<p>Parent of an elder child in the family, so this is our first time going thru the college application process.</p>
<p>My D has narrowed down her choices to 3 colleges, and she likes each of them for different reasons. I'm not so much worried about her making the "wrong" choice, since all 3 are good schools for her.</p>
<p>But, she really doesn't feel like she has an obvious winner right now, and I was wondering if it's normal for many students to <em>not</em> be 100% sure of their final choice?</p>
<p>I suppose that in the end, such undecided kids end up being happy at whatever school they ultimately choose. But, I'm wondering how common is this situation where sometimes the decision is almost based on a coin toss?</p>
<p>More to the point, I think it’s a natural state of affairs. Kids do adapt, and once the decision is made she’ll get into the swing of preparing and getting excited about going. Even students who think they have found the perfect college can be wrong, so there’s no reason to expect that an undecided one would find everything to love about the one they end up at.</p>
<p>Consider that an undecided student is also likely to be more in-depth and critical about the research she does, which may complicate some issues but certainly gives a detailed view of the larger picture.</p>
<p>If you go back through the last number of pages on the parents of 2009 thread you’ll see you’re in great company! My d was one of those undecided — until she wasn’t. We had several weeks of what seemed like torture for her; several great choices without one school having everything she wanted, which was part of the problem. There is no perfect school; they have to weigh what is important to them,etc and truth be told my d would have probably done well at any of her schools. For some students, it is the “last school standing” ie. finding fault with every school until 1 is left. For my d, it came down to if she didn’t pick the school she wound up with she’d be doubting her choice; with this one she was sure she wouldn’t be second-guessing herself. Your child will make a decision; you can give them various ways to look at it and then sit back. They’ll know and then you’ll know. My d went from tortured to wide smile and enthusiastic once the decision was made.</p>
<p>With our D1, it came down to 2 schools. It started out 60/40, then went to 70/30–and finally she chose. She wanted one school, but didn’t want to let the other school go. In the end, she just chose to let go.</p>
<p>It isn’t necessary to have a favorite – just to feel that the place where you end up is OK for you.</p>
<p>I remember that thirtysomething years ago, when my own decisions came in, I was accepted at two colleges that I liked equally. One offered a better financial aid package than the other, so that’s where I went. But I had no preference for that school over the other one. If the money situation had turned out the other way around, I would have been just as happy to attend the other college. (Neither was my first choice; my first choice had waitlisted me, and I chose not to stay on the waitlist.) </p>
<p>My son faced a near-coin-toss situation when choosing a graduate school. He was accepted at six schools and liked two of them almost equally. But his gut was telling him to go to one place rather than the other, and he decided to follow his instincts. So far, it has worked out well, but I’m sure that things would have worked out just as well if he had made the other choice. I remember, though, that the month when he was trying to make the decision was the only month in our family’s history when we exceeded our allotted cell phone minutes. My son kept calling on the phone and trying to talk through his decision.</p>
<p>D1 has 5 schools to decide from but won’t make a decision yet. She doesn’t want to revisit any of them or participate in any admitted student events. She doesn’t want any help with her decision. Time is running out. Does anybody want to trade?</p>
<p>Sometimes, I think the procrastinators are waiting to see what their classmates will do. They may be considering some of the same schools that their classmates are considering, and they may want to go where some of their friends are going – or they may want to avoid a school that a particular classmate will be attending because they really don’t want to be with that person. As long as all the colleges are equally acceptable, academically and financially, I don’t see any great harm in choosing among them on this basis.</p>
<p>I’m so glad the now freshman didn’t have to make a choice. We looked at quite a few schools, visited almost all the ones she applied to but her decision was made that October day of senior year when we stepped onto the campus and at the entrance gate she announced “I love it here!” I had thought it would be perfect for her without even ever seeing it myself. It became her #1 and she’s never looked back.</p>
<p>Irvinemom: My D is in the same position as yours. 3 great schools and lots of indecisiveness. Her twin sister had narrowed her list to 4 schools then re-added another so is back to 5. It wil all be resolved before the 1st (I Hope).</p>
