UMass Amherst has a 20% transfer out rate, according to College Navigator: http://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?q=university+of+massachusetts&s=all&id=166629#programs. Retention rate (freshmen who returned as sophomores) is only 89%. Many of her classmates will not return for sophomore year.
According to College Navigator, the registered nursing degree is offered as a distance education program. That might be worth investigating.
My son’s friend is at our local state school, and he is home every weekend. He says the social life there is really bad (it is a land grant school so very spread out, and a lot of commuters and you have to take buses everywhere). So many of my son’s friends graduating this year are afraid to accept the automatic full rides they qualify for there.
As for really large freshman classes, we had that with about 10,000 undergrads. The biggest were 500 students. Luckily I had a small major so my intro major class was 25 people, nothing else was under 200 first semester.
I really didn’t think coming home was an alternative, but then again, my parents had many at home and I would rather be crowded with strangers than my family.
You are accommodating her if you are picking her up every weekend. IMHO, if my son wanted that (and he’ll be going about 2 hours away), I would want to take him to eat somewhere and decompress and see how the week went, before we got home. I sometimes think falling into HS habits of hanging out with friends at home is too easy, and before we entered the house, I’d want to know what he thought about that week.
As for post #76, think about what the problem really is. The school might not be something you like, but what is the alternative? What don’t you like and can you avoid it, or will you be moving from one bad situation to another? There are threads about kids who are loners and the parents thinking they’ll love a small school where there will be no classes above 20 students, but the kid hates it because smaller classes equals more pressure on students to contribute and speak out. Some people like the anonymity of large classes, and by the time you get to smaller classes, you are in your major classes and doing what you love.
Tom Hanks recently wrote a great essay in the New York Times titled “I Owe it All to Community College.” I highly recommend reading it!
Glad to hear you worked out a deal. After a full year there she should either settle in or not.
I really like the advice about not holding her to the home every weekend deal if she finds friends and starts staying on campus. If she starts canceling the trips home,that would be great. But no “I told you so” from you!
Oh good, that sounds like a good solution for now> Sounds like you had a good conversation. After this semester she will have one more year and then lots of practicums if she stays, but finishing the year sounds great.
Any chance that living off campus or having a single room might help her?
She doesn’t want a single room-she loves her roommate and loves having someone to go back to, she just doesn’t like large class sizes. She wants to know her professors, be able to interact with them in class
It seems like people have been trying to figure out this very thing. Is she having actual anxiety or depression or does she just not like large classes? I think how you go forward really depends on this. College isn’t necessarily a fantasy land sleep away camp. To some extent she needs to keep her eyes on the prize IMO. A college kid spends, what, 3 hours per day in class plus smaller labs and quiz sections? I would really study the post form the nurse who details some of the program admissions. I know that our CC nursing programs are very hard to get into and are lottery based. There aren’t enough nurse educators which makes the entry point into a program particularly important. If this is more about a personal preference combined with your power struggle I would be very careful about extra loans and jumping ship on what sounds like a great program.
You said she wanted to come home weekends to have more space, which did not seem to refer to crowded classes. If she loves her roommate I am a bit confused about what she is fleeing. But no matter, it sounds like things have been worked out for this year anyway.
The large classes are just the latest thing that’s wrong with the school. She hates the size, the partying, the location-basically, everything that could be wrong is wrong according to her
I feel for the young girl. As I’ve said for years, I don’t have warm feelings for my UG years. In fact, I took 7 classes one semester, and graduated in 3 years. Never bought a yearbook or anything. If my parents had listened, I would have gone home, done CC classes, and transferred.
When I became an asst prof at my dream school, Wellesley, I was delighted. Their tuition was 2-3x the flagship, so I didn’t push to attend.
Repeating ing ad nauseous, I had a far more supportive stance with my son.
I am a little confused about the large classes. At a lot of large state universities there are large lectures, but often students also have a smaller section or recitation class (usually taught by TAs – but I had some TAs that really rocked, and a few that didn’t…). Does she have smaller sessions with a TA as well for some of her classes?
Making threats about cosigning sure is not going to help your relationship with your daughter, that is sort of cruel and juvenile. Encourage her to stay the rest of this semester. My D knew two kids in her dorm that transferred after their first semester. Both went to private high schools and the school was too big and they were not used to not having strong friendships in place. Emotional well being is far more important. SHe got a 3.9, that would concern me more because it is basically all emotional, not the course work. Your hurtful words are understandable, you were frustrated but giving her conditions on something she feels strongly about will make her look elsewhere for support.
She does have discussion sessions for a couple of her classes, but she really wants to have smaller classes taught by professors
Is there a local CC where she can take a class over two over the summer to see if it’s really what she thinks it will be? I would also have her research the class size for intro science classes at her target schools. They are often still held in a larger auditorium with 70-100 kids. Is that still too big? Also, when she gets through the first push will her classes get smaller? At the University of Washington I had classes in the giant lecture hall with around 700 people and classes with about 20 or sometimes less when I was in my major. There’s a good chance that it gets better.
I agree with saintfan. She should check out the colleges she wants to transfer to and see what the size is of the chem class or anatomy. My daughter is at a smaller school, about 3000 I think, and her intro chem and calc classes are 100+. They break them down for discussions and labs. I’ll bet a community college has some pretty big intro classes too.
The grass isn’t always greener…
I went to a college Mu freshman year that has 900 students…total. My intro psych courses were over 100 students…and yes, we were crammed into a small auditorium type room where we barely fit.
Just because a school is smaller doesn’t mean the classes will be smaller.
Up thread someplace, someone suggested trying to resolve why these crowded classes are so troublesome to this kiddo. And they mentioned also that there will be times in nursing where one will be shoulder to shoulder with others. If this makes this student uncomfortable, it might be good to find out why…and see if this can be resolved.
She’s looking at some really small colleges and asking about the sizes-Simmons’ largest lecture hall is 60, which she loved
Was she admitted at Simmons before with enough aid to attend? As others have said it is possible to ask if they would honor a previous scholarship offer. I have a friend whose daughter transferred out of Tulane after freshman year and to a Boston school and was able to negotiate a comparable aid package. Your D’s great grades might help that cause.
She was accepted there with a large scholarship, , but we never submitted the fafsa
Oh my…reading the description of the classes, and that your D was not happy to go to this school to begin with, and has wanted to leave…and is willing to go to a community college…(a less expensive alternative)…I feel for her. I cannot imagine feeling trapped in that environment. She must feel so stuck. It seems that she agreed to go to try to appease you, and what you wanted. She gave it a try. Why are you so adamant that she go to this school? It sounds, even with the compromise, that she will be remain unhappy there.