<p>Hi - I have a Junior Daughter and have been researching schools for quite some time. She has excellent grades, stats etc and thus many top schools would really work for her. The problem is she won't discuss or visit any colleges. It is March of Junior year now and I'm getting anxious. She told me she'll look when she's ready but I keep explaining that its getting late in the year etc., but to no avail. All of her friends have visited schools and have tentative lists, she has nothing and refuses to look at anything I suggest.</p>
<p>Has anyone had any experience with this, is it within the norm? Our Spring break is coming in a few weeks and I really want to visit schools..</p>
<p>I just spoke with one of my BFFs today. She just got back from taking her son on his FIRST college visits. A trip to MN for Macalaster and Carleton. And he is a senior!</p>
<p>His philosophy was… I will just apply to the best schools and see where I get in. I’m sure they are all fine.</p>
<p>After they saw the schools this weekend – and apparently they are in very different locales; one with cows, the other in the city – he still didn’t know why he had to see the schools. Great kids at both, great education at both. He liked them both. He’s a flexible and easy going kid and I guess this reinforced that!</p>
<p>My friend was thinking they would take whirlwind college visits all over the U.S. over spring break (after he gets his letters) but, based on his attitude, I don’t think they will do that!</p>
<p>I don’t know how common this is… certainly not how my daughter thinks… but you are definitely not alone.</p>
<p>I have to admit. I just took my kid to see some schools whether they were interested or not. I took my oldest to some very different schools with good computer science (big, small, urban, public, private) for junior year spring break. He said they were all “fine” and all he cared about was the computer science department. So he applied without looking at any more schools. Somehow he managed to get accepted only at schools we hadn’t visited yet, so April of senior year was a bit hectic, but it worked fine. He’s not a kid who cares about location. He needed a critical mass of nerdy kids, and a good department and that’s what he ended up with. </p>
<p>My younger son, I dragged him to two places as a one day trip in February that were an easy drive from our house. I was pretty sure he would like one and not the other, and I was right about that. It was good for him to see some stark differences and as he articulated what he disliked about the one he hated it made it easier to come up with more places to look. I took him on another short trip spring break junior year where he saw two more colleges. Again, one stayed on the list and one was rejected.</p>
<p>Even my older son who said he didn’t care about visits, found that once it was a matter of choosing the best college for him, the visits made more sense. But I can imagine if he’d been less focused on a particular major, he might well have said they were all fine.</p>
<p>I say just do it. It’s not a choice. Nothing you take your daughter to see has to stay on the list.</p>
<p>It is not uncommon for a kid, even a top student, to feel this way. What got my reluctant college researcher involved was giving her control of the visits.</p>
<p>I would suggest that you express your concerns and ask her to express hers. Why doesn’t she want to start looking? She may not have an answer but that’s OK the fact that you asked her will help her to feel involved.</p>
<p>I think I would then ask her if she would, as a favor to you and a way to decrease your (appropriate) stress, consent to visiting a couple of schools over spring break, give her a stack of brochures or some web sites and some parameters ie: the colleges need to be within the same geographical area, fewer than 4 hours from home, whatever and ask her to pick a couple/few.</p>
<p>I would then give her a chance to pick restaurants along the way and allow her to opt out at any point during the visit. If it will involve a hotel stay and there are fun things to do in the area I would let her pick what to do. Make it all about her as much as possible and reap the benefits!</p>
<p>With my D it was a question of feeling like the uncertainty of adult life was coming at her too quickly and that she had no control over it. Once she had a say she was great and extremely willing to go along with the activities on the trips.</p>
<p>Best wishes and I hope that these trips become, like they did for us, a high point in your parent/child relationship.</p>
<p>Neither of my S’s were interested in college tours at this point of jr. year either. Both took the SAT for the first time in March of jr. year. We forced S1 to go on a tour the summer after jr. year. He didn’t like that sch. which reinforced his plan to go to our big state u. And that’s what he did. He visited after acceptance. </p>
<p>S2 was also (different) state u. bound. He visited his favorite after acceptance and didn’t bother with any others. None of their guy friends were doing a lot of visiting either. Most stay instate so I suppose it’s not such a big deal to them. I just figured it was a boy thing.</p>
<p>Historymom has it right. Get your D involved. When my daughter was reluctant early on, we combined college visits with visits to camp friends who are in other states. You can stay at your friend’s house, but first we are going on the BU tour. That worked.</p>
<p>Definitely try to combine it with something fun. Combine it with something that they like, like a sporting event, or something unique about the city (skyscrapers? shopping?). Even visits to small rural colleges can be enjoyable if you pace yourself (leave time to eat, sleep, shop, etc.)</p>
<p>We sent DD#1 on a school sponsored bus tour in fall of junior year. She protested, as it was to a climate area she was not interested. Our goal was to get her to see what feel (large, small, suburban, urban, quad dorms, high rise dorms, etc) she liked and disliked.
