<p>sorry, I just had to post here, since I love this prep school board so much.
i just matriculated at the University of Michigan :)</p>
<p>I didn't feel like waiting for the "top colleges" decision as I feel that Michigan is THE SCHOOL , specially for engineering and business (the majors that I got accepted to)</p>
<p>From a prep school - > state U, it's gonna be such a change.</p>
<p>congrats on your choice!!!! =P</p>
<p>Good for you! Congrats! :) :) :) :) You'll be very happy.</p>
<p>Sorry, but I played for Notre Dame. I have no respect for you whatsoever starting today, Wolverine. ;>)</p>
<p>University of Michigan is a great school. I live about 30 minutes away and it's awesome. ;)</p>
<p>Also, there's probably a lot of other prep school kids as well, especially some from Detroit Country Day, Roeper, University Liggett, Greenhills, Cranbrook, etc.</p>
<p>I have a question. I know there are a lot of parents on this board, so i really need your help. I did talk to my parents before paying the deposit; they said I can do whatever I want, but they clearly werent happy that I dont wait for the ivies, MIT and Wash U to reply. I really would prefer going to michigan to the ivies or the "top schools", but my parents clearly dont understand that; they are very supportive, but deep down, i know they are very unhappy. Do you guys know what I should do aobut it?</p>
<p>Congratulations, Bearcats! Before I give you my perspective as a parent, I have to ask: Even if you know in your heart that Michigan is IT to you (I don't doubt your conviction), why didn't you wait for decisions from the other schools? Or, how can you be so certain that you've made the most informed desicsion without the knowledge of possible offers from other schools?</p>
<p>you get priority housing optino if you pay your deposit before March 1st. Since I know that Michigan is THE SCHOOL, i really dont feel the need to wait. I also withdrew all my apps so i dont potentially waste a spot for kids who actually want to go to whatever schools.I visited all the schools, I did all the possible researches that I can online, or from books. I know michigan is the school for me, buut my parents just dont understand :(</p>
<p>Based on your previous posts, it seemed like Cornell was your first choice. When you were deferred at Cornell, perhaps you were afraid you wouldn't get in and to save face you started looking more closely at Michican and SC. I am not trying to be mean here, but that what it looks like from the outside. That being said, it's your decision and not your parents. You are the one who has to live with it. Michigan is a great school and most kids would love to go there. It is located in a wonderful town, has excellent academics, and athletic traditions that bring a lot to the college experience. I would have waited until I heard from all of the schools until I made the final decision. Schools hold the "priority housing option" in front of acceptees because they want to know who is coming earlier than May 1. Housing options don't really change that much.</p>
<p>My parents are also hoping that I attend a certain college (I am a legacy to an Ivy League school.). However, that school is not my first choice. My first choice is a school very similar to Michigan. But my parents also understand that ultimately it is my decision. I will be the one attending the school, not them.</p>
<p>you can become the valedictorian of U Michigan. i think that would make your parents extremely happy.</p>
<p>University of Michigan, from what I've heard, is a great university. Ann Arbor is supposed to be a great college town, so that part should be enjoyable. </p>
<p>As a parent, what would confuse me is that I have seen your college lists that are supposed to reflect your priorities. University of Michigan was not on top but somewhere in the middle or in the top quartile. I don't know if you just composed the list to reflect what you thought your priorities should be and recently realized that you just loved U of Michigan. Anyway, as a parent, that would be confusing. Also, it is a major decision that from a parents' point of view, you are basing on getting priority housing which probably affects you for one year. The more logical choice is to wait until all your offers come in and make your decision then. Sometimes people change their minds when all the offers are on the table. You need to address these issues when you talk to your parents. Wait until you feel very calm about your decision. </p>
<p>If you have a better chance of being in the top 20% of your class at Michigan than the more prestigious colleges to which you applied, then this is a good thing. Getting into a top graduate school is more important for a professional life if that is the direction you are considering. </p>
<p>Anyway, I think you should discuss this with your Hotchkiss advisor and college guidance counselor. Because they know you, they should have the best advice.</p>
<p>Here's another parental response: I don't quite get it. I understand paying a deposit to secure priority housing at Michigan, but also suspect that if you changed your mind you'd only be out a few bucks, or they might even refund.</p>
<p>Since you've put a lot of work into all your applications, paid the fees and have only a month to wait for a decision, I don't see why you would withdraw those applications. As a parent, I'd really be afraid you'd have buyers remorse when your friends start hearing from schools and have choices - and yours is already decided, and it was not your ED school. (This sometimes happens to students who are admitted by their ED school - they regret they didn't 'aim higher', that they don't get to choose, that the revisit day is not so important to them, etc.).</p>
