<p>Hi, I really need advice. My son has gotten 2 admits so far, mid-west and east coast. We are in California. He's never shown any interest in cold weather places and I'm not sure I want to spend our money traveling to the 5 colleges he's applied to out of CA. (4 in-state) since I'm getting almost no sign of interest on his part in looking at these schools critically. He barely looked happy at his 2 admits and all along has shown no strong desire to be part of this process. Great grades, very intellectual kid, not depressed but I'm very upset that I can't see where to help him with this. He is really resisting our input.
I'd love to hear your supportive insights!</p>
<p>Our experience (2 California kids who have gone through the process)–no reason to get your panties in a knot until all the acceptances/rejections are in. Much as we parents want to chew and mull over possible choices for months, kids are more likely to be “just in time” decision makers.</p>
<p>D1 prioritized her list after all results were in, came up with her two favorites and went on overnight visits to each in April. D3 culled her list down to 3 after all her choices were known, went to 2 admit days and visited one CA campus on her own. </p>
<p>Be forewarned–both of my CA went decided to go to college back East!</p>
<p>Hm, sounds familiar…what is it with these boys?<br>
No great wisdom here, but it would be good if both of you could zero in on what he is thinking (maybe he doesn’t exactly know either?). A meandering conversation between the two of you over root beer floats perhaps…;)</p>
<p>A few possibilities come to mind:</p>
<p>1) He is waiting to hear what happens with his CA choices; they might be his 1st choice, and, like many (esp. this age) he can’t plan more than one thing at a time. </p>
<p>2) He does not envision what college will be like, and just isn’t that jazzed about working hard again, especially after all the pressure of junior/senior year.</p>
<p>3) He is ambivalent about these distant colleges, thinking you don’t want him to go to them (due to cost or distance, or whatever).</p>
<p>4) He feels angry in the way that teenagers are sometimes angry at parents, and doesn’t want to share his ideas with you. (You are an easy point of focus for his general frustration with being 17 or 18, and you will love him no matter how recalcitrant he gets.)</p>
<p>5) He would rather do something else. Hike the Alps, make money working at a bookshop, learn to create ceramic pieces, teach swimming to kids.</p>
<p>6) He’s a smart guy, doesn’t accept any old assumption others hand to him, and is trying to figure out whether he should really go to college.</p>
<p>From my perspective, the best thing would be to try to open the dialog with no pressure, expectations, opinions. (Making sure to communicate respect for his ideas, and holding back on criticizing him…) And see where it leads in the next month or so. You have time, right? (Or is it that the air fares go way up as it gets closer?, in which case, maybe he gets just a couple weeks to gain clarity!)</p>
<p>Oh my, I wonder what he was thinking when he even applied to colleges in the snow belt? Hopefully a “warm weather” school will come in with an admit. It might be a good idea to just let him wait and digest until all the acceptances are in…if the topic comes up maybe remind him what he “liked” about the snow belt colleges that made him want to apply! While “geography” is very important to some kids, it can be far less important to other kids and perhaps he is just “in the moment” about snow country because those are the 2 acceptances that he has in hand… But are you saying that you have a kid that applied to regional colleges (that he isn’t really interested in anymore) and 2 snow belt schools, but he doesn’t like the snow? Seems odd or hard to believe he would have done that, so maybe he just needs a break from thinking about colleges for abit and the visits can occur after the acceptances. Hang in there, things may be different come April.</p>
<p>What lmnop said. </p>
<p>S1 did the same thing–narrowed his options down to his two favorites, visited both in early April, came away with a clear preference, check and done.</p>
<p>S2 has heard from several schools but is waiting for quite a few more. While it’s very much on my mind, we won’t get serious about prioritizing until late March. What to do while waiting? It is fun for me to e-look at each college he gets accepted to. I sometimes do a mental, “If these are his only acceptances, where will he end up?” Mostly, I’m trying <em>very</em> hard not to wish away these intervening weeks. Yes we’re all so anxious to have all the news in, but this is my boy’s senior year. Celebrated his birthday last week, when he reminded me this might be the last year I see him on that wonderful day.</p>
<p>My best advice is to remind your son (not more than once or thrice) that May 1st is the deadline for a decision. (Maybe April 30th, just to be safe.) And then leave it be. Do all the research, fun “what if” thinking, . . . on your own. Just as many boys don’t really focus on the college search until senior year, many won’t really start to make a decision until more of their friends/classmates have.</p>
<p>Relax. And enjoy him while he’s still home.</p>
<p>Both my kids really focused on what they wanted in a college after all the acceptances were in. Both stewed until the very last day of April making some very difficult choices - and choosing the slightly lower ranked colleges for very good reasons. This is the first really big life-changing decision most of our kids have ever made. </p>
<p>If he wants to discuss pros and cons at the dinner table great. If he wants to think about it in private great. If he wants to make a spread sheet and assign numbers to categories great. If he prefers a less numbers driven approach that’s okay too.</p>
<p>IMO weather should be about the last consideration in choosing a college. I spent three happy years in Pasadena, and spent a good part of my life in places where the seasons were rainy vs. dry. You can definitely learn to appreciate and enjoy whatever weather is out there. My Florida sister-in-law (who still misses the south) learned to love skating and skiing. She never had done either before college.</p>
<p>I would follow his lead. Tell him you are available as a sounding board if he is interested, but that you know that this is his decision (within whatever parameters you have set regarding money.)</p>
