I went to a state flagship as an OOS student. Soooo many of the students all knew each other or knew someone who knew them. I was never part of those social connections and those social connections turn into professional connections later on. I had gone to a small but diverse high school near a large diverse city, but this state was much less diverse and it seemed to me the IS students were more comfortable with their familiar surroundings. I think the school has diversified and improved quite a bit in the last 30 years, but my experience still lead me to encourage my kids to not be afraid to go far and to seek out others who have also chosen to push beyond their boundaries.
Great thread, just wish all posters would post the school names!
Thanks a bunch!
D is at UVA and I wouldn’t change anything about it other than put it in the same town as me. And I would do that by relocating me to C’ville rather than moving the school here, where our state would just screw it all up.
Our Daughter LOVES Temple and Philadelphia in general and is thriving. My wife and I HATE the almost daily texts from campus security about another armed robbery or shooting within blocks of campus!
This school has only few BS-MD kids, everyone takes some classes with honors college and some with general crowd. Overall acceptance rate for this school is 70% and getting into honors college isn’t a very rigorous process. This is a dull small town and off campus opportunities are limited as well.
He isn’t getting what one expects from such program, just not challenging or productive enough for him.
If he really hates it and is unhappy, let him transfer.
Perhaps he can choose more challenging electives, particularly upper level courses? But, as a pre-med presumably subject to a high GPA minimum to stay in the BS->MD program, he needs to be careful not to take on too much challenge that could risk his GPA.
@ordinarylives, easy to say. Tough to do.
First, there would be no guarantee to med school. Not to mention that transferring in to the type of school he desires
- tends to be incredibly difficult (Vandy would probably be the easiest among smaller/mid-sized elite privates. Note that there are still big classes at a school like Vandy).
- probably would be far more expensive.
It is true that it is rare that you can get everything in life. I have difficulty imagining that someone can’t be properly challenged at a research U, however. Nothing says graduate classes are off-limits to him.
This brings to mind a story:
Way back in the '80’s, a grad student came from China to study math at a local directional U. Everyone quickly discovered that he wasn’t able to learn anything from any of the profs there except one (because he already knew more math than all the profs besides that one prof, who got his PhD in math from MIT and, my parents and I suspect, only ended up at our local directional U because of racism when he was looking for faculty positions back in '60’s America). But even that grad student was able to find one faculty member to teach him.
I rather doubt that your son is as that advanced as that grad student from China.
While it’s true that not everyone is always getting what they want from life, it’s also a truth that life is unpredictable so why not make a desired change when you can, it’s not like there are any guarantees that nothing else would change or result would be as expected if you stayed stationary and played safe.
@CupCakeMuffins, that depends on the environment.
There will be a lot of changes worldwide. Certainly, if he isn’t so committed to medicine any more, it may make sense to change. But in stable first world countries like the US, I have noticed that focusing (which means intrinsic faith in the future) tends to be more rewarded than jumping around. That goes both for investing (staying with your predetermined allocation rather than jumping in and out of markets) and careers.
Stanford. Horrible Asian foods at cafeterias. You would think with the number of Asian American students there, Stanford would hire few cooks who can cook Asian dishes well. If they can’t cook Asian dishes well, they shouldn’t try.
Also, I think their Student Union building could be better.
@Massmomm, what did your S not like about Oberlin specifically?
There is no doubt that my D chose the right school for her — UGA. Two things are really annoying, however. The registrar is difficult to deal with. My D studied abroad last summer and fall and is still having a hard time getting them to input the credits correctly. They keep telling her it’s fixed, but then she looks online and it’s not. A math course from high school also wasn’t entered correctly, but she’s given up on that credit as she doesn’t need it. I told her it’s time for a face-to-face. The other is the competitiveness of clubs, well at least the clubs/orgs my D is interested in. Everything requires an app with essays and 1-2 rounds of interviews. My D spends so much time applying to things every year. I’m not sure there is a better way given the size of the school and number of students interested in the same activities, but it does get old. My D would probably also add as negatives that the food, especially dessert, is too good (lol) and the rec center is always full.
I wish my daughter’s college was a bit closer-- it’s supposed to be 5 hours away, but that ride frequently stretches to 7. That said, we knew where New Hampshire was when she applied.
Beyond that, though, she’s absolutely thriving. Plymouth State was, without a doubt, the right choice for her.
@itsgettingreal17 I wrote up thread that there wasn’t anything I would change about my Dd’s school but I agree with your observations about clubs and activities. A part of her choice of schools was the strength of her ECs and professional organizations/clubs in her field. She was totally unprepared for the application process and the limited number of spots. Touring schools they talk all about the hundreds of opportunities to get involved but at big schools it is not that easy.
My dd had the right personality to keep trying after rejection and keep looking for opportunities but this might contribute to the feeling of not connecting to campus for many kids who don’t want to jump through the hoops or are rejected. The applications, rounds of interviews, and then rejections took valuable study and socializing time in addition to a big hit to her confidence. Although on the other side it taught her perseverance and gave her many transferable skills for job hunting. I agree that there doesn’t seem to be a way around this at these large schools but it is certainly something for people to consider when making their choice and setting expectations.
We are in the search process with our next child and keeping this in mind. We are cautious with big schools with huge numbers of in state students since the connections will fill those coveted spots much quicker. We now ask on tours about the process for joining those groups and the actual chances. We have found the student guides are very candid.
We’ve been very fortunate with my daughter’s experience at Purdue but I will admit that I think much of why it is going so smoothly is because she’s in honors college and studying engineering. We have a very active FB group of parents and there was tremendous angst over housing since Purdue overenrolled by 800 students. Lots of students living on the fringes of campus in grad housing. Many parents also posted about scheduling glitches and issues with advisors. DD has been insulated from those issues entirely.
The worst part for us so far has been the lack of hotel rooms in the area and jacked up rates for parents weekend. We will pick a different weekend to visit next year.
Very expensive meal plan. More expensive than eating out.
Similar to @Lemonlee, I was underwhelmed with some of the teaching at my alma mater, a highly regarded LAC in the Northeast. Some great profs, of course, but even all these years later, that’s my main negative memory of the college: just too many meh profs at a school that’s supposed to be all about undergraduate teaching.
The posts about the competitive clubs at large universities is interesting to me, having never experienced a large university, and definitely something to consider for my introverted S20. I will say there can be an opposite problem at small LACs that are very student driven – sometimes the clubs and organizations that are thriving, or not, in any particular year really depends on the student body at that time. Or course, this can create great opportunities for a confident self starter, but it’s not a great situation for an introverted kid who maybe would join an existing organization but not have the wherewithal to start his/her own.
@CupCakeMuffins If he goes to the campus I suspect he does, I know a number of very accomplished STEM-oriented students who will be attending next year due to the very generous merit scholarships offered to high stats students. Hopefully he will find them! Has he done the usual things - looked for clubs or ECs where he might find more like-minded people?
If it’s really such a poor fit, he might look into transferring, although as you know, scholarships are tougher to come by for transfer students. Hope things look up for him.
Agree with the comment about expensive meal plans. Although I understand why they have the system they do - no need to worry about running out of $ or swipes- the cost of the required meal plan is very high. I’m not going to do it again because it was so disheartening, but I once did a back of the napkin calculation of the cost per meal of the required meal plan and it was something crazy like $13 for every single breakfast, lunch and dinner. :-0