Never did apply to any of those places, but it was easier to articulate her preferences after that.</p>
<p>So to the OP, I’m with mathmom. Tell your DD you will be going to look at colleges on (whatever date) and she can choose the places or you will but you want her to get a sense of campus feels.</p>
<p>I disagree with all of the above advice. As a teenager, the last thing I’d want would be a pushy parent forcing me to visit colleges. All of her peers are talking about college right now. They are looking them up online, doing campus visits, and whatnot. Recruiters are coming to schools to pump up colleges. So I’m sure you daughter has been thinking about it.</p>
<p>I’d wait until she is ready rather than trying to force her to go. That way, it will be her idea to go to college, which means it will be her idea to pass classes and graduate.</p>
<p>Thanks all - this has helped to allay my fears quite a bit. While I hope she’ll one day wake up with a list, I do need to quietly nudge and combine the trips with fun stuff. I sympathize with the stress these teenagers go through, and yes it is everywhere, friends, school, family etc. The way it is now I figure if she can get some stuff out of the way now, Senior year will be less stressful than it needs to be. Like any parent I want her to find a good fit, I’m not trying to push a particular school. The other thing we need is to start thinking about scholarships/financial aid…so that plays into some of our college choices (like it or not.)</p>
<p>There are student for whom “fit” really doesn’t matter, as LINYMom’s anecdote illustrate. Great for them.</p>
<p>But the “wait until I see where I’m admitted” philosophy is bass ackwards for so many students who wouldn’t know until they visited. Criteria are one thing on paper, another when stimulated by the reality of checking places out in person; questions you wouldn’t have even thought to ask now become part of the stew.</p>
<p>D was not given a choice. We visited one college on vacation in 9th grade, five on Spring break of 10th grade. That gave her enough of a baseline that when we did the Boston-to-NYC death march (I exaggerate slightly…7 colleges in 10 days) in 11th grade she was fully engaged and though criteria were still evolving, she knew what she was looking at. </p>
<p>Her criteria evolved quite a bit on paper and her number one choice in early 11th grade didn’t even warrant an application by the time apps went in…an example of the dangers of waiting to visit until you’re accepted.</p>
<p>Senior year was spent paring down, not building up, and the actual applications and then the waiting. By the time she hit 11th grade, she was on board with evolving a thoughtful list according to her preferences and the resulting four years can’t be argued with.</p>
<p>Ask her if she wants to go to college. Tell her if she does not want to go, that is fine, and she can work instead. Mean it: they can tell. Not going is a perfectly acceptable option for one, at least for the immediate future.</p>
<p>If she does want to go, tell her to plan visits and let you know when and where she would like to go, and that you will check your schedule and hope you can go at those times.</p>
<p>Tell her that if she prefers to research online, that is fine, but that is it no always fair to apply to colleges blind, because she can take up a spot for someone who really wants to go.</p>
<p>Discuss your role and her role in all this, explicitly. What does she want you to do or not do? How can you help and support while honoring her independence and autonomy?</p>
<p>Just my 2 cents, but every kid and every family is different…</p>
<p>Don’t fret too much. I think kids are ready at different times. (My S was on the late side as well…he ended up applying ED to a school we visited in late Oct. and couldn’t be happier). And sometimes visiting a handful of schools is enough to give a (general) sense of many others (small, LAC vs state flagship vs private urban, etc.) I think different kids approach the process and manage the stress differently and while it’s ok (and sometimes necessary) to nudge, you also have to follow your D’s lead. Can you maybe plan a couple of trips this summer or in early fall of sr. year? Another possibility (I didn’t do this --we visited few colleges-- but others at my S’s HS did)…what about inviting a really good friend on the college trip with her? It changes the one-on-one aspect of the trip (and depending on the kind of kid your D is may not be the right thing for her…if, for example, she will base her opinion only on her friend’s thoughts and not formulate her own), but it makes it more of an adventure for many of the kids.</p>
<p>Are there any nearby colleges within the possibility of consideration? Maybe you can start with something other than ‘the big college visit’ and see something you can do within a day. Take the official tour and eat lunch there while you’re on the campus. Maybe that’ll help get her a bit more interested to see some other colleges. </p>
<p>If she doesn’t want to spend her spring break going and looking at colleges you can always do it in the summer. As the opportunity to visit colleges before applying diminishes she’ll likely realize she better giddy-up. </p>
<p>If she’s dead set against visiting colleges right now I’d refrain from just dragging her to some - i.e. I’d ‘encourage and discuss’ but not ‘drag or force’. If you drag her to the campuses you’ll all likely have a miserable, unproductive time. </p>
<p>btw - I don’t think it’s all that unusual for a Junior to have this attitude at this time. Usually the parents are far more focused about the college question than the kid who’s probably more focused on what’s happening in HS and might just as soon not think about college at this point. Give her the time she’s requesting and don’t worry about the college visits until later in the summer (unless you can convince her in a calm discussion to visit some, at least a single nearby one, sooner).</p>
<p>This is not unusual at all. There was no way I could interest my S, in the late fall of his junior year, to talk about colleges … and it didn’t make it any easier when his Dad, the math professor, backed him on this! So I contented myself with the fact that at least he WAS doing what needed to be done to keep all his options open (including any EA/ED apps) by taking the various SAT and Subject Tests his juior year, so senior year could be kept open for writing applications.</p>