<p>In the meantime stop by the 09 thread and we will share in your angst ;)</p>
<p>mathson waited till April 30 to send in his decision. This is the biggest decision these kids have ever made, and often there is really no one right answer. My son would have done well at either school he was deciding between. Many kids in his position would have made a different decision than he did. Each school will have advantages and disadvantages and the truth is most kids would do fine at any of their top choices. That’s why they were on their lists. I think it’s better to like all your schools than to be rejected from the one you fell in love with.</p>
<p>In almost every case, kids are making the biggest decision they have ever participated in making, and they are making it with very incomplete information, deciding among institutions with both enormous similarities and differences obvious and subtle. They know that the choice will affect the rest of their lives, but they have no way of projecting how. Their choice has all kinds of implications, psychic and practical, for their relationship with their parents. Groups of friends are all caught up in this dilemma at the same time, straining their support network.</p>
<p>So, how could it not be normal to be undecided? I would suggest that, for most kids, the range of “normal” is undecided, ambivalent, or actively engaged in self-deception to justify an essentially random decision they have already reached. As long as the indecision doesn’t cause health problems, and it ends on time, it’s completely rational and perfectly fine.</p>
<p>Thank you all for your input! I’ve told my D that she needs to make a decision by this weekend so that we have enough time to mail in the deposit before the May 1 deadline.</p>
<p>My D was 99% decided on one school until last week, when we attended two Accepted Students days. The school that had been tops on her list (and which she had visited last summer) was suddenly and emphatically rejected. In fact, she started to cry when she said to us, “I just can’t go there. It’s all wrong.” Instead, she chose a school that was the first place that had accepted her last December and which she had categorically rejected even contemplating because it was “just a safety”. When my astonished H and I asked her why she chose it, she replied, “It’s not perfect, but it has the courses I want and it’s the only place I’ve visited where I could actually see myself attending.” From what I’ve heard, all of D’s friends pulled essentially the same act on their parents, too.</p>
<p>Boy…do I feel better after reading this thread. There’s been a temptation to call our D spoiled for not immediately donning a T-shirt and cheering for the school of her choice. Instead, you’d have thought she’d just chosen gas over the electric chair. (Okay, maybe not that drastic.) We just want her to be <em>thrilled</em> and, yet, so many other issues - leaving home, wanting to leave home, not wanting to leave home, wanting to leave friends, not wanting to leave friends, fear of the unknown - play into this.</p>
<p>I don’t feel alone. Will be glad when this weekend - our self-imposed deadline, too - is over.</p>
<p>bubbles you describe both my girls to a T with their push/pull wishy/washy thing. It’s nice that our girls have given themselves options but a pain to have to agonize through the choice.</p>
<p>bubbles, I know exactly how you feel. H and I were far more excited during the tours than D ever was. The ice is beginning to thaw around here, and she has expressed concern that there’s a lot of people from h.s. that she won’t be seeing anymore. I think it helped for her that, while no one else from her h.s. is going to this college, she does have a good friend who’ll be going to a college in the same town, so that helps a bit.</p>
<p>Yes, a friend of hers got into a school nearby so it helps. But, geesh, can you imagine having four years like this ahead of you on a gorgeous campus just learning and being so-so? Four years of bliss! (Then again, not sure I appreciated it to the full extent…No. I take that back. Yes, I did!)</p>
<p>I don’t have a single friend or acquaintance whose had more than one child go through this process who doesn’t know where the early evening fedex box is… where the late evening fedex box is… where the “open all night self service” US post office is where you can get an 11:59 PM postmark if you’re there on the dot of midnight. Why do we all know ? Been there done that.</p>
<p>Every try sticking your hand through the slot of the mailbox to retrieve the envelope? Because your child who was convinced for a whole hour that they were making the right decision has suddenly had a change of heart as the letter is pushed through the opening?</p>
<p>Reminds me of the Common App deadline – I had to Google the Common App deadline to learn that the application deadline at 12 midnight meant 9pm Pacific Time where we live! (And yes, I remember hurriedly pecking my credit card number on the keyboard at 8:45pm for one college app that my D “just” finished!!)</p>