<p>At Grand Valley, there is a large Greek scene, so it may be that not all kids live out of the suitcase. Maybe he could meet some of the people in fraternities to see if he connects with anyone. For better or worse, if he is looking for partying and fun times, that is one place to find it, and he will have an opportunity to make friends. He can still look to transferring but may not want to if he pledges.</p>
<p>I have a lot of friends who went to GVSU from my high school. They either loved it or hated it, there seemed to be no in between. A good chunk of those who hated it transferred after their first semester (to Central, MSU, and Eastern mostly) and almost all of them were much happier after the transfer. Finish out the semester and apply to transfer to a college that he thinks would be a better fit. If it starts to get better, wait through the spring semester and then decide whether or not to transfer.</p>
<p>GVSU is a suitcase college. Kids come from close cities and go home on weekends that start Thursday night. What type of school does he want to transfer to? Another state U or a LAC? There are many kids who do stay the weekends and he needs to try to find them. When my son was at Kzoo, he would walk through the dorm seeing who was around. If your son is religious, there is a great fellowship group available that has weekend activities. Many kids drop after the first semester, so changing roommates can be an option. That alone might help. Does he like sports? GV has intramural teams–talent not always necessary, good attitude is!</p>
<p>Having him start the application process may help him focus on what isn’t working and what he will need at a different school. You don’t want him to move into the same set of problems.</p>
<p>Higgins, you are on the money with the statement “remaining at a “bad fit” college isn’t a character-building exercise in perseverance.”</p>
<p>I too have a son who knew the first week that his school wasn’t the right fit. In his case the school is just too small and I guess many of the kids aren’t his “type.” He does get along well with roommate and freshmen don’t have cars. My parents, Dad in particular, totally thinks that “not liking it” is a poor reason to transfer. I think he actually used the word “character”. He thinks it’s all about the academics and the kid made his choice so he should stick with it. I replied that you wouldn’t move to a new town based on a one night visit, nor would you keep a job you hated when you had alternatives. Sadly, my kids have not lived up to the academic standards my dad has. I consider my boys well rounded…</p>
<p>My son absolutely wants to transfer. He has 3 realistic options. One is a state U that may not accept him for the spring, one is another private school that has about 730 freshmen compared to 480 where he is. It’s not huge but might satisfy him, plus it is only 30 minutes instead of almost 2 hours, and they will most likely accept him. The third choice is community college for a semester and hope the State U takes him after that, once his first semester grades are in. Right now he is evaulated on only high school grades and SAT’s. Not sure if the first semester grades will help or not…Crossing fingers that his unhappiness does not cause him to slack too much. He is already needing to bring grades up and can’t afford to slack at all. I noticed senior year he would sleep more when he was unhappy.</p>
<p>I don’t like the idea of comm college. It was fine for Son #1, but he had a good job and had no interest in going elsewhere. It’s worked out for him. Son #2 has no job and might hang out with the less motivated students…Football also figures into the decision with the hope he can practice in the spring…Comm College would cancel that out and might cause him to drop the sport altogether.</p>
<p>The State U is his first choice. That app was due Nov 1. It’s a reactivation of his original app, so applying to transfer as a spring freshman was one simple form and an updated HS transcript. The private school deadline is Dec 1.</p>
<p>Waiting to hear from the State school this week or next. It’s making me nuts waiting. He called tonight and wants to skip classes the Mon and Tues before Thanksgiving so he can come home earlier. Not happening. I’d be so happy, you don’t even know how happy to get good news. Stinks that the school he wants so badly now would have taken him this fall, but he thought he liked the other because this one is so close.</p>
<p>To the OP, definitely find out the app deadlines, it may not be too late. I decided that he is so unhappy (and that is not his normal…he’s well adjusted, sociable, and has friends at school–but several do want to transfer)…it is silly to spend the $ at a place he has to learn to like when it isn’t offering anything unique. Why take courses in the spring and hope they transfer over. What if he hates it in the spring and grades suffer? Is there some need, or pride that makes us want them to stick it out? Took me a while to accept that we made the wrong choice…That is he and us, as his parents, in guiding him. I had a feeling the school was too small…but i also thought the State U was too close!</p>