<p>By around February, he begrudingly started to talk about the subject, still claiming that none of his friends were. Since at his juncture he was only interested in applying to schools in CA, we got him to agree to a combined short trip/college tour to NorCal during his spring break. We kept it light. It gave him a chance to hone his freeway driving skills. We spent plenty of time touring the area outside the two campuses, let him choose restuarants, stopped at a shop in Berekely to get him a new hoodie for his birthday (funny thing on that, more later.)</p>
<p>By the time May rolled around, we had cajoled him into considering some schools outside of CA. The ones he settled on to apply to there were all in the top 20, so maybe he was making a statement of some kind … Whatever. We agreed the summer trip would be partially to visit family, do some touring … and visit college campuses. A whirlwind from Seattle to Boston to Providence to Philadelphia to Chicago and back to LA.</p>
<p>Oh, that hoodie? Well, he lost in early in the fall. Oh well. A few weeks ago, I logged on to his college email account (which he agreed to let me have access to) and saw he was invited to interview for Regents scholarship at UC Berkeley. Nice! I then found out here on CC that also meant he was admitted. Cool! He comes home the SAME DAY wearing the missing hoodie. He said he saw a friend wearing it at school and asked where he got it … which was at a mutal friend’s house that S forgot he’d visited. So, he got his hoodie back that he bought from Berkeley AND found out he was admitted there on the same day. Karma? Who knows? Waiting on word from 8 other schools.</p>
<p>Your daughter sounds a lot like my older daughter. I think sometimes first children are really ambivalent about leaving home. My daughter finally got interested the summer before her senior year, but that is a little late to start visits. We found that you get a much better impression of a school when it is in session, and can really observe the students. We finally just planned a few visits in the spring of her junior year and didn’t really give her a choice about going. Once we visited a few schools, she realized how important the visits were.</p>
<p>I recommend that you try to get her to tell you why she’s so hesitant to start the process. As a strong student, she may feel stressed by high expectations. She may truly feel that she won’t be ready to go away when the time comes. Once you know what is bothering her, you may be able to get her agree to visit a few schools.</p>
<p>momjr- I think you pretty much summed it up. </p>
<p>It’s just the 2 of us, single parent and only child, so she is ambivalent about leaving home, no doubt about it. We live in New England so there are some great schools in driving distance that would work well for her, or at least visit to provide a basis of comparison. To combat her fear she is just so back and forth and testing me such as ‘Maybe I want to go to California’, I say yes that will be fine, but the next day she says she wants to stay in NE. She definitely wants to go to school and she know she wants to study Chemistry and go to Grad School after that. She signed up for the SAT and SAT 2’s and is taking some AP tests in the spring. She’s got all the pieces in place, so when the time is right she’ll be in a good place (I hope). I guess I feel somewhat jealous of others taking field trips. I always pictured these idyllic road trips, blasting the music and laughing all the way. Its a disappointment and its pretty out of character for her to be so against college at this point. Each day the mail comes with school brochures etc., but she won’t open them. SO the mail sits in my bedroom in a big box… until she’s ready.</p>
<p>I took off a week in April, and a couple of days in June - like it or not she’ll have to do visits at that point, I don’t have as many options in the summer</p>
<p>Kitty8, My widowed friend went through something similar with her youngest child. She may need reassurance from you that you will be okay when she leaves. My friend got a puppy when her daughter was a senior, and her daughter felt much better about looking forward to college.</p>
<p>Go ahead and plan your trips. I would start with the schools in your area like your planned. If she won’t help decide which schools to visit, go with your instinct. If it makes you feel any better, my daughter did admit later that we were right to push her into visiting and taking the SATs junior year. She applied to her first choice ED and was accepted. She loved having things set in December and really enjoyed her senior year.</p>
<p>From this comment by the OP - " . . .I hope she’ll one day wake up with a list . . ." my spidey sense tells me that to the extent the purposes of the trips are to get a list, her daughter would be anxious.</p>
<p>If there purpose of the trip were NOT explicitly tied to finding specific colleges the DD might be more open.</p>
<p>By that I mean that the trip can be about generally what appeals and what doesn’t: big, small, urban, rural, college quad, spread out school, etc. </p>
<p>The specific list can come later when she’s willing, but for now being tourists at colleges without any commitment about whether each college should be on the list or not might work?</p>
<p>That’s the way it went with both my kids; for different reasons both of them were a lot more comfortable visiting and saying what they liked and didn’t like, with the decision about what’s on the list left expliciitly for later.</p>
<p>Kind of like the difference between meeting boys to see if you want to go out with them and meeting boys to see what there is to like and dislike. The former has a lot more pressure attached to it.</p>
<p>Lists will come. Neither of my kids applied to ANY of the schools they initially saw.</p>
<p>That pretty much says it there, doesn’t it? If she doesn’t respond to some gentle prodding I’d let it go. There will be time next year. If you’re still antsy, maybe take some fun trips this summer that include a few campus tours.</p>