<p>I'm also curious what your college counselor's take on all this is? As a parent (maybe a paranoid one) I'd be concerned if I felt you were being pressured so that a spot opened up for another student at your prep school. I might be guilty of reading too many political intrigue novels, or maybe it's the New York Times. </p>
<p>Ultimately, parents want their kids to be happy - I'm sure that's where your parents' concern lies.</p>
<p>This was the list I posted before in order of preference that Burb parent saw
"U Penn Wharton (duh)
Cornell (deferred)
U Michigan Ann Arbor(Admit)
MIT
Carnegie Mellon
Columbia
U of Southern California(Admit)
Tufts
U of Illinois at Urbana (Admit, full ride, declined..no point holding things up)
Boston University (Withdrawn, for the sake of my school mates i aint greedy)"</p>
<p>I like cornell and michigan about equally. IN fact, MIchigan is better in terms of engineering and business. I like the fact that Michigan even has a seperate building just for my small intended major : operations research, cornell doesnt. Now I also want Michigan more than cornell coz I dont want people to think that I get into cornell just because of my parents (legacy) and such if I do in april... and MIchigan accepted me for their business program preadmit, which I totally didnt expect, since they only accept like a very small percent of the applicants, around 80 kids per year, so i didnt take that into account. now that makes it a definite better choice than cornell for me</p>
<p>Wharton is impossible for me, it was more like applying just for fun... I dont have the grades, the test scores, nor the connections...logically speaking, I have no chance whatsoever... so I m kinda ignoring that</p>
<p>My college counsellor told me to take a deep breath and slow down...but she also told me that for engineering and business you cant go wrong with michigan since both programs are supposed to be top 5 in the nation, and should i ever change my major, all academic departments of michigan are ranked within top 15 in the nation so I got everything covered</p>
<p>oh and re lefthandofdog: i was never pressured to withdraw for BU or UIUC or potentially my other schools, my college counsellor actually asked me to think twice...</p>
<p>Congratulations, bearcats! Michigan is an excellent school—along with U.C. Berkeley, one of the two top state schools in the country. It has a great reputation, and you'll have no problem getting into grad schools from there. My father went to Michigan for undergrad and Harvard for grad. That said, as a parent I agree with the points other parents have made. If only for your parents' sakes (since they presumably paid for all the application costs, got their hopes up for you, etc.), it might have been wiser to accept Michigan but let the other decisions come in, rather than preemptively withdrawing your applications. I especially think this for Penn, because you seemed not to think (perhaps realistically) you had any chance there, yet you never know—you might have been surprised. In any case, though, it's done, and you're happy with your school, which is a great one, so go forward and don't look back. By the way, I knew of someone who chose Macalester (MN) over Harvard for undergrad, for sentimental reasons (grew up in MN as a child). Were her parents pleased? Probably not—but it was her life and choice, not theirs.</p>
<p>One more point: If, rationally, you felt that Michigan was the best choice for you but that, given another option, you might be tempted, against what you felt was your best interests, to choose differently, then preemptively withdrawing the other applications may have been a very good and rational strategy. This reminds me of a choice I made at one point in my postgraduate training. I had submitted 10 applications to different training sites, some of which were more prestigious than others. I was very conflicted about two in particular, because one made the most sense in every way, but the other was more prestigious and in my favorite city. I ended up choosing the former and, like you, preemptively withdrawing all my other applications, just so I couldn't choose the site that wasn't the best for me and wouldn't have to agonize over the decision. I had no regrets then and, years later, still have no regrets.</p>
<p>I hope your situation is, indeed, like Planner suggested in the above post. Otherwise, it sounds like you might be afraid of getting more rejections from "top schools", as you did from your [initial] first-choice, Cornell.</p>
<p>"My college counsellor told me to take a deep breath and slow down..."</p>
<p>OK, so that's the person on the scene who's seen you face-to-face, so I'm taking that as a snapshot of how you might operate when under pressure! :)</p>
<p>I reread your posts carefully to find out if you had already withdrawn your apps, and I see that you have. Most parents counsel as follows: don't decide until you have to decide. If they wrote out the matriculation deposit check, and they also knew you were withdrawing the apps (you didn't do that without telling them, right?), you're all in this process together. </p>
<p>I think what you need to say (to yourself as well as them) is that even if you had gotten into every other school on that list, UMich would still be your first choice, as a fine school offering you everything you ever wanted when this search began. Given that, if it would have been your equal first choice to Cornell, why NOT get in a priority housing ap? (At another place, my S put in rather late for housing RD and got such a terrible placement, tripled in a double dorm...the only negative of his freshman year. Not saying this would happen to you, but I notice he counseled his younger sister to send in her housing response card IMMEDIATELY when it arrived.)</p>
