I have been committed to my school for about a month. For the purpose of keeping this anonymous, I will only mention it’s a top 40 LAC. I am grateful that I got into the school with generous aid in the first place after a subpar junior year due to a family illness. I got into some other great institutions (particularly LACs) as well, pretty much of the same caliber. The personal dilemma that I am having is the feeling of “I could’ve done more”. For the entirety of high school, I dreamt of going to a great school in a new place, wherever that may have been, to explore. In a strange turn of events, I am going 20 minutes up the road to a school that I used to think was mediocre as an ignorant 12-year-old who wanted Harvard (I wish I could go back in time and talk some sense into myself!) My thoughts have changed about this school now, and I have quite a bit more respect for it. Yet I don’t really see myself there as much as I’ve tried. I was a recruited athlete and had the opportunity of meeting the coach, who is lovely, and some of my future teammates. Even after all of this, I still couldn’t see myself spending four years there. To keep this part of a long story short, out of the options I had, and after the damage that Covid-19 had done to my family, I felt it was best to stay close. I felt that by doing this I could at least give my mother the opportunity to come to watch a meet and not have to travel 5 hours. After 8-9 years of paying for my athletics, I wanted to make sure she could see me compete at the collegiate level. I even talked to my friends about staying closer to home after all of this to save some money and take care of their families until everything was somewhat back to normal, and then consider transferring. At the time we all agreed that was a great idea. It turns out that it was all just virtue signaling, but I found out too late. Everyone is talking about how excited they are about “getting out here” and starting a new life. I guess it just reminded me of how I was excited to go someplace new and escape the monotony of suburbia. There was always a glass ceiling of how much exploring you could do, and after living here for 18 years, I know the town like the back of my hand. I am still looking forward to getting on campus and meeting everyone! I know a lot of this doubt will diminish, but I am not sure if I will really be happy with where I am at. If I could go back at least a few months, I would have applied to a lot more schools (applied to 5, one was an ED deferral) but I held out hope that I would get into my first choice. Like a lot of things, I found out too late that they were need-aware and my EFC was pretty much 0. I honestly thought I was set by November with positive pre-reads from my top choices, but another hard lesson that I learned, especially with division 3, is the pre-reads don’t mean as much as the coaches say they do (depends on the school). Sorry for the rambling, I just thought I would share a story about my experience with college during Covid-19. Right now I am just feeling lost, something that I thought would have dissipated after committing. It’s been a little rough watching all my friends and peers get into their dream schools and/or going to new places. Once again, I am grateful for the school that I will be attending in the fall and the aid I received!
Parent of a just-graduated LAC college senior here – try to breathe and give yourself some slack. These are unprecedented times, and we are all just trying to muddle through. Worry, even beyond the normal, graduating high school senior kind of worry about the future, is to be expected in this extraordinary times.
At the same time, your decision making process sounds mature and wise, and I’m sure your family appreciates the opportunity to continue see you compete in your sport because you won’t be far away. Keep in mind, being close to home doesn’t have to be a negative, you can talk with your family about expectations (no dropping in, no requests to have you come home to help out on the weekend). I speak from experience – the most affordable option for me for college was a LAC 10 minutes from my home and my high school. I lived on campus and we all treated the experience as if I were miles away. I didn’t see my family until Thanksgiving, same as ever other 1st year student – the only difference was, I didn’t have to deal with lines at the airport, weather delays etc. The point being – your college experience WILL be different from living near there as a high school student. Many LACs tend to be an all-inclusive “bubble,” separate from their surroundings. You will be entering a new community and a new world, it will be as new for you as it is for all your classmates. The added bonus is, your family can enjoy seeing you compete, watching you with your new college “family” of teammates and friends, and then they will leave, and you will return to your college life. Hugs, these are difficult times.
My kids all went to the same school an hour from our home. You would have thought they were across the country. They didn’t come home much, we went down and took them out to dinner once a month or so.
D1 looked seriously at a school 10 hours away, but realized I would only see her compete in her sport twice a season. She competed year round; this ended up being part of the reason she turned them down as she couldn’t imagine me not being there.
You will make the most of the opportunities that your school offers. I suspect in a year you will feel it is the perfect fit.
For years, I think the top universities (HYPSM, Ivy League, etc., top 10 on US News) have become such household names that it has become the end all be all for high school students. However, I think we have to remember that we all have our lives ahead of us, and while going to top schools is not something I am trying to undermine, it is short-lived within the grander scheme of things. While Harvard of course has more success stories than the average school, it is because there are plenty of extraordinary students there, it is not simply because they went to Harvard. Essentially, what I’m trying to say is that they are the reason they were successful, not just Harvard (nothing against Harvard, just an example). If you make the most of your college experience … there is no where you cannot go and nothing you cannot do.
