Is "fit" contrived?

Parents Forum
41

<p>Well, putting my head in the lion's mouth I'll say that both my kids found schools that set bells ringing in their heads. They felt these were perfect matches, and considerably more so than any other schools we visited.</p>

<p>They were not reaches, but rather high matches. (Neither kid really applied to reach schools, unless we look at all highly selective schools as reaches. They avoided CYMPS because they did not feel quite qualified enough and did not want to be selectivity statistics.)</p>

<p>Both schools agreed with kids and admitted them.</p>

<p>I am convinced their ability to demonstrate that they would fit in so well was one of the factors in their admission to very selective LAC's. The descriptions of the student body seemed written to describe them. And the minute each stepped on campus they felt home.</p>

<p>Had they not been admitted, each had excellent schools they would have been proud and gratified to attend. But each did have "the one".</p>

42

<p>I agree with the premise that colleges are more alike than they are different. In practical terms, this means that all colleges have campuses (some are even pretty), good professors, bad professors, dining halls, newspapers, course readings, student centers, dormitories, kids who play Super Smash Bros. endlessly etc. etc. etc. When my friends and I get together and start talking about our college experiences, it seems like we share similar stories about similar people, even though my group of friends go to schools that are as "different" as possible in size, location, and prestige.</p>

<p>I think that's a great thing. It means that were I not able to get into the school I attend now, or were I not able to afford it, that I would settle down elsewhere and I would find myself. Things would be pretty good for me.</p>

<p>As much as I say that, though, I <em>did</em> choose the school I chose because of fit. The question was not "At what school could I find people like myself?" but rather "At what school would it be easiest for me to find people like myself?" and after I visited campuses and talked to students that I knew at various schools, I answered that question with "The University of Chicago." I could have probably also answered that question with "Swarthmore" or "Barnard" or "Oberlin," but I didn't. As a result, I have found more people like myself than I could have ever imagined, and my own college experience has been much, much different than the one I assumed I was getting. (i.e. I took "Where Fun Comes to Die" not ironically, but seriously).</p>

43

<p>I'm anticipating that the entire process will be akin to buying a house. You set up a list of criteria, you figure out what geographic areas you'll consider, you get your financial ducks in order, and you tell yourself at the outset that you can't fall in love with any particular house until your offer is accepted. Then you go off visiting properties, and you have a very short time to make an evaluation if the house will be a good "fit" for you or not. Even after giving your agent a list of your criteria, you can still stand inside a place that works on paper and know that it just won't work in reality.</p>

44

<p>"They were not reaches, but rather high matches. (Neither kid really applied to reach schools, unless we look at all highly selective schools as reaches. They avoided CYMPS because they did not feel quite qualified enough and did not want to be selectivity statistics.)"</p>

<p>Mythmom, thank you for articulating that. My younger daughter is likely to approach her search that way as well and I'm grateful to you for giving me the words to articulate it. I've learned so much from D1's college search and first semester in terms of what would and wouldn't be right for D2. I've been very open with her about those observations so thaty can be useful in D2's future decision. She's also noticed things that she does and doesn't like about D1's experience that will be enormously helpful in crafting her list. It's going to be vastly different than I would have expected.</p>

45

<p>Of course "fit" is a real consideration. Schools are inherently quite different from one another and the type of student who would be comfortable at Washington and Lee is probably not going to be happy at Reed or Oberlin. A kid who likes the fast pace of the city would not be happy in rural PA. Similarly, a big frat population will turn a lot of kids off, but be the perfect "fit" for others.</p>

<p>That isn't to say that there aren't multiple places kids can be happy, but they certainly would not all be happy everywhere (there's a platitude for you).</p>

46

<p>"Fit" was definitely a factor when D made her ultimate decision nearly 2 years ago. When we attended the accepted student events, D knew that she would mesh well with the other kids at Georgetown. However, while UCLA was a beautiful campus, their whole approach (really a lack thereof) toward out-of-state students was a REAL turnoff. I knew D wouldn't be going there by the end of an 8-hour campus visit. In the end, she chose CU-Boulder for a variety of solid reasons and is very happy there. It truly was the best "fit" for her at the time she made her decision.</p>

47

<p>SlithyTove, that's a perfect analogy. You like the layout of one, you don't like the layout of another, the block's not "friendly" for another. These houses could all be 3 bedroom Colonials with attached garages, even in the same town/school district, but one may feel more like "home" than the others. And that's the one you make an offer on.</p>

48

<p>I’m reminded of the warning “don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good”.</p>

<p>Specifically, I have to agree that you don’t get a perfect measure of fit in a day, but I think that you can get good measure.</p>

