<p>My daughter fell in love with a liberal arts school when she visited last spring, thought about it all summer, and eagerly applied ED in September. Now she is starting to have second thoughts as none of her classmates (in the top part of her very large class) are applying to liberal arts colleges and can't understand why someone would want to go to one. Her guidance counselor (with 35 years experience) has never even heard of the school. Yesterday the counselor saw her at school and asked her why she had requested her transcripts and recommendations sent to a bunch of other schools since she had "already decided" to go to xxxxx. He implied that it was a school where you just "sign up" to go (like our local community college), not knowing, I guess, that less than 40% of applicants were accepted last year. Her classmates who are near the top of the class are applying to Ivies and other very top universities (traditionally only a handful or less from our school go on to this type of school each year) and I bet most of them will end up at our state university when they are not accepted to these prestigious schools.
I tried to tell her that the school she applied to is very good academically (it is) and is perfect for her interests and type of atmosphere she likes (that's why she fell in love with it and applied ED, after all). I said she should not worry about the guidance counselor's ignorance or the lack of good guidance as to other possible choices of school being given to her friends. I told her that if she went to a private school or a public school in a different community where people are more keyed into higher education, there would be MANY classmates applying to schools like hers. I'm sure she will be over this if she is (hopefully) accepted in a few weeks, but it is upsetting to hear her sound like she isn't proud of herself for her interests and educational plans. Has anyone else dealt with this type of situation or heard of anything like this?</p>
<p>Not enough information.</p>
<p>I'm not sure what you mean?</p>
<p>Our kids are at a point in our lives where their friends and what their friends think means everything. It's not easy being an independent thinker and doing things differently. My daughter went to the same type of school where people applied to the same schools year after year. </p>
<p>She did not apply to any schools as her friends and with 4 out of the 7 schools she did apply to she was the lone applicant from her school. She was the first student in the history of her school to be admitted into Dartmouth and Williams. As you said, people who were not in the know though that she was going to UMASS at Dartmouth and was giving her looks like "you poor thing" because they had never heard of Williams either.</p>
<p>In the beginning I was worried because she was going to schools, where she did not know any one and was worried as to whether she would make friends. The admitted student weekends were great opportunities for her to meet her fellow classmates. The one thing that I find about ED is that many schools don't make the effort to connect the students with the schools because I guess they feel that they already have them. At Dartmouth the have Dimensions at Dartmouth for thir admitted students in hopes of luring them in however ED studnets are not iinvited (bummer). When she gets accepted ED (I am speaking on faith) if the school does not have something for the ED students , I would suggest her arranging to come to the admitted student days for student accepted during the RD process.</p>
<p>I can attest that when they get there your daughter will find her niche, make friends and be so excited about this new chapter in her life. My daughter has a new bunch of friends some who she says she feels as if she has known them her whole life. They are a cohesive group of nice kids and she is happier than she has ever been and absolutely loves her school. Likewise this will happen for your daughter as She will find students who share her passion and will probably meet some of he best friends as she grows into her woman hood. Keep telling her how proud you are of er and the choices that she has made. She has acted as an individual and has not taken the sheep or bandstand rate-a-record mentality (I like the beat and it's easy to dance to) in the college process.</p>
<p>I leave you with this quote:</p>
<p>"Happy are those who dream dreams and are willing to pay the price to make them come true." Anonymous </p>
<p>Congratulations to her for having the courage and conviction to follow her dreams.</p>
<p>All the best</p>
<p>No, I don't have any familiarity with this precise situation but I know it's always hard to be the odd-person-out. My daughter has her days where she feels that way when other kids aren't interested in her feminist explanations and arguments pertaining to whatever is being learned in class. Unfortunately that always gets at least partly turned inwards so that self-esteem suffers. I hope your daughter gets over this quickly and starts getting some more encouragement from people at her school.</p>
<p>The GC may have held his/her job for 35 years but doesn't seem to have garnered 35 years worth of experience.</p>
<p>Thanks, I agree with everything you said, and you said it so well. I am not worried about her being in the right place academically or socially next year. It is just right now with her friends. She is intelligent and informed enough to know she is doing the right thing for her, it just makes her question herself when other people are totally unfamiliar (through ignorance) with this type of college.<br>
I forgot to mention, on the positive side, a teacher whom she knows very well through an EC which she is the president of and also through doing an independent study (unknown at our school, they are doing this on their own) attended a well known liberal arts college and told my daughter for several years that she thought that type of school would be perfect for her. This gives her at least one positive opinion from a person she highly respects, who is someone other than a parent. Again -thanks again for encouraging words!</p>
<p>A) She is getting stressed by the wait
B) (This is for you) She will have to deal with this and grow somewhat of a thick skin, because if she lives away from the school in an area where it is an unknown quantity, the funny looks have just begun. Wait until she gets in and a well-meaning, but uninformed relative begins berating you for wasting her abilities
C) Ask her (which you have already done in a sense) to list the reasons she originally wanted to attend this school, to help remind herself why this is a better place than any other FOR HER
D) Set out the viewbook for her to look through one more time
E) Take everyone out for ice cream, always a good choice
F) Come up with a series of increasingly more pointed responses to the ignorant, beginning with "XXX is a fine liberal arts school in the state of YYY" and ending with "XXX is the most selective and prestigious liberal arts school on the WEst Coast/NE/South/whatever and we are THRILLED that she was chosen (as in "how could you be so stupid as to not have heard of this place, you RUBE")"
D) Tell her to hold her head up, someday "they" will work for her.</p>
<p>Relate this story to her, because she is not alone (we are using the preceding set of responses at our house, because we have the same problem) - my daughter was delivering a peer evaluation form for a Dartmouth application to a friend, when a well-meaning, but non-traveled young man in her class saw it with her books. His question "So, what's a Dart-MOUTH, anyway?"
