I’m starting to really hate my college options

College Search & Selection
161

I would change #1 a little bit to:

Pick a school. Dive in and go all out to make it the best experience you can make it with the thought that you are going to graduate there. Give it a full year and if you feel it’s not working, then look into transferring. If you go in with the thought of just getting good grades so you can transfer, you’ll be miserable.

If you do #2 I think you’re going to end up right back where you are now. You seem to be so focused on your perceived negatives of all the schools, I don’t think any school you find will excite you.

I also think you should reconsider some of the Catholic schools. As others have said, many non-Catholics and even non-Christians go to Catholic schools and have a great experience. You expressed horror about having to take a religion class in one of the early posts. These classes are on the history of religions and such, they aren’t to indoctrinate you in the religion.

Good luck with whatever you decide.

162

http://www.moviequotedb.com/movies/risky-business/quote_19942.html Your schools match your record

163

Regarding Tom Cruise in Risky Business, his hook was the unique home-based business and he ends up in P.

164

“Loving” or “hating” a school is just a matter of perspective and attitude. There’s no such thing as the “right” school. Attitude makes it “right.” Pick a reasonable school and be happy with it. Happiness is a choice.

165

Go to U of Florida…has a lot to offer…weather, sports, academics, name recognition.

166

@Almostout2k19 : any news?
Have you visited?
How’s your thinking process going?

167

@lostaccount Well that is a fairly broad statement, I’m guessing that all the students at prestigious colleges fall into this category or maybe they’re just competitive people. I like competing even if I lose sometimes.

168

Yes I decided on Penn State Honors. The alumni network seems very strong

169

Congratulations!!

170

Congrats! Good choice!

171

Congratulations!
Can you explain a little more for future readers?

172

When I visited and talked to people in the honors college, the big school small school feel was real. Penn State alumni are all over so I’d have a better time making connections. I would have honors college on my transcript for grad school apps, and they offered a lot of perks. The vibe of Mount Holyoke just wasn’t for me. I’m sure it is the perfect school for my cousins and thousands of other women, it just wasn’t for me.

173

Congratulations! Dive in, give it a year, if it’s not for you you can transfer, but give it a chance. Who knows, you might even love it!

174

Thank you!
And congratulations: Schreyer is a true achievement and will be recognized as such.
(If you’re interested in leadership look up Leadership jumpstart, and Local for housing).

175

“People who pursue prestige are never satisfied and tend to be unhappy in general. Why? Cause their perceptions of themselves are based entirely on what they believe others think.”

That’s pretty much how the teenage/young adult mind works, according to the latest research. Peer validation is the number one thing right now, and so opinions from parents, adults, even well-meaning won’t make much of an impact. The brain starts changing around 25-ish when rational thinking starts to take over more (at the risk of simplifying).

Do you have any data on your prestige people being unhappy? Sounds like a huge generalization. Anyway Forbes did a grateful grads ranking, including alumni giving, to determine the college with happiest and most successful students.
Here’s the top-20:

1-10: Dartmouth, Williams, Princeton, Amherst, Davidson, CMC, Haverford, Wellesley, Wabash, Notre Dame
11-20:W&L, Bowdoin, Carleton, Stanford, Duke, Yale, MIT, Harvey Mudd, Brown, Penn

That list absolutely ooozes prestige.

Anyway, congrats to OP for selecting a college. Good luck!

176

Congrats Almostout2k19,

I grew up in central PA. You are going to love it at Penn State. Great Campus…

Enjoy ?

177

@theloniusmonk Guess what really connects all of those colleges? Yup, their students are rich. Most are rich going in, and even more are rich afterwards. So their donations are large. Of course, it being Forbes, they believe that satisfaction and success can be measured in dollars. So, all that this measures in the wealth of the student’s family and how much money the graduates make.

That is why places such as Rice, with lower percentages of rich students are lower in the ranking. W&L, on the other hand, has one of the highest median income among students, with 80% of their student body coming from the top 20%, and only 1.5% from the bottom 20%.

Pitzer is an excellent college by all measures, but its graduates go for lower paying occupations like environmental science, and measure their success in things like satisfaction with what they do. Consequently, they’re ranked low, even though the graduates may really love their college.

Colleges with poorer students have poorer alumni, so, even though, say, a much higher percent of alumni of Thomas Aquinas donate that any other college than Princeton, Forbes doesn’t even include it in their list. They also do not include non cash donations which can be worth far more money.

So, once again, the supposed “measure of Alumni satisfaction” is nothing more than yet another measurement of the wealth of the students and of the alumni.

Since “Prestige” usually means “how well the rich and powerful think of a college”, all that Forbes is showing is yet another measure of “prestige”, not a measure of how well colleges help their students succeed, nor of how fondly they remember their college.

PS. If you look at the scattergrams of family income of students versus their own income after graduation in the NYUT article about the percent of high income students in “elite” colleges, you can easily see what the Forbes ranking looks like it does.

178

*Global
Not “local”

179

Congratulations. Give it 100% and don’t look back.

180

@Almostout2k19 Congratulations on an amazing choice. You should be proud of yourself. You took a step away, saw the great opportunities that were in you list of acceptances, and are now off to do, hopefully, great things. You have an extra bonus that you will both be with other academically ward working kids, and you will get away from some of the toxic personalities and attitudes that were making you unhappy at HS. I really think that you will not only do well, but you will enjoy yourself while doing so.