@NJWrestlingmom Now that’s one I haven’t heard! Didn’t buy the right test. Hilarious!!
Same here
@NJWrestlingmom good for your D. I’m trying hard to sing that song over here with D. I’d like for her to do the big fish little pond thing but I’m not getting the nod from her on that. Who knows…maybe in the end she will have no choice but that.
Also, there are plenty of highly ranked schools that don’t have the competitive vibe of some of these high schools. Some truly are more collaborative. But you have to really sniff them out to figure that out.
Wow, lots of posts today!
My D21 did not have great Spanish teachers until Sophomore year. Last year and this year have been very good, with native speakers for both grades. My older kid had to wait until junior year to get a fantastic Spanish teacher who had a huge fan base.
D21’s school does not rank and after hearing all of the comments here, I am really grateful that it’s not the case. There are more than enough academically competitive kids there. They don’t need any additional extra stress. When I hear stories about the gaming that goes on in some schools, when taking a study hall is better for rank than taking a performing art or marching band, for example, I really feel for the students. As for the tutoring! I haven’t heard any stories like the ones reported here today. D’s school has a pretty strict honor code that is enforced, so if sketchy tutoring does happen it’s very much under the radar. Stronger students are asked to do volunteer peer tutoring at her school, which also makes it accessible for everybody.
@homerdog We are trying to sniff out those collaborative, higher-ranked schools for D21. Probably not T20s, maybe somewhere in the T20-T60 range with merit possibilities. We will have our first meeting with the school college counselor next month and hopefully we can get some good suggestions. Unfortunately, she’s not that interested in LACs and I am less familiar with the larger schools.
Happy news - D has been wanting to get her math grade up. She was stressed going into her last test but came home with an A!
Huge Congrats @Aguadecoco 1% is incredible. I am 100% confidant you will have a Longhorn in the future!!! Hard work paying off! Well done!
Congrats @Momof3B , Moving on up!!!
Our school will give the kids their rank after first semester of freshman year if asked. D has retained her 3 of 478. Has not moved since freshman year.
@homerdog How do you recommend “sniffing out” the highly-ranked-but-collaborative? Every viewbook claims the college is collaborative. Student reviews claim same. Talking to the very few people we might know at a college gives anecdotal insight, but very mixed.
Another Spanish woe tale - D21 was all set to take AP Spanish this year but the only class was the same period as AP CHEM. Since she was a potential college chem major, the science won. Probably a good thing because now she’s talking about being a bio major!
I’m also promoting the big fish theme here, mostly because we’re hunting for merit, and because I have a possible pre-med kid. The hunt for merit pushes us mostly into the T50-150 range of schools, and she wants “at least 2x the size of my HS” which rules out some of the smaller LACs.
@SammoJ it is obviously not that easy. The best way is to talk to a student from your neighborhood about the school if possible. Even if they don’t flat out say the school feels competitive, you might get the gist by asking questions. I know more than one student at Wash U who says she cries to relieve stress. Those kids would also say they are enjoying their experience. At Northwestern, I know a few kids who have had to leave for a mental health break and the school newspaper tells stories about how it’s hard to get an appointment at health services. You have to know your own child as well. Would they do ok at schools like this? Some do very well but probably not the kids who are saying they don’t want a stressful college experience.
You can also read CC reviews and reach out privately to posters. Of course they are strangers but, if you get enough comments about the stress level, you can make your own decisions. There are some schools where people seem to disagree about the stress level. William and Mary comes to mind. One can still cross it off since, for that school, the disagreement seems to happen all of the time so there’s obviously something to it.
Last, I would spend time on campus. As long as you aren’t there during finals week, you should see students happy and talking to each other in the union or in the cafeterias. No school is completely Pollyanna of course but, if one is trying to avoid the schools with the biggest stress levels, you can do that.
Last, remember that engineering and premed kids generally feel more academic stress anywhere. If I had one of those kids and was looking for lower stress, I would be trying to find out how difficult the freshman weed out classes are and how many kids drop those majors after one year.
@homerdog Are you talking about the stress of challenging academics, or a competitive environment between students? I have never heard a W&M student describe a cutthroat or rat race feeling on campus in 30 years of being aware of and involved with the school. Of course, your experience may vary.
D19 finds the workload easier to manage than her high school, and the professors more than willing to help. As for the students, D was specifically looking for a positive feeling to the student body—kids who love their school, do a lot of fun things outside of class, and certainly aren’t creating a pressure cooker feeling for their fellow students.
D feels like upperclassmen have been so helpful and free with their guidance—the leaders from her summer trip still look out for her. She has found her classmates to be very supportive when she misses class for migraines, to the point of coming to her dorm to check on her and meeting with her to make sure she knows what she missed. Her Spanish study group rescheduled sessions so she could be there. A kid from her dorm who she barely knew at the time went with her to the ER and stayed with her the whole time.
I also feel like the other students are a good influence on D’s mental health since they ask her to take rec center classes with them, and D goes with. There were always kids taking study breaks during finals, too, which helped D pace herself.
Of course, different people have different perceptions, especially at a school with 6,000 undergrads, but if your kid is considering W&M, I would suggest visiting and shadowing a student, attending class, practicing with a sports team etc.
YouTube for the win!
There are some really good resources for sciences and math. D definitely finds them helpful.