The hardest thing for us to deal with is the ceaseless - "Has she made a choice yet?" as if she has any choice in the matter at this point, and the dumfounded looks I get when I explain that she may not know where she is going until April - "But she's so smart!?" Tell your daughter she's not the only one.</p>
<p>To Sybbie and Cangel -
Thanks, I agree with everything you said, and you said it so well. I am not worried about her being in the right place academically or socially next year. It is just right now with her friends. She is intelligent and informed enough to know she is doing the right thing for her, it just makes her question herself when other people are totally unfamiliar (through ignorance) with this type of college.<br>
The school she is applying to is not as well known as Dartmouth or Williams, but if people are unfamiliar with colleges as famous as these, I guess there are just many ignorant people out there!
I forgot to mention, on the positive side, a teacher whom she knows very well through an EC which she is the president of and also through doing an independent study (unknown at our school, they are doing this on their own) attended a well known liberal arts college and has told my daughter for several years that she thought that type of school would be perfect for her. This gives her at least one positive opinion from a person she highly respects, who is someone other than a parent. Again - thanks again for encouraging words!</p>
<p>To SearchingAvalon - Thanks, my daughter is also interested in some different things from her peers near the top of the class. Many are science, engineering, math, business oriented, while these are not her favorites and she is interested in humanities, languages, art.<br>
As far as the GC, my son had him too. He is a nice person but totally clueless. My daughter did not meet him until this year. He had no idea why I would want to meet with him for either my son or daughter. At our school, "guidance" is totally the responsibility of the parent and student - the most you can hope for the guidance office is to mail things out on time. </p>
<p>To illustrate our school, where football is king, my daughter told me that her friend who is tied with one other person for #1 of in the class of 800, was having trouble scheduling all the AP classes she wanted to take this year. I guess guidance was of no help so she elevated it to the principal. The principal said "Why do you want to make your life so stressful by taking all of these hard courses?" When the friend was repeating the story to a group of kids and one of the teachers, the teacher was shocked and said "If I were you, I would tell your parents to speak to him. He shouldn't say things like that to discourage you from challenging yourself academically." And the girl replied, "My MOM was standing there when he said it!" She did get her classes eventually though:)</p>
<p>My son made it through the process fine in the end, with very different goals and school choices than my daughter, and I'm sure she will too, but it is discouraging, to say the least.</p>
<p>I don't have a lot of advice but I do want to say that Sybbie's post is EXCELLENT!!! Sybbie, your daughter's experience (other than the ED aspect) seems so much like my daughter's so far freshman year. </p>
<p>MotherofTwo, I almost think your D would benefit from reading a post like Sybbie's because frankly next fall when she is in either her ED school or one like it, none of what her friends back home have to say will matter one bit. She will be making many friends and hopefully having the time of her life if she picked out a school which as you say, seems like the right fit. It may go against the grain of the typical student in your school or even a GC who apparently is not that well informed. So, it will require more of your input discussing the type of things in Sybbie's post. Plus like someone else says, often the deal is that peers are such a big deal in their lives right now. I know my kids follow their own drummer but for some, what their peers think is paramount so you gotta just chat about it with her some more. </p>
<p>Susan</p>
<p>Your daughter has done one of the most important things already - she has turned in materials for other applications - she has nothing to fear from ED. Sybbie and Soozie are exactly right, next year she will be among friends who share her interests and inclinations, and none of what has happened this year will matter.</p>
<p>My D transfered three years ago from a second tier state school to Wesleyan. Of course, everyone in town had heard the name of the first one (we all know the states, right?) and none had heard of Wes. We either heard, "is that that girl's school?" (implying if it were, it was some hoity toity place where ladies sipped tea-their image of "Wellesley") or, as my boss says every single time "Oh, I attended a conference at one of those" like every school with the word "Wesleyan" in it is part of some kind of chain. </p>
<p>Sigh. It doesn't bother her at all; she loved the school to death, and it doesn't really matter what people think. OTOH, she was out of HS when she made the decision, so she didn't have to put up with this daily.</p>
