Schools where a shy person can thrive?

College Search & Selection
1

<p>I'd really appreciate your help in suggesting some colleges that would be especially nurturing to a painfully shy person. </p>

<p>My daughter is incredibly bright and a high achiever academically, but has a lot of social anxiety. It takes her a long time to make friends, and there's no way that she'll just go up to a new person and start talking. When she's put on the spot, she just freezes up. </p>

<p>She's thinking that she needs a friendly college that isn't too big overall, with small class sizes, and housing options that help you socialize naturally without a lot of pressure--dorm lounges to hang out in, floor events that break the ice, etc.</p>

<p>Any thoughts? Other things being equal, she'd prefer California.</p>

2

<p>St. John's College in Santa Fe, New Mexico is small and nice.
(See the CTCL web site, too)</p>

<p>St</a>. John’s College | About | Santa Fe Campus Tour</p>

<p>It is an unusual school.

[quote]
St. John's, one of the two most intellectual (and indispensable) American colleges - along with Reed - has no majors or electives; it has one mission, one curriculum, one catalog; and it has two campuses, two presidents, two faculties, and student bodies that may freely move from one to the other. This unusual duality is the result of the expansionist mood of the '60s when education was a booming industry and the college heads in Annapolis, Maryland decided to install a clone on a Santa Fe, New Mexico, mountain.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>If she were interested in Northeast Ohio, I would say Hiram, but that's pretty far from California.</p>

3

<p>Rice University in Houston has a wonderful residential college system that really helps break the ice and allows students to make friends easily. And there's a whole week of orientation before classes start so that kids can get comfortable and meet people. Also the school is relatively small and there's more opportunities for one-on-one interactions with faculty. If she wouldn't mind going to Texas, I think you should definetly look into Rice.</p>

4

<p>You may want to take a look at Pepperdine. New students live in small single sex dorms that consist of six suites with four double rooms to a suite. Each dorm has its own activites to help residents get acquainted. Also, each suite has its own lounge and bathroom, so it is very easy to meet the seven other students in the suite. Some general education classes are large, but most classes are small and the professors are very friendly. Many faculty live on campus and invite groups of students to events at their homes.</p>

5

<p>Connecticut College... small school in a quiet town right on the water. Everyone seems pretty friendly. I have a friend who goes there, and she said she likes it because every time she leaves her dorm she'll recognize just about everyone on campus. When I visited her and we were walking around everyone was saying hi. So yeah, it's a very tight knit community.</p>

6

<p>Is your D in any kind of counseling to help her with her social anxiety problem? If not, that could be something important for her to do before she goes to college. If what she has is shyness, that is something fairly easy to change with the help of counseling.</p>

7

<p>Earlham College--a small, Quaker school in Richmond, Indiana, with a reputation for excellent academics. I believe there are no sororities/fraternities. You can read about it on-line or in the book "Colleges That Change Lives."</p>

8

<p>If she wants to stay close to home, try these schools as possibilities: </p>

<p>-- The Claremont Colleges (five small colleges in a consortium: Pomona, Scripps, Claremont McKenna, Pitzer, Harvey Mudd)</p>

<p>-- Occidental</p>

<p>-- Mills</p>

<p>-- Other California possibilities: University of Redlands, St. Mary's College of California, Dominican University, California Lutheran, Concordia, Azuza Pacific, Westmont, Whittier, Point Loma Nazarene, and the University of the Pacific. (Some of these are religiously-affiliated, so may not be a fit. Others may not be a fit for academic reasons)</p>

<p>-- UC Santa Cruz and UC San Diego, while both larger schools, might also be worth a look because of their residential college systems. My daughter has a friend who has a difficult time socially, and she has been happy at UC Riverside. </p>

<p>-- There are also a few smaller Cal States that might be worth considering: CSU Monterey Bay, Sonoma State, Channel Islands. </p>

<p>I would also include some schools where she could live at home and commute if she truly feels uncomfortable with going away. It is OK to do so - not everyone is cut out for dorm living.</p>

