late addition.</p>
<p>My girl had liked several of the colleges we visited. I'm really not sure how she came up with her list but I think it was a combination of suggestions from GCs and books like Princeton Review. Then I googled college and her sport and found what looked to me like the perfect fit. She stepped on to the campus in the fall of her senior year and she said "I love it!" She loved it when she went for an overnight even though she didn't like the class she attended. That's when she bought the stuff. She's still loving the school as a freshman.</p>
<p>My DD took somewhat the same approach a zmom....She had a list of schools she felt offered what she wanted from a college-and then waited to see which ones would offer her admission.She never listed her first/second etc preferences. It turned out helpful-as half of the schools she applied to waitlisted her-and the other half accepted her. As the waitlisted schools started to offer her admission, then she had her favorites-but never told me...unil she made her final choice-and that is when I heard it really was her first choice but she felt it was such a crap shoot-she didn't want to get her hopes up too high.My DD-the pragmitist!</p>
<p>Yes, drb, loved that description of the visit. We visited a few with my DS, but a while ago he decreed that he didn't want to visit any more until he knows where he's been accepted. So we'll be hitting the road in March, I guess!</p>