<p>I really liked Cangel's suggestions!</p>
<p>Mother of Two:</p>
<p>You are just going to have to ride it out for a couple of weeks because you can't really give the hard sell on the ED school without an acceptance in hand.</p>
<p>If the acceptance comes, I think you'll see an interesting thing start to happen and you should encourage it. Most likely the school will set up an accepted students' website or you can pay attention here and start connecting your daughter with other ED accepted students. Begin the process of making new friends.</p>
<p>Also, I would strongly recommend taking advantage of the opportunity to attend the admitted students' visit in April -- preferably sending your daughter on her own. That is a huge plus in making the mental transition from high school to college -- which is probably at the root of your daughter's cold feet. It's scary because the reality starts to set in that life as she knows it is really about to come to come to an end.</p>
<p>In my opinion, the best opportunity presented by an ED acceptance is a full nine months to gradually make the mental transition. If used to full advantage, the kid is really well prepared to go off to college next fall. One thing we did is to start giving our daughter "college-level" freedom for the second half of her senior year -- basically telling her that we weren't going to be around anymore to make day-to-day decisions for her and that we were confident in her decision-making.</p>
<p>Motherof Two, yeah that principal's comments about discouraging a kid who wants to challenge themselves is one we have also come across unfortunately. Reading that anecdote reminded me of one such instance with my D. </p>
<p>Back in seventh grade (middle school is grades 7/8 here with four elem schools that feed into it), my daughter was VERY unhappy actually in all her seventh grade courses as being too EASY. Our elem school was way better. This was one fo the ONLY times I have ever seen that child cry, that's how much she hated the lack of challenge. But anyway, meetings were held with various people and some accomodations were made. But in one such instance, I was mentioning this issue with her French teacher (who I do like as a person and subsequently her hubby, also a teacher, has been my D's ski and tennis coach for four years and we love him). When explaining it to the French teacher and seeing if there was anything she could give my D to do, she not only said, no because she only gets one planning period per day, but also suggested that my D "kick her feet up and enjoy a break each day in French class because she is taking a lot of other hard classes and is active outside of school and all." But, um, she does not WANT to kick her feet up and have an easy period in her day! I forgot to mention the dilemma here, oops. Our elem school teaches French beginning in Kindergarten as the school values early foreign language learning. For kids who did well in it, they learned how to read and write in French, as well as speak pretty decently. Obviously some kids still need much review. Only two of the four elem schools that feed into the MS teach French (though our elem school's program had the kids in a more advanced state upon graduating than the one other elem school where the kids benefitted almost from starting by scratch in MS). But in seventh grade they opted to put all the students from all four elem schools who signed up for French into the same French I class and their needs were CLEARLY different. That would be like putting kids who can read before first grade into the same reading group with kids learning the alphabet. So, the French class was spending weeks on learning the ABCs and the numbers, etc. when some of these kids could read and write stories in French. Why they grouped them together, I'll never know but my D was bored (and insulted) out of her mind. She craves challenge. </p>
<p>The principal did not understand the teacher's remark to me when I brought it to her attention and had my D switch classes. As the years went on there, she skipped a year of French. As well, starting with my next D's class, the MS finally grouped the kids who had French prior to MS in a different group than those who had no French coming in. Frankly, our elem school pushed for the MS to make that change cause of kids like my older D. Even WITH that change, there was a handful of kids including my younger D who were still bored out of their mind in French 1 and they quickly rectified that by putting these few kids in 8th grade French as seventh graders. </p>
<p>Anyway, the concept of taking it easy vs. challenging oneself....to hear that from an educator, particularly when you have a kid who WANTS to challenge herself, is disconcerting. So, I can relate. </p>
<p>Susan</p>
<p>Motherof Two, my D also applied Ed, to a state school that is selective. We visited it twice, along with about 12 other schools. She loved the school over all others, so applied ED. Now at school she is getting comments. Everyone all of a sudden has comments to make to her (not only her but me also). People do not realize how selective this school is. Sometimes I just wish people would keep comments to themselves.</p>