<p>My anecdote: I spoke to a representative of a rural school who argued persuasively that it was a truly wonderful place in which to live, to make friends, to learn. I asked him one of my standard questions: why do people transfer out? He said that most of them came from urban areas and had never visited the school. They found that they just couldn’t take the environment. Almost certainly, each student had decided, quite understandably, to save time and money by not visiting the school, and discovered that it was an expensive mistake.</p>

49

<p>
[quote]
I'd bet I could snap judge Deep Springs by visiting. The same could not be said for Texas A&M or Rutgers

[/quote]
DS sure was able to snap judge Texas A&M- didn't like it from the moment we turned into the campus! He attended an Honors overnight at A&M and met some nice people, but was totally turned off by the "aggie traditions" and the constant negative references to "TU" (UT-Austin). It would not have been a good fit for him.</p>

50

<p>^ I think that's the point. Of course, your son was "able" to snap-judge A&M, but it's unlikely that he was able to snap-judge it accurately. </p>

<p>I have said before, and will probably say again: If I had visited the place I went to law school in advance, I never would have gone there. And it was perfect for me, for all the reasons that I knew when I chose it. But once I got there, it took two or three months for me to be able to see those things in the institution and not to get distracted by superficial appearances.</p>

<p>Another relevant experience: We made my son change schools for high school, for reasons that had nothing at all to do with him. We didn't ask his opinion, or even think much about what was best for him -- other factors were controlling. When he visited his future school for the first time, it was all he could do not to cry, it was so obvious how badly he fit in there. Again, it took two or three months for him to begin to love it, and for us to realize how lucky we had been -- he was thriving beyond anyone's expectations, based on elements of the school's culture we never would have predicted would be so right for him.</p>

<p>That's an extreme example, obviously. I don't recommend that people pick schools they hate. But, if they did, I would still bet that most kids would find that their schools "fit" just fine after a few months.</p>

51

<p>Except those thousands and thousands of kids who transfer. Maybe the answer is: there isn't one answer. Maybe fit's not important to you, and many others, but for me, and many others, the first school was a misery, and there really wasn't a point to gritting it out for another two years.</p>

52

<p>JHS I'm not sure if I understand your point. </p>

<p>After acceptances my S revisited 2 schools, his finalists, Johns Hopkins and Carnegie Mellon for overnight stays. On paper they're similar enough. If I had put my son, blindfolded, into an academic classroom at either school, odds are he wouldn't know which school he was in. These are much more alike than different. Student body diversity, SATs etc, both in cities. But on paper JHU edges CMU in rankings etc so should he have picked JHU?</p>

<p>He picked CMU in a landslide (I realize the next kid might have picked Hopkins). I guess that's fit. I think that's important. If these overnights are slightly contrived, so be it. I trusted my son to be able to see through that (even at age 17 I think some can).</p>

<p>S also wouldn't get out of the car at Penn State. What's wrong with his quick dismissal? They have good engineering...should he have gone there, since we as parents KNOW he would have loved the football games and probably would have loved the school by Christmas (like most PSU kids love their school)? I think your success and your child's might have more to do with the adaptive powers of youth than anything else.</p>

53

<p>Garland: Yeah, but those are thousands and thousands of kids out of hundreds of thousands. Most kids don't transfer, and many of the ones who do don't transfer because their original school was a poor "fit" from the get-go. (Not every transfer means that someone made a mistake. Sometimes they are the culmination of a successful strategy; sometimes they reflect unanticipated changes in interests or circumstances.) Presumably even the ones who transfer thought they would like their original school when they started.</p>

<p>2331clk: I don't have any problem with a kid picking CMU over Johns Hopkins based on any criterion he wants, precisely because it's so hard to tell the difference between them. (I think any rankings difference between them is pretty meaningless.) Sure, he probably would have liked Hopkins, too, but so what? I'm not against kids feeling good about their choices!</p>

<p>As for the adaptive powers of youth: Trust me, that was irrelevant to my experience. The university I chose had exactly the qualities that it had on paper, and that caused me to choose it. But I hated the wrapping they came in, and it took me a while to recognize that the qualities were indeed there, and to stop caring that I disliked how it looked. (I still do, basically.) In my son's case, it was a question of his absolutely blossoming under an incentive structure that I hated and that I thought he would hate. He thought so, too, until he lived it. He wasn't that kind of person . . . except, it turned out he was.</p>

54

<p>Maybe fit is more important for some folks than it is for others. There are kids who would be happy virtually anywhere; kids who would be miserable virtually anywhere; and kids for whom happiness depends upon where they are. </p>

