<p>My D and I are having a discussion about the pros and cons of her attending the school with the smartest students and highest academic reputation.</p>
<p>One opinion is that she will benefit by being surrounded by the best and brightest. The other side is that she may be discouraged by being less sharp than her classmates and have a frustrating college experience.</p>
<p>Chance of acceptance aside, what are your thoughts on a student fitting in and having a satisfying experience when they are in the bottom quartile of test scores? What about grad school and the issue of college GPA?</p>
<p>In my perspective, it depends on what career she's interested in pursuing and each prospective college's strength in that area, while considering how well she may compare academically there. What does she want to pursue?</p>
<p>A more 'demanding' environment brings the best of your D. She will certainly become a better student in many ways, than if she would be if she went to a 'lesser' school. Worst comes to worst, she'll transfer out if she really can't handle it.</p>
<p>But hey, if our president could handle it, why can't your D? ;)</p>
<p>How has she reacted to her peer group in the past? Has she ever gotten frustrated when a class didn't move fast enough or her peers were asking lots of basic questions?</p>
<p>I knew for sure I wanted to be running to catch up with my peers, and that choice has served me well, but that's my personality. I can't stand it when I feel like a class is dragging.</p>
<p>It depends on the area of study. If it's in math/science/engineering types of things, I would strongly recommend against this. In more humanities-focused areas, it's much much less of an issue, if it's an issue at all.</p>
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Chance of acceptance aside, what are your thoughts on a student fitting in and having a satisfying experience when they are in the bottom quartile of test scores? What about grad school and the issue of college GPA?
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<p>If you PM me, I will be happy to discuss this issue in depth, from a personal experience perspective.</p>
<p>Her academic strengths are math/science (but she isn't interested in engineering). I suspect she will end up somewhere in the chem/bio arena. </p>
<p>She feels that she has done better in high school because of the high standards set by her teachers and peers, but when I asked her if she would feel up to par in a class full of student "x" (a likely Yale attendee) she seemed unsure.</p>
<p>My sister and brother in law both attended Ivies, and as they put it "it's easy to get b's, but hard to get a's and c's"</p>
<p>If your daughter makes it in, then she must have the "stuff" to be a strong student. Help is always available at these schools whenever it is needed (often in the middle of the night as well). They said it was hard to get a lot of c's because all this help was available and you were encouraged to study hard because that was what everyone else did all week. Also, schools with large endowments have a LOT to do on campus every night, especially on weekends. They know their students work hard, and they want to give them the chance to wind down on the weekend.</p>