Honestly, getting rejected from a HYP school that my brother had gone to broke my heart and made me feel a similar way, but at the end of the day, our failures do not define us but rather our successes. This is just one small part of your life, and I honestly don’t think you failed at all, because you are going to a school that is in the top 40 out of hundreds of LACs. Things will work out for the best, don’t worry, and just keep moving forward. Class of 2020 has got this!
There are definitely more than 40 excellent liberal arts colleges in the US. You are going to a great school with generous aid. This is really good.
Could you have done better in high school? Maybe. Do you have a great opportunity now? Definitely.
“20 minutes up the road”
It will feel like a different world when you wake up in the morning.
I know some people who were very successful. Very few or maybe none of them took the shortest route from where they started to being successful. We all figure it out over time.
I have a daughter at a small school (a small university in Canada that you have probably never heard of). I have become a big fan of small schools. You get small classes. You get to know your professors. You do not need to compete with graduate students for the research opportunities.
Take advantage of this opportunity. Harvard will still be there if you are looking for a good graduate program in 4 or 5 or 6 years.
I can understand how you feel at this moment, but I bet you will look back at this a year from now and laugh at your worries. You’re obviously going to a great school if it is a top 40 LAC, but I think you’ll also be happy to be close to home but still “away,” you’ll be happy about saving money, you’ll be happy about your team (as the coach is lovely and you like your teammates) and you’ll be happy to have your mother watching you compete. We live overseas and my son just completed his first year at a Midwest LAC. Although we are all sure it was the right decision, the distance has made for some challenges (including the unexpected challenges presented by the coronavirus). He’s an athlete as well, and we were just starting to get used to waking up at 3 a.m. to watch the live video feed from his meets when the season was cut off. Not quite the same as being there, however!
@DadTwoGirls Thanks, and apologies for the run-on paragraph, I had intentions of splitting it up but ended up forgetting. Anyways, I myself have become a big fan of small colleges, particularly LACs for the same reasons you list!
@onedayatatime, don’t know if it will be possible as a recruited athlete, but will it be possible for you to study for a year or semester abroad? That would certainly be an adventure beyond your suburb to get excited about. Many colleges now also offer semesters in cities such as NYC or Washington DC for classes and internships (or semester exchanges with other universities/colleges) and there are also summer opportunities in different places. Remember, also, that any T-40 school will have carefully crafted a class with geographic, racial, SEC and every other kind of diversity, so there WILL be many new people to meet who will be different from your high school classmates.
You do have a whole lifetime of exploring new horizons in front of you…in the end, you may be glad to have spent some more time close to home when you could.
@1dayatatime One thing that I have heard from almost all students who attended a LAC is just how much they enjoyed it there. For almost every one of them, especially those who attended a top 50 LAC, their LAC WAS their dream school - if not before than while they were there.
What you did wasn’t “virtue signalling”. You made a decision based on family issues, and that was the right decision.
As for “mediocre”, well, of the top 50 colleges and universities whose students end up finishing a PhD, 36 are LACs, and at least 10 are not even top 50 LACs. Proportionally, more graduates of Kalamazoo College (ranked #72 LAC by USNews) do a PhD than do graduates of Cornell or Duke.
It human to feel regret and think the grass is greener on the other side. You see all your friends excited about going away for college and think you’re missing out, but what you won’t see yet is some of them get homesick and then transfer back home. Plus, who knows how many will actually go away this fall with COVID.
Agree that you’re not stuck at your LAC for 4 years (depending on how you can work it out with your sport) if there are study-abroad/study-away programs, you can partake in (see what is covered by fin aid/scholarships).
Finally, life doesn’t end after undergrad. Depending on your interests, there are elite grad schools you can work towards.
@Midwestmomofboys has hit the nail on the head. My daughter goes to a top school 7 miles from our home. She is a senior now. The school has been a perfect fit for her, and she loves it. Her main hesitation about committing to the school as a high school senior was its proximity to home. Like you, she worried about being so close to home when her friends were going all over the country. Once she got on campus, those worries vanished. I bet you will have a similar experience. If you are really unhappy, you can apply to transfer. After she graduates, my daughter will likely go to grad school or seek a career in another city. You can do this too.
Even though she is close to home, she doesn’t come home very often. She has her own world and circle of friends on campus. We respect her boundaries. Occasionally we will take her out for dinner or meet for a coffee, but that’s it. We do not go on the campus.