<p>I grew up as a military brat. My siblings and I moved a lot. There were schools where we "fit" and were happy and schools where we were misfits and unhappy---and sometimes one of us was miserable while another was happy. But you'll never convince me that it really doesn't matter at all because, for me and my siblings, fit mattered a LOT. We didn't just automatically bloom wherever we were planted. </p>

<p>I think that's true for college too. There may not be one "right" college, but there are definitely "wrong" ones. The number or percentage of schools in the "right" and "wrong" columns probably varies a lot among students.</p>

<p>And,, in an earlier post, JHS said that there was no "huge" difference among a list of colleges. I guess "huge" is a subjective judgment, but i think there are real differences, which can be important to individual students. I actually know of a student who was miserable and unhappy at Princeton, transferred to Yale, and was incredibly happy there. So, I suspect for that particular student the differences between the two WERE "huge."</p>

55

<p>JHS, I think you bring up an important point. Each person really is different. They have different experiences, different perceptions, and different tolerance for situations that make them feel comfortable or uncomfortable, successful or unsuccessful, challenged or unchallenged, happy or miserable. Some kids can bloom anywhere, other kids need a specific type of garden.</p>

<p>That really is what fit boils down to: figuring out if you're the type of person who can bloom where ever you are planted, or the type who needs to feel that you've landed in the best garden possible, or somewhere in the middle.</p>

<p>If you're the type of person who can bloom anywhere, it's likely that you will focus on different things in your college search than the person who wants to find the perfect garden. But, with thousands of colleges to choose from EVERY student must narrow things down somehow. Some kids need that "gut feel" reaction, others make decisions in a more logical, data-oriented way. And, of course, some kids really don't know what they want, even if they land in the perfect garden. :)</p>

<p>There's really no "right" or "wrong" here, but if you take one of those logical, data-oriented kids and try to get them to trust their "gut feel," they'll have a hard time. If you take one of those "gut feel" kind of kids and try to get them to make a choice purely on logic, they'll have a hard time. And, if you take one of those kids who doesn't know what they want and force them to make a decision without helping them to figure out what they're looking for first, you'll often find that they don't trust the end result.</p>

<p>To me, therefore, "fit" is really about helping a student figure out what type of person they are, how they make decisions, and identify what they need/want out of their experience. The MOST important thing to remember about fit, however, is that we ALL have different perceptions, and those perceptions can change with experience.</p>

56

<p>Eloquent as always, Carolyn! I think you summed it up exceptionally well.</p>

57

<p>
[quote]
I think that's the point. Of course, your son was "able" to snap-judge A&M, but it's unlikely that he was able to snap-judge it accurately.

[/quote]
Actually, in this case, I think that he was able to judge it absolutely accurately for his comfort level - and I also think he would have disliked so many things about the school that he would not have had a successful college experience. There are PLENTY of schools that he would have been comfortable at; A&M ain't one of them! ;)</p>

58

<p>I'll just add that "fit" can be misperceived if insufficient information is gathered. Here's my anecdote: some years ago, we decided to take my kids through Princeton just to let them see what the campus looked like. It so happened that while we were driving down Nassau Street across from the campus, a carjacking occurred right in front of us--lady screaming as she jumped out of the car, car zooming off, etc. That is my kids' impression on Princeton.</p>

59

<p>from post 15 "Next time, trying (sic) refuting instead of recounting endless personal experiences."</p>

<p>What sort of tangible, quantifiable evidence is there which can refute something as intangible as the existence of "fit"</p>

60

<p>Most people I meet of our generation (i.e. those who have kids in college) visited few, if any, colleges before making the final selection, and the vast majority enjoyed college and did at least reasonably well. Therefore, I am not of the opinion that "fit" is so important that a student needs to keep looking for the perfect college. Furthermore, there are often financial or other circumstances that make the "ideal" college experience impossible to achieve. Much of happiness at college will necessarily come from the student learning to be content, independent of roommate difficulties, bad professors, unusual weather, or even financial stress.</p>

<p>Nevertheless, gut-level reactions of "fit" (i.e. "Could I see myself here?") are important, even if for no other reason than to make the final decision after being accepted by two similar schools. I wanted my 10th grade son to try to give me feedback on various schools to which he may apply. While traveling for his soccer tournaments, we visited a few schools that to me seem similar (Davidson, Richmond, and Washington & Lee). Unfortunately, we had to visit when few students were around, so we only walked around each campus. For some reason, my son hated Richmond and Davidson and really liked Washington & Lee. We will also visit a number of other colleges before making the final decision (including some large state universities, etc.). But even if my son only had to choose from among these three colleges, I do not think that he would be miserable attending any one of them. But I do think that having some choice and knowing that he chose to attend a particular school (for reasons that he may not even be able to articulate) might make him enjoy that school more everyday than if he had no choice.</p>