<p>Well after getting up @ 4:30am and practically picking up and carrying my daughter to the car , then driving 3 and a half hours to the open house @ Roger Willams University - she gets out of the car and says "we can go back now I don't like it". </p>
<p>All I can say is thank goodness it was a beautiful day and the univerity is right by rthe water.</p>
<p>Ya gotta luv 'em</p>
<p>Get a copy of “Accept My Kid, Please” by Hank Herman. You will relate! It’s an essential, hilarious and quick read for anyone going through the college process.</p>
<p>Be glad, very glad, this happened now. </p>
<p>Logan Internation Airport…January 2…2003 (or 2004?)…</p>
<p>We must have stood in line for two hours. Flights getting cancelled everywhere (brown-out strike). The TV crews were there. Poor young girl in front of us was being sent off for, I’m assuming, her second semester at college. From what I could pick up, she was traveling cross country to the far west, if not to Hawaii. There was a send-off crew of about 12 there, including what were apparently young friends, siblings, and cousins. They were all there to shuttle her onto this plane, because it was obvious that she didn’t want to go. Tears. Trauma. Major soap opera. Everyone was looking at this train wreck. (What else is there to do when it’s 6:30 AM and they’re telling you you’ll get a standby flight on the 4:30 PM?). It was everything one asks for in a rubber necker…excruciating, painful, heartbreaking, annoying, side-taking (yes, we were in line for that long).</p>
<p>Rochester to Boston. Stay overnight at friends and drive (crawl) in rush hour traffic to Boston College. Son would not step out of parking lot. It still makes my blood pressure go up just remembering that day. LOL. I’m glad he didn’t like it - we could never have paid for it anyway.</p>
<p>Cal Poly San Luis Obispo with a friend’s daughter when my kids were toddlers, long drive, early morning, cranky kids. Got there, she took a look from the car, said “not for me.” I was flabbergasted. Figured she could at least get out of the car.</p>
<p>My mom wanted me to go to Colgate or William & Mary. I hated all things preppy or “rich”, haha. So, on driving back to NJ, I saw a sign for UDelaware and told my parents to stop there. I took one look and said, “ok, I’ll go here.” My dad wouldn’t get out of the car!</p>
<p>Last yr, my son had me take him to see Colgate. Funny as anything. The tour guide had on the same preppy outfit as in my day - her pink pants had blue whales on them, popped collar on her golf shirt. I said nothing and enjoyed the ice cream sandwhich they give out at the end of the tour.</p>
<p>Happened to us, too. For 2 years all we heard was “ABC College, ABC College.” So we plan to visit but I insist that if we are driving 6 hours she must visit a couple other schools also. Afternoon of the second day we get to “ABC College.” Husband and her go to admissions office, and before I can get in the building she is back out saying we can leave, she does not like it. NO sireee, we drove down here and stayed for 2 nights mainly to see this college and you WILL do the info session and tour. We stayed. I never heard her mention the college again.</p>
<p>jerzgrlmom: That really is hilarious!</p>
<p>Stories like these always amaze me. There’s no way either of my kids would have pulled such a stunt, because they know I would have had to kill them;).<br>
They would have at least have gone through the motions of seeing the campus and sitting through the admissions presentation. After that, when they told me emphatically that that school was not for them, I’d at least assume the judgment was based upon information they gathered after having actually seen the place. How terribly disrespectful it is to put a parent through all that planning and preparation, only to make it all for NOTHING. Yes, I’d be murderous.:eek:</p>
<p>My D INSISTS on looking at schools in the LA area, so we are managing 3 in three days along with a brunch meeting</p>
<p>Now if you no LA, nothing is close at all, but D thinks she would like the schools there, the whole LA thing, not realiznig everything is hours apart</p>
<p>So, I pretty much know this trip is going to be futile, but it is something we need to do and D needs to do, so with a smile on my face, and 400 hours of driving, we shall do the process</p>
<p>I can top you all..my S wouldn’t get out of the car at the COLLEGE FAIR! I guilted him into going in (scored an excellent parking space) and he moped and sulked for the entire 15 minutes we were there. Painful.</p>