@3SailAway I knew the W&M comment might get push back. Like I said, some kids don’t see the stress and others do. If you read W&M threads here, there’s a lot of disagreement. Also, a friend of mine in NOVA sent me the link to some Virginia moms group she’s part of online and there was a ton of discussion there about the vibe at W&M. I’m sure your D is having a good experience. All I’m trying to say is that, for some schools, there are disparate opinions and if you have a student who is definitely trying to get out of the rat race, they might be able to find other schools where there’s more of a consensus on stress levels.
S19 applied and got into W&M. I liked it there and so did he. We didn’t spend a ton of time there but I would say the stress wasn’t evident while we were there for a visit like it was at some other schools. But I read a decent number of comments that concerned me and, if he had gone back for admitted student days, I would have had him be on the lookout for competitiveness and he would have met with a student we know there from home to see what his perspective was.
There are a few threads out there concerned with the competitive vibe of the school. Not all colleges have multiple threads on that topic. Here are two of them.
I’m not trying to bash W&M. D21 is looking at schools that have a lot of lovers and haters (Wake Forest being one of them) and that makes me have reservations. Lots of debate back and forth makes me believe there is something to the negative comments. That’s all I’m saying about W&M - that there are debates about it being competitive vs. collaborative - so, if a student is flat out against a stressful academic environment, then they may want to find other schools.
@3SailAway , I’ve never heard that about W&M and as someone who lives in the DMV, I know more than a few people who’ve gone there. Two of my friends have kids there now, a sophomore and junior. Both are very happy there. I know one of them really came out of his shell there socially and would not have lasted if he found stress or competitiveness creating a negative or rat race environment.
I have heard W&M is known for grade deflation - that could be considered stressful for certain types of students (pre-med). I agree that’s a different kind of competitiveness than what my D sees at school.
@TVBingeWatcher2 Would you be willing to share what your daughter has found helpful on YouTube? There’s a lot of content there! I’m glad she’s finding useful material there. Sometimes all you need is an explanation that’s presented in a slightly different way for the lightbulb to go off.
@mamaedefamilia - the Organic Chemistry Tutor channel (it’s all kinds of math and science) is one of my daughter’s go to’s. Also JoczProductions for APUSH He reviews her actual textbook by chapter.
@homerdog I’m not upset, just knee-jerk defensive 
. We honestly have found the kids at W&M to be genuinely nice and supportive, though. I’m especially interested in the discussion because D19 and D21, are prone to anxiety. They do best with positive social connections and a kinder, gentler type of community.
I think the issue with W&M must be not the personalities of the students, but the strong academics. I would guess that with the top 20 or so LAC’s, people expect challenging classes and kids who prioritize their studies, so they don’t talk about this creating a pressure cooker. Maybe some are surprised that a state school, with a higher acceptance rate than UVA, can be quite rigorous academically (especially if you’re not careful with a balance of classes).
But, enough said about one particular school. The biggest thing I’ve seen affect the stress level of a student at any given school is the student themselves. During junior year in high school, I started to feel like D19 wasn’t as ready to take care of her own mental health as she should be. I got her on board with the goal of preparing for that. During senior year, she did CBT with a therapist, she went by herself to medical appointments, and we talked a lot about what she would do in different scenarios. DH and I stepped out of her decisions about work/life balance so she could make and fix mistakes on her own. D also set up a swim training hour once a week with friends. Of course, she doesn’t always plan well at school, and it’s not like she’s never had stress, but she has a good sense for preventing a crisis.
At the beginning of the school year, her close friend at home’s mom died. D was devastated. She told her RA, and her hall mates rallied round. D headed for the meditation rooms at the wellness center when she needed peace, until she could fly home and grieve with her friend. I’ve been so relieved to see her handle things like that with confidence. I’m also pleasantly surprised by how much she has reached out for help (to professors and students) as she was more of a put-on-a-happy-face and go-it-alone person in high school.
I need opinions on something -
Do your kids know the middle 50th percentiles for ACT or SAT for the schools on their list? D21 has not asked. She hasn’t really looked much at the school’s websites at all. I think she just has a general goal to get as high as she can. Do you think it makes sense to show her these numbers before she takes another test? Most of the ranges for her match schools are 29-33 for the ACT. SAT ranges are around 640-710 EW and 650-750 Math.
She’s sitting at a 29 superscore. 33 English and 32 Reading with the other tests lower (obviously). Hasn’t taken an official SAT yet. Do you think it lights a fire under kids if they know what they need to hit? Or is that just more anxiety inducing?
@homerdog has she looked at the schools on Naviance? On the main page of each school, it has those “speedometer” graphics - my daughter has looked at those for many schools - not just the ones she’s interested in, and knows where she stands.
@homerdog My two cents, it doesn’t sound like your D needs a fire lit under her for test prep. I’d only show her for the purpose of discussing chances, categorizing reach/match/safety, when she has her potentially-final scores.
@homerdog, I can’t think of a reason to point out a specific range/number in advance of the test. Given the school environment you describe, I’m guessing that there is enough buzz around what is required to get into a competitive school. I’d suggest discussing the target range after, to give her a sense of where she fits into the landscape and discuss if she needs to take it again, as opposed to setting her up for disappointment if she doesn’t hit a specific number. “As high as she can” seems like a good goal at this point, and she’s already on it!