<p>THere's another set of thoughts that might preoccupy your parents' thinking, the "might-have-beens" even for the sake of their memory of how your search process ended. Since they're Cornell alumni, they would have liked to have known "IF" their school would have accepted you. For bragging rights, they'd also have liked to tell friends that you got into some of the other schools on your list. </p>
<p>Ultimately, swapping tales among parents doesn't amount to a hill of beans compared to your happiness and enthusiasm for years to come. BUt don't fault them for "wanting to know what might have..." at the same time maintain your enthusiasm and claim that UMich "would have been" your first choice, no matter what. On withdrawing from Cornell before you heard their outcome, just be very understanding of your parents' feelings as alumni, since what you're essentially telling them is, even if Cornell wanted you also, you wouldn't go there with the UMich acceptance in pocket.</p>
<p>Finally, remember that they went through a long, expensive, emotional rollercoaster supporting your process, emotioinally and financially. I shouldn't make presumptions just b/c you're at Prep School, but my stereotype on that one is that if it was easy for them financially to send off app fees, it was all the harder emotionally not to know "how you did" with the prestige Ivies. The inverse also true: if it was hard for them to afford the app fees (b/c I know there are also financial needkids at Prep schools on scholarships!), they might now wonder why they shelled out that money. Of course, if your school paid the app fees for you, well then, it's ALL an emotional response! Sorry. Either way, they're entitled to feeling a response. It's been a year for them, too!</p>
<pre><code> I say all this to urge your kindest feelings, and am sure you are getting that as my intention, you've done nothing wrong here. Anyone who'd come to the Parents Forum seeking a larger picture is obviously already tuned in well to parents' care and concern. So that's to your credit!
Here's a story from my family history that might put this into perspective. When my Dad returned at age 22 from WWII, when college tuitions were all paid for on the G.I. Bill for returning veterans, he returned home to Baltimore, and immediately applied and was accepted to Harvard and Johns Hopkins University. Not that JHU is anything to sneeze at (heavens, no!) but plenty of people were surprised when he turned down Harvard. He had his own reasons, specifically that he'd just been away at war and was tired of being away from home. The last thing he wanted was to pack up again and go away to...anywhere! So he lived at home and commuted to JHU, enjoying the companionship and warmth of his extended family that he had so missed while overseas. But some in my family would say about my Dad (who passed away, so I'm feeling sentimental to write this), "He COULD have gone to Harvard, that's how smart he is!"
</code></pre>
<p>In a way, that might be the story your parents miss being able to tell about you. If they wanted "closure" to know who would have taken you, as if some kind of measure of you, well, they didn't get that. </p>
<p>But it sounds like they're going to have one happy son, once they get their heads around the decision you've all just made. You're just a step ahead of them, emotionally at the moment. GIve them time. Show them my post if you think it's helpful...</p>
<p>Enjoy Ann Arbor, it is truly a beautiful college town!</p>
<p>...I remember getting ready to commit to one school and then did so, only to later realize that it might have been a mistake. I learned this after the deadline had passed. The reasons were much like your concerns about Cornell, wolverines...I mean bearcats. At a meeting for parents and new students for the school they went on and on about the athletes and how dumb they were...and, well, my GPA and SAT scores were way ahead of the average. But it was too late. I realized I had made a mistake after the deadline for responding. The next day was a Monday and I was driving to school with my dad and he knew I was depressed. That's when he let me in on a secret and said that he had sent in my acceptance letter to Notre Dame in addition to the one for the other school. I called up the other school that afternoon, confirmed that my impression of being second-class was something that, yes, I would have to deal with as a student-athlete at the school and withdrew my application. And I have never looked back.</p>
<p>But, yeah, at SOME POINT in time, you have to make a decision. Choosing a college is the first time in most people's lives where they realize that choosing something (a spouse, a college, a home, a city to live in...) isn't very hard. It's saying "no" or "goodbye" to all the other possibilities you have that's the hard part.</p>
<p>You have to know when to make that hard choice. Sometimes, though, your parents know you a little better than you know yourself. It's water over the dam as far as college choices go. And you probably made a wise choice (even if it was scUM, as we called it). But later on, don't be so quick to pre-empt them on big decisions. They may know something before you realize it yourself.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>before i saw the responses, i withdrew all the apps below columbia, by preference, i was planning to withdraw the rest soon but after seeing the advice on this board, I decided to keep Penn, Cornell (deferred), MIT, CMU and columbia in the running.. I feel sorry for wasting my parent's app fee you know?? If i happen to change my mind (one in a million chance), I would simply lose the $200 deposit.
and thanks a lot for the advice :) It really helps. I knew this is the place to find parents :) there arent that many in the college forum</p>
<p>Wise, wise choice, bearcats, IMO. You've secured the best housing at the school you want to attend today. You're free to revisit the decision if other choices come up next month. </p>
<p>Thanks for listening.</p>