<p>Look, I am not switching from Smith because I was unhappy there. In fact, the first sentence in my "Why Swarthmore" essay was "I would not say that I am unhappy at Smith." I was simply making a point that I was depressed when deciding which school to transfer to this summer, so my best judgment was not being used. (I think this can be verified by such lines of reasoning as "I don't like cities. Therefore, I could probably learn to be more open-minded by living in a city." I could be wrong, but I think most people choosing colleges don't over-analyze that way.) Maybe I am being too obsessive compulsvie about this college thing, and maybe counseling could help. For me it does bring up one question though: if it doesn't matter where you go to college, why are all of you on college discussion instead of sending your children to the local state school? Why does anyone have preferences at all in terms of where they live, what they do, who they marry? I think having some degree of preference is a fairly normal thing.</p>
<p>I would have been happy sending my child to the local state school, he wanted to go elsewhere, which is also fine with me. I told him early on that I thought there were at least 100 coleges/universities he would be happy at.
I strongly believe that you make what you want out of your environment, and that there may be slight degrees of happiness that can vary from school to school, such as whether being in the middle of a city, vs in a very rural area, is much better for someone. But beyond stark contrasts, such as being near or away from home, it really, IMHO, makes a small degree of difference.
I think maybe you just need to go to Chcago without this buyer's regret, and just make the most of it. Give it several months, and forget about the ideal school, and all of your comparisons. That will make you happier, I would think, then always thinking about the path not taken. That's just life!</p>
<p>Ecape, you really are not listening to yourself. You do need to seek counseling to gain some insight. You have to stop second guessing yourself and creating non-existent crisis. You are never going to know what might have been. I have seen both schools and both are great...Chicago is an amazing city and the school is wonderful in its unique way. Give it a chance, its not Smith.</p>
<p>quite true, quite true, I am all looking forward to giving UChicago a chance, and I do not plan on being "unhappy" there. It's just interesting how much easier it is to compare public high schools than to compare colleges. What I guess wish I'd had when looking at colleges was some comparative measure such as "Of the students who go from these colleges into grad schools and law schools, which do better?" Because I had people from small colleges telling me that the reason Harvard grads do well is not what Harvard does but self-selection of the students. Simultaneously, I had people at UChicago telling me that the reason small school students have such good rates of acceptance to grad schools was self-selection before they entered the college, and nothing that the college did. I know for me personally though, that the high school I went to had a huge impact on my ability to be successful at college. I guess I'm used to making decisions about education where the answer is more clearcut -hehe, maybe increased confusion is part of growing up...</p>
<p>Accepting increased confusion is the ticket! Its not really so much self-selection as the fact that many of the kids who get into most selective schools already have all the tools needed to get into a top grad. school and to succeed academically. For ex, they test very well on standardized tests, they have stellar writing skills, they are disciplined and organized students, and are driven. Its pretty hard for the majority of these types of kids to fail at the college level especially when they go to great schools which often offer support systems as well as financial and other sorts of aid.</p>