It’s time for D24 to finalize her list, and I’m wondering if parents out there have experience with their child going to a type of school they didn’t expect (i.e. expected urban, went remote; or expected small, went big). If so, did your child love it or hate it? I’m trying to decide if I should gently nudge her to apply to one “outlier.” Thanks!
My daughter is at Clemson, a college, according to Naviance, she is the first student from our HS that had attended (12 have applied). She’s a liberal city loving social kid who never attended any HS football games (only went to varsity soccer games because she was captain of the girls’ team and her twin brother was captain of the boys, the teams round go together for support). She a junior and absolutely loves it. She misses our NJ food but likes eating different things, and finds the lack of openly gay of trans students a big weird, but finds most folks to be very nice and friendly. I think she applied at the very last minute. She’s business/finance, we live 10 miles outside Manhattan, so it’s not like she needed to go far for internship/job placement opportunities. She is blonde and loves the fact that she finally blends.
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D1 always had in her mind that she wanted to go an urban college. Her first choices were Columbia, Harvard, Tufts. When I suggested Cornell and Colgate, she was not impressed. She only applied to those schools because I asked her to. Fast forward, she was rejected by Columbia and Harvard, and few other urban schools. She ended up going to Cornell. During the orientation she told me it was a little bit of heaven on earth. She loved her 4 years there. She said it was very unlikely she would ever in a small town like that again. Sure enough, she has been living in NYC in the last 10 years, but goes to Ithaca to visit her husband’s grandparents.
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I always thought our D would end up in a small to mid size private. She went to a large public flagship, thrived, and loved every minute of the experience.
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This is very common.
I had each kid add one parents’ choice to their lists. One of my kids really liked the parents’ choice school and seriously considered it.
My son was totally set on attending a college with a big rah rah vibe and a football team. He ended up at Binghamton, with no football team at all, and had a great four years. We didn’t choose that school for him, but we did insist on him applying to one instate public. We really didn’t expect him to like it, but he was right. It was a great fit.
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My D20 ended up at an all women’s school, despite initially not being open to that environment. She loves it and has become a huge champion for single-sex education.
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My kid whose top choices were 3,000 miles away ended up 40 miles away with regular commuter train service to a station down the street from us! I would joke that we’d see more of the kid if in fact the college was across the country-- but at least the friends took advantage of our garage and basement to store their stuff during the summer!
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I thought for sure my nature loving D19 would end up at a liberal arts college in a lovely bucolic setting. Middlebury was her top choice for awhile and I thought Bowdoin could be a good fit too. Instead, she ended up at a medium-sized urban university.
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Would @ChoatieMom 's story count?
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Well, it was unexpected for the mom but not for the student
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I think I expected my child would either go to the highest ranked/ most prestigious school where she was admitted or the least expensive. She chose a different “safety” school altogether and is very happy.
I posted a thread about all the reasons:
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Thank you! I read the original post and it’s very helpful. I think we’re going to end up in a similar position with having to pay only room and board at our in-state option–yet, it’s possible that she might prefer another school where we’d pay more, but she would find a very different environment to flourish in. It’s early days, so we’ll see!
My son wanted to follow in his fathers footsteps and attend a highly ranked, academically challenging in state school. It is a beautiful campus - we have attended many events there but my son, even though a 4.0 student, isn’t solely focused on academics. He is very well rounded and not super intense and intensity is what you need to succeed at that academically competitive college. He was sad to find out he was waitlisted. He had other great options and ultimately chose another school that focuses on collaboration vs. academic competition. He is thriving, getting great grades, playing rugby… He is even working and playing Rugby in Australia this summer with 3 of his teammates. He received many AP credits and is a senior going into his 3rd year. He picked up a minor since he is loving school so much he doesn’t want to graduate early. The waitlist that stunned him was a blessing in disguise for sure. I guessed all along which schools would be a better fit… just glad it worked out the way it did.
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Child thought they wanted medium/large size school and definitely NOT a small school. Ended up falling in love with a small school and still loves it. The educational experience has been great. Who’s to say, maybe the medium school would have been great too, but the school they thought they wouldn’t originally like, they love!
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Mine thought she wanted to go to a medium to small private school back east, but when her top choices didn’t pan out, she landed in-state at ucla. She adores it and can’t imagine being anywhere else.
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I assumed my kids would go to state universities, probably on the large size.
One went to a tech school. I don’t know if she loved it, but it was a really good choice for her. She didn’t miss the school not having a lot of liberal arts type classes. She didn’t wander far from the math and science courses even though there were history, English, business, communications courses available.
Other went to a smaller flagship (10k) and originally thought it was too big. In the end, she wished it were bigger and had more classes to take. She was happy to have friends in other departments and liked the variety of activities the school offered like senior projects in the sciences, the theater and dance performances, stuff the agriculture departments had. She would have done well at an LAC, but I don’t think she would have explored other interests as much. At an LAC, I think she would have spiraled inward, getting deeper and deeper into one or two subjects, but at the bigger school I think she spriraled outward, exploring more topics.
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Hmmm, that is often the opposite of one may find at many LACs, in that the depth available in any one subject is more limited by the smaller number of faculty (but also the range of other subjects to explore can be more limited).
Maybe because the departments she was in were fairly small compared to the other at the flagship, so she had to look outside her departments to take more classes? If her department didn’t have something, she’d try it in art history or in religious studies. She also had friends in other departments that made them seem not so scary. There were also a lot of core requirements so she was forced to try other things. Math -yuck!