During the Covid shutdown after in person classes were cancelled, students had to leave the dorms. She came home and finished the rest of the semester at our house online. Some of her friends had very difficult travels home, had to leave their stuff in the dorm, etc. You may be glad you are close to home if there is another spike/shutdown or classes are online again.
Second thoughts after making a big decision are entirely normal! But it’s all counter-factuals, and thus all hypothetical. For every example in your post I could come up with a rebuttal- but that’s not the point.
The important thing is that you made the best decision you were able to make at the time you made it. You made it with imperfect information, in a changing environment, where there were no clear ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ answers. That, for better or worse!, is what a lot of the decisions you will make will be like. Same as learning how to make tough decisions, you have to learn how to live with the decisions you have made. In general, leaning into the decision- giving it every chance to be the right decision, and evaluating the results as they come in is the best bet.
So, for now you celebrate that you are going (well, enrolling anyway) into a good school- and focus on all the reasons that you chose it and they chose you.
IF by Jan/Feb of next year you realize that there are serious downsides to how it is working out, and IF there are other options that will offer a better balance of upsides and downsides, THEN you evaluate transferring.
So first congratulations! Knowing what I know now I also wish I worked harder in high school. I lived at home for 3 years going to undergrad. I also visited friends at Big Ten colleges close by. My experience was vastly different then theirs. But can’t really remember anything that was bad.
My daughter went to 2 lacs both about 1.5 hours away from our house. She transferred to another one in Junior year that had her target major. Neither in the top 40 but both talked a lot on CC.
She appreciated not being too far away. She “could” of been on the East Coast (we are in the Midwest).
Besides having the great and typical Lacs experience that everyone talks about she quickly realized that being close has advantages. We could see her designs and performances “every” time. We would of paid to fly out to the east coast as well but how nice to drive in and spend some time then go back home for us the parents.
Also we would just go up some weekends for the day to walk through a farmers market, take her to breakfast /lunch and go back home. (and bringing up something left at home.
LOL).
Also we live in a major city so she loved bringing her international friends to our city for the first time then staying over at our house. I would usually drive them back up (they took the train /bus to our house),the next day.
Would of, could of, should of… Will get you no where. Put that energy to do well now and get involved in campus life. Both my kids have been involved in their campus life. Both are gaining the benefit of that also. This is what college is all about.
So many people will make similar posts in the next couple of months. Buyer’s remorse is normal. But you chose your college for sound reasons. And frankly, you’ve made your decision, so there is no point in being regretful about something that hasn’t happened yet.
I suggest you go and make the most of the opportunities available at your college. Everytime your mom watches you play, you will probably be glad you made your choice. I also suggest you avoid the temptation to go home when you feel overwhelmed, or if you feel like you’ve made the wrong decision, etc… You will assimilate and make friends more quickly if you stay on campus. It make take a month or two, but if you give it a chance, you won’t regret it.
@1dayatatime Back when I went to college, I ended up going to the large impersonal public university 25 minutes down the road instead of the LAC of my dreams. I wasn’t happy about it. Once I got on campus, however, it turned out much better than I imagined. Although close to home, it was a different world. I only saw my parents for Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc. I didn’t have to book flights or change flights on short notice to go back and forth. I once became quite ill with a bad case of flu and was able to go home for a week to get better.
As a parent, I would love to see my college-aged kid more often. Getting to campus involves the better part of a day’s air travel and no direct flights. Given these uncertain times, I think you made a wise choice. Top 40 LACs are more alike than they are different. Your experience is likely to be just as good as if you had gone to a similar school farther away.
Could not resist the temptation. Went directly to USNEWS takings for national LA colleges for 2020 and the four colleges listed were Lafayette, Occidental, Skidmore, and the US Air force Academy. Looks like very good company to me.
GO FOR IT! If you were at the Academy, that would be a command!
re #11:
As for “mediocre”, well, of the top 50 colleges and universities whose students end up finishing a PhD, 36 are LACs, and at least 10 are not even top 50 LACs. Proportionally, more graduates of Kalamazoo College (ranked #72 LAC by USNews) do a PhD than do graduates of Cornell or Duke. "
Be aware that this is correct only when based on the key word “proportionally” above, where the proportion is all students who are attending the institution regardless of major. In absolute numbers the most future Phds, by far, came from Berkeley, Michigan, and Cornell, last time I looked. The highest LAC in actual PhD production over a ten year period was Oberlin at #45, and there were only 5 LACs in the top 100. . LACs are of course smaller, but they are also much more homogeneous in their majors, student objectives and incoming student profiles than many universities are, with very few vocationally-oriented majors for the most part and by comparison.