<p>If she'll expand her horizons a bit, check out Whitman College in Washington state and Willamette in Oregon. Both are very friendly and supportive places. Reed College is academically intense, but has a reputation of being a good place for kids who don't fit in elsewhere, so it might also be worth a look too.</p>

9

<p>Smaller seems to be better for shy students. Maybe it's because they're not overwhelmed by the city-within-a-city atmosphere of a huge school with masses of students. Both of my girls attend small LACs--Carleton College in Minnesota and College of Wooster in Ohio. My older daughter, in particular, was a shy one who made few really good friends in high school. She's a soph at Wooster, who just finished a joyous semester abroad in Florence, Italy. All I can say is, what a different a couple of years and a great school can make!</p>

10

<p>I will second the suggestion for Rice University. The residential college system coupled with the really well-executed orientation week provide an instant supportive social network for incoming students. By the time the first week of school starts students have already made a lot of friends and are a part of a "family." Also, the social life is very inclusive (given no Greek scene).</p>

11

<p>Claremont McKenna would be good if she is into history</p>

12

<p>
[quote]
If she wouldn't mind going to Texas, I think you should definetly look into Rice.

[/quote]
There's something wrong with Texas?</p>

<p>It would be good if you can give us an idea of what her stats/ECs are because high-achieving/incredibly bright is a pretty vague term these days.</p>

13

<p>Agree with most posters. Since California is covered, here are some non-CA colleges with a range of selectivity (not exhaustive):</p>

<p>Bates College
College of Wooster
Grinnell College
Whitman College
Oberlin College
Goucher College
Reed College
Beloit College
The Evergreen State College
Lawrence University
Hobart & William Smith College
Hendrix College
Austin College
Knox College
Linfield College
Hiram College
Lewis & Clark College
Marietta College
Simmons College
Wells College
Illinois College
Trinity University
Millikin University
Gonzaga University
Hanover College
Otterbein College
Eckerd College
Whitworth College
Bradley University
Guilford College
Goshen College
Oxford College of Emory University</p>

<p>Hope this is of use.</p>

14

<p>Wow! This is great info--thanks, all, you have really come through.</p>

<p>Northstarmom, she's had some counseling but it is not as easy as you might suppose to "get over" being shy. There's no magic pill to make a natural introvert and shy person into a confident extrovert. I think the counseling will help some to reduce the level of stress she experiences in those situations, though.</p>

<p>Lgellar, re: stats, she's not <em>completely</em> off the charts like some of the kids you see here asking to be "chanced"--but she is a strong academic contender:</p>

<p>o ACT: 34
o A bit lower on SATs (680/690/690), but that was with zero prep and she expects to score significantly better when she retakes it in the fall
o At least a National Merit Commended student, possibly semifinalist
o Unweighted GPA of 3.98 (higher when her AP classes are taken into account)
o Top 4% of her class
o Taking the most difficult classes available to her in all subjects, including AP classes in chemistry, history, English, and pre-calc this year and APs in physics, English, studio art, calculus, and at least one other that I'm forgetting next year
o Completed 4 years of Japanese in 3 years
o Modest ECs: pep band, symphonic band, Japanese Bowl, literary arts magazine, volunteering as a Humane Society dogwalker, summer jobs, trying to start her own webcomic</p>

15

<p>This is an awesome post! Thank you for bringing it up! I'm in the same boat, and I'll really look into the suggested colleges. I'm in TN, though, so California is a little far away. Alas. </p>

<p>As a side note, I wish <em>my</em> mom would realize that it's impossible to 'cure' introversion...</p>

16

<p>Glad it's helpful, Tinuviel!</p>

<p>I was really shy as a kid myself, so I remember how it feels, and she's got a far worse case of it than me. I do sometimes try to push her out of her comfort zone, and I'm never quite sure if that's good or bad. But I recognize that it's genetic on some level--and while she can learn a lot of coping skills to <em>appear</em> less shy/introverted, inside she will probably always be that way.</p>