<p>You could always let him know that if he has no preference and isn’t interested enough to check them out that you’ll just pick the cheapest most convenient one (for you) for him to commit to (assuming he intends to go to college at all).</p>
<p>Some very good advise here. One thing I do while my student is waiting for results is look at interesting news on the schools websites and forward the links for him to read. This can be anything from something related to interesting work or research students are doing in his intended major, sports recaps, information on a new dining hall (hey they are going to have a Qudoba! Cool!), distinctions given to faculty, even a weather update talking about a foot of snow ;). These may not sound interesting but they get him on the website news, and help get him thinking about what’s going on at that school. How does it differ from the other schools? It’s not really profound, but I think it does help him start to define differences and think about what he wants.</p>
<p>My son seemed somewhat apathetic when his acceptances started coming in. But what looked like apathy to me was actually overwhelming indecision on his part. He couldn’t make up his mind which school he wanted to go to, so he just kind of put it out of his mind. Once he started visiting the schools, he got more excited and interested in making his decision. I wanted him to be the one to pick the final school, so I insisted that he visit each one and see how well he thought he would fit in. It took him a couple of days after visiting every school, but finally he made his decision, and he has been very happy with it.</p>
<p>I’d back off awhile. Your excitement is possibly pressuring him. HE is going to college, not you (I think lot of parents, me included, forget that this is about them and not us). He has a month to decide, and he’s still waiting to hear from some schools. Maybe he figures there’s no point in deciding until he knows all of his options?</p>
<p>What works with me sometimes is not bringing up the subject I’m worried about at all for a week or two (college choices, scholarship applications, other issues with my kids), trusting that they are processing it in their own way. The more a parent pushes, the more likely the kid is to push back. Often it’s when I back off that my daughters come through.</p>
<p>For D1 she narrowed it down to 3, we went to college admit days at all three, we made lists (pros and cons), I bought a College ******* for each school and she finally decided a couple days before the deadline. I thought S2 would be 100X worse. When he got some early admits we went and visited, took tours, went to sporting events, etc… I made the plans, he went along for ride, never complained, but never seemed overly enthusiastic. I had left Spring Break entirely open to travel to all the different schools he might be considering, but then in March when he was admitted to his first choice school, he knew that was where he wanted to go and didn’t care about anything else.</p>
<p>I was laughing as I read your post because I am going through the exact thing with S2 and also did with S1.
S1 changed his mind the night before the dead line and instead of Sonoma State went to U. of Oregon (a lot more money but he loves it).
S2 has 8 choices and has visited all but one of them and now can’t decide what to do.
Fortunately he has a 3/1 deadline with one due to D2 athletics so hopefully we won’t be waiting for him to decide the end of April.
I think it is overwhelming for them and they just tune out until they have to figure it out.
I was not blessed with a kid who had his heart set on one school which would have made the process so much easier!
If he doesn’t decide by the deadline then maybe he isn’t ready and can go to a JC for two years and save you lots of $$$.</p>
<p>We are from San Diego too! My daughter has always wanted to go east for college. She was accepted to Emerson and Drexel early action so we visited the end of January to be sure she could handle the cold 
She is NOT a cold weather gal!</p>
<p>I think Emerson is her first choice, but she is keeping an open mind. She said she is willing to deal with weather to attend a school she loves…We are visiting University of Denver tomorrow. We waited for acceptances PRIOR to visiting schools since she applied to many as she didn’t have a clear vision of where she wanted to end up…</p>
<p>LOTS of work now to update mid term grades and financial info as well as checking portals :(</p>
<p>We’ve been saving for his college all these years and want the $$$ to be spent wisely and for him to have a great college experience. </p>
<p>My S1 is very laid back about the whole thing. I asked last night, have you checked your email? He said, “why, it will still be there tomorrow?” </p>
<p>He wanted to go to Rice and when he was denied, he’s now thinking purely practical … if UT invites him to honors he will go there. Otherwise, A&M is cheaper. </p>
<p>He’s been admitted to his first choice major at Texas A&M and his second choice major at UT. He’s honors eligible (we think) at A&M. So, waiting to hear if UT will invite him into honors (next few weeks, I think). And, waiting to see what scholarships he might get (institution specific or other) which might still be months from now. </p>
<p>S1 says, “April sounds like a good time to make a decision”. He’s right. He doesn’t have to decide until May 1. </p>
<p>I need a new mantra “Its not about me, its not May 1st”</p>
<p>
My son got into U of Chicago early last year. He refused to look at it in January saying he wanted to wait until it looked it’s best. It was the highest ranked school he got into, but he worried he wouldn’t like it as much as places that were more fun and he wanted to see all the schools on an equal footing. In the end he decided that the fit was better elsewhere, though Chicago was gorgeous in April.</p>
<p>He probably just needs a break from college talk. He will renew his interest in late spring when classmates are getting acceptances, GC’s are asking for commitments and kids start adding their college to their facebook pages.</p>
<p>For now (and for YOU)…Let him know that you are not looking for any sort of commitment, but that you will back off of the college talk if he sits down with you before the end of the weekend and makes a list of pros and cons for each school - no discussion - just lists.</p>