<p>One more reason I put my kids on planes and let them do their visiting on their own. My son ended up stuck two days in Oregon with no place to go to sleep other than the back-to-back overnights. He was miserable when he arrived in the rain at the 2nd campus and phoned to whine… but ended up learning a few interesting things about the school. I also had a miserable, poor-me (“I’ve only been here an hour and already I hate the place”) call when my d. overnighted on her own at one college… but again she was stuck.</p>
<p>I could have written post #9…</p>
<p>When my oldest was visiting colleges we drove over 2000 miles to see some of the main schools on her list. One school, a top LAC, and the farthest away, was having an awareness week concerning violence against women. Some of the student created exhibits throughout the main areas of campus were pretty graphic – way too much for my younger daughters traveling with us. They took one quick look and ran back to the car. We were supposed to have an overnight there as this was to be one of her top schools. They insisted we leave town immediately and never look back. I tried to explain it as no big deal, but she was not hearing any of it. Putting myself in her shoes after seeing some of the exhibits, I somehow found humor in their reaction and we took off. </p>
<p>The kicker though, is once we were nearly back home she asked to go by a school less than 40 miles from home. She loved it and it became her top choice. Hard lesson learned – do the local stuff first!</p>
<p>Echoing post #3 - better to happen on the college visit!
One of my daughter’s friends just dropped out of her college after one week - despite it being her dream school and despite loving it during summer orientation. I don’t have the details but it was clearly not the place for her - I know the parents would not have allowed it if it weren’t for serious reasons. She dropped in time to get a full tuition refund fortunately. She will take a semester off and start at a school in her hometown instead.</p>
<p>This is bringing back memories! We took our daughter to visit a school (this was our second school to visit) about 2 1/2 hours from here in the town where my H grew up. Needless to say, he was so excited to be back and of course, had to drive around showing us all of the local sights - his first house, his elementary school, his second house, his junior high… (you get it!) We did the tour, met with the admissions counselor, all agreed the school was beautiful, with the exception of the mandatory quads for freshmen, and the facilities were top-notch. Spent a good 3 hours there. As we were driving out the main gate, H excitedly turned to D and asked her what she thought - her response “I hate it! It’s in the middle of nowhere and there is NO WAY I am even applying here!” He was crushed, D plugged in her headphones, and I just laughed. The funny thing is, it was only 10 minutes from a major city with lots of cultural/performing arts/shopping, etc., but to our city-girl, it was in the sticks!</p>
<p>We drug S on a visit to a college 2 hours away (thank goodness it wasn’t further). It was in July and the tour was long (big university). H and I both liked it. S had little to say. As soon as the tour was over he was ready to jump in the car and head home. When we got home he said “I’m not going there. It’s too hot”. Did I mention it was only 2 hours from our driveway (the only place he has ever lived)?</p>
<p>We are from South Florida and flew to Boston a few years ago to “do the college tour thing”. My D decided that she was not applying to Brandeis- before we had even found our parking spot at the welcome center. She took one look at the students walking around and made this decision. I was so disappointed, I really wanted to at least go on the tour!</p>
<p>jerzgrlmom-We had the exact same experience at Colgate. My daughter said in addition to school work, she didn’t want the added pressure of trying to decide which purse to carry. : )</p>
<p>Both my boys said they had complete disinterest in visiting any college because they did not care what the schools looked like --so after maybe one attempt each to great frustration we applied to their schools virtually sight unseen except if they had to go for an interview after an application was in. It all worked out. We just didn’t go --period. They applied anyway. Older son was accepted to Brown though he’d never been there, and that’s where he went. Younger went to Vassar and visited only AFTER applying, after he decided it was on his very short list --and purpose of the visit was not for him, but for the school --to demonstrate his interest. If not for that, he would have had no interest in going. That is how it fell out. They both went to college anyway.</p>