<p>One thing I realized on a college visit we made together is that she definitely needs to avoid doing admissions interviews. Interviewing can only hurt her; she's like a deer in the headlights. We went for what was supposed to be a group information session, and we were the only ones there. She froze up the minute we were alone with the admissions counselor. </p>

<p>She needs to play to her strengths, which are her academic performance, her art, and her essay writing.</p>

17

<p>Try Hamilton in NY. There are always references to the friendliness of the students.</p>

18

<p>You've gotten lots of wonderful suggestions and as someone said, CA was pretty thoroughly covered.</p>

<p>I will add one more: Willamette U in Oregon. We didn't visit it bec S2 decided he wanted bigger schools, but I think you should at least look into it because it has a strong Japanese Studies program with ties to a study abroad program in Tokyo and because it seems to have that small-school friendliness and a serene, noncompetitive vibe. OR is not that far from CA. And there might be merit money available. </p>

<p>[url=<a href="http://www.willamette.edu/cla/japanese/%5Djswebpg%5B/url"&gt;http://www.willamette.edu/cla/japanese/]jswebpg[/url&lt;/a&gt;]&lt;/p>

19

<p>I like carolyn's suggestion of Mills</p>

<p>MILLS COLLEGE Oakland, Calif.
Undergraduates: 881
Acceptance rate: 83 percent
Mills boasts about a lot of firsts: the first bachelor's degrees in the West awarded to women, the first women's college to offer a computer science major. Its Center for Contemporary Music is recognized for advancing electronic music. Mills has been expanding its enrollment over the last two years as well as its academics, particularly in professional training; new programs include nursing administration, biopsychology and Latin American studies. The campus sits across the bay from San Francisco, and Oakland has plenty of treasures in its own right. The location also ensures a cross-section of students. Small liberal arts colleges talk a lot about diversity but struggle to broaden their net. At Mills, a third of undergraduates are from minority groups, more than 80 percent get financial aid and almost a quarter are over age 23. The graduate school is coed, improving the gender mix as well.</p>

<p>From this Original URL: <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/30/education/edlife/gems.html?ex=1154923200&en=46c5b2f69fe83bb0&ei=5070&emc=eta1%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/30/education/edlife/gems.html?ex=1154923200&en=46c5b2f69fe83bb0&ei=5070&emc=eta1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

20

<p>Many small LACs are extremely friendly. Visit ones that sound interesting and ask (or have someone ask for you) how they build community. For a shy person, this is an essential question! She needs to be able to plug in to a community that will help her make connections. Some programs that schools offer include freshman seminars where the kids in the class live together; pre-orientation trips; strong orientation programs that focus on building community; really good roommate match systems (this is rare and hard to find) orchestrated by the school rather than leaving it up to the kids to find their own roommate; an infrastructure that emphasizes advisors; clubs and programs where she can find a home.
That aside, some of the larger schools (Penn State is one) actually have programs for shy kids where they learn to work to their strength. And finally, if doing this in person is too difficult, she should use the internet. Many of the LACs have scheduled online chats where kids can ask questions, or systems in place where you can chat live with a student. All of them have ways of e-mailing questions, and of course, there are a slew of facebook pages for each college where questions can be posted to the walls.
Unfortunately, and I know this will scare the daylights out of her, she needs to visit and spend the night to see if she's comfortable. Maybe once she has her list narrowed down, she can find kids who have attended her high school who might host her? Or talk to the admissions office to see if they can help connect her to someone in advance so that she has a chance to warm up before she arrives. This is a huge challenge, but its one she will face repeatedly in her life and if she focuses on finding ways through the pain-- one tiny step at a time-- she'll be doing great. Oh... last but not least-- because many people don't recognize shy people when they see them (they think they're unfriendly or uninterested) it's really important that she she find a way to tell people that she's shy so they don't think she's blowing them off. Hard, but once she says the words, she might find everything else gets easier.</p>