<p>Whenever I hear of someone who has applied to a school that I haven't heard of, it gives me a great chance to learn something about a new-to-me school. I've usually been very impressed with the school--learned about Deep Springs and Mary Washington because one of my D's friends was thinking of applying there. </p>
<p>I agree with sgiovinc1, though. Why the secret about the name of this liberal arts school? Even though your D's classmates haven't heard of the school, it may help her and you, perhaps, to hear the thoughts and experiences of other CC about this particular college.</p>
<p>My favorite line about great colleges many people have never heard of came from Dave Barry, who graduated from Haverford. He was describing Haverford (Motto: "We haven't heard of you either.")</p>
<p>My D and I are having a similar experience. She applied ED to Dartmouth. My husband and I did not encourage her to do so. We were a little uneasy with the committment.She is still happy that she applied ED (I think),but we hear somewhat negative comments on a daily basis. People are very surprised that she didn't apply to Harvard (her stats are very good). And people (including a teacher) often ask her why she would want to go to school "in the sticks." Somehow, I am having trouble with this negativity. Although she doesn't seem to be!</p>
<p>If it were my child, I'd make a second visit to the school, with time made for your D to visit classes, maybe even do an overnight. It's not too late to withdraw the ED application if she really has second thoughts; if she does still want to apply ED, a visit may help her deal with HS classmates.</p>
<p>Burlmom: My daughter is a freshman at Colgate. Although she did not apply to any college ED, she chose to attend a school "in the sticks." In fact, it doesnt get much more isolated than Colgate. She has spent her entire life in a big city suburb. So like you, we also wondered if she'd be happy amidst all that bucolic isolation. Guess what? She is. No malls, but there's always the Internet if a girl absolutely has to have something. And as she predicted, she truly enjoys making her life on campus, which is what happens when campus is all there is for miles and miles. As for things to do, when you're at an out-of-the-way school, the administration (if its a good one) brings the world -- in the form of speakers, performances, and all sorts of activities -- to you. Ive been where you are. It's hard, but if your daughter has carefully evaluated the plusses and minuses of Dartmouth, and is confident of her decision, its very likely the right one.</p>
<p>"The school she is applying to is not as well known as Dartmouth or Williams, but if people are unfamiliar with colleges as famous as these, I guess there are just many ignorant people out there!"</p>
<p>I live in a town, a very well-educated town I might add, the state capital, where the majority of decent jobs require a masters degree, and still no one (and I really mean NO ONE) has heard of Williams (I'm an alum), and Dartmouth wouldn't get you more than 15 seconds. The fact that folks are "ignorant" of colleges doesn't make them uninformed in the things that count. Rather they have discovered that this, in the larger scheme of things, really DOESN'T count. They might want to know what you learned, how good you are at the things you do, whether you can be trusted or counted upon, but unless you are going to join them at a Huskies or Cougars game or party, the rest is pretty much irrelevant. Harvard, Yale, and Princeton won't get you anywhere - those very few who go never come back, so they have no trackrecord and there are no alumni connections to speak of. Brown is what we call United Parcel Service it's also the hotel where Jerry Lewis got his start, and if you look up my old friend Phil Brown at Brown - the university that is -- you'll find that he has created the Catskills Institute, where they can actually study Brown's! <a href="http://www.brown.edu/Research/Catskills_Institute/%5B/url%5D">www.brown.edu/Research/Catskills_Institute/</a>) My d. goes to school where they invented the coughdrop. (BYU will, however, help you in certain circles, and every year or two, someone turns down Harvard for BYU.)</p>
<p>Finding a place she loves, and in which she can learn, is what really counts.</p>
<p>Good advice, all.</p>
<p>I had the same experiences 25 years ago when I chose Brown. ("Brown's? Where is that?" "Brown is in Providence." "That's in Massachusetts, right?" "No, Rhode Island." "Brown's is on an island?") All I can say is-- things change. </p>
<p>I'd tell my D, pick the school that is right for you. The rest of your life is going to be a series of similar struggles to do what is right or follow your innner voice despite the confusing input of others. The truth is, the more you listen to your instincts, the better they get. And what is right is not always what is popular. </p>
<p>Think of parenting, when "the book" tells let your tiny baby cry it out! So many people ignore their right, true instincts. It sometimes takes courage to follow them, but the rewards are great.</p>