<p>Well an interesting/somewhat misinformed thread. As for GVSU, yes some freshmen come home on the weekends but so do freshmen from U of M, MSU, CMU, WMU, or are rarely at the campus at all/commuter colleges like EMU and OU. Saying GV is a complete “suitcase” college is a bad stereotype or kind of like saying “Everyone at MSU drinks every day” or “U of M is full of snotty rich kids” or something like that. Freshmen go home usually because they are homesick or aren’t daring enough to meet new people. At GVSU, a lot of people go to Grand Rapids for various events (ArtPrize, bars, concerts, etc.). They don’t all go home for the weekend. It is only 20 minutes away, so GV is not nearly as secluded as some people think. As for “everyone” at GV being from the surrounding cities that is not true at all. Only about 30% of the 2011 GVSU freshmen class is from the West Michigan area. Romanigypsies mentioned some other colleges people transfer to after GV. CMU has a large “suitcase” contingent and is actually a lot more secluded than GVSU. EMU is a commuter college in a below average city. These colleges also have strengths but just pointing out some things for the son to think about. MSU has many strengths/flaws as well, but I read somewhere that they accept around 42% of transfer applicants. Also, they are big on junior transfers so your son would need around a 3.5 GPA or so at GVSU to get into MSU.</p>
<p>I’ve found most people that don’t like GVSU and transfer usually are not involved on campus at all/waste all their money on partying every day. Also, a lot of them are not the most academic students so it can help GV in a way. Obviously, there are smarter people that also transfer to MSU or U of M or because of money or something like that. Regardless, I recommend your son get involved on campus at GV. It really helps out with the social side of GVSU. As for transferring after a semester, I would not recommend that. He would be limiting his choices and could make a bad decision. Give it at least a year and go from there. As for transferring, if he decides on CMU or Eastern or a school of that caliber, he won’t have to worry too much about grades. When my friend was looking to transfer from Michigan Tech, CMU only required that he have a 2.0 from the previous college. Regardless, I’m sure your son will make the right decision. Once your son meets more people at GV, it should help him out a lot.</p>
<p>Ok Deeling4, i must say …
my best bud from highschool goes there and i have visited quite a few times and have stayed there on weekends and weekdays, and i have to say its not a fun school AT ALL. Im just trying to tell you not only did i NOT see myself going there, i didn’t even apply there because even if i did apply and get in… i would never go. Its a DRY campus, the atmosphere is dull, and there are corn fields everywhere you look. I mean the dang school is plopped right in the middle of a corn field literally. the only thing that is ok is the fact that there are a ton of women that go there … but thats it. Theres a reason why guys who attend GVSU tend to tell everyone that theres soooo many hot girls there … but mainly because theres nothing else that is good about that school. Even there football “stadium” is smaller than most highschool stadiums i have been in.
All in all im not surprised in your sons reactions to GVSU. Try going to MSU or U of M … Top schools right along with amazing atmospheres, people, and life styles.
Hope this helped, ask any questions you want and i will do the best i can with answering them.</p>
<p>… Oh ya and once again… the snotty rich kids that go to U of M are bright as hell and theres a reason why U of M is as highly ranked as it is Gvnee89.
So snotty rich kids or not … im pretty sure you can find kids that you gel well with at the University of Michigan… and no i don’t go there so you don’t have to ask… i just have dated some super bright women that go there and liked most of what was shown to me during the years i have been going there.</p>
<p>Not putting Gvnee89 down, i in fact do agree with most of what was said from him/her .</p>
<p>gvnee, the reason that I know so many people that transfer to those schools is because I’m close to those schools regionally and a lot of students wanted to transfer closer to home. </p>
<p>FWIW- MSU isn’t accepting any transfer students for the spring semester and I doubt any schools besides community colleges are still accepting transfers for the spring (could be wrong). Unless your son wants to drop out or transfer to a CC (which I believe you were not in favor of), he’s going to need to finish out the year at GVSU.</p>
<p>I can relate to the “suitcase school” issue and want to put in my two cents.</p>
<p>My D is 1000 miles from home at a school that we knew had many commuters and many local kids, which made it likely to clear out on weekends. Fewer than 2,000 of the 5,000 undergraduates live on campus, and a large percentage of them are local. We talked to students, staff, and people from the area at length about the pros and cons of this school and others like it. D got great information - both that many kids do stay on campus and make good things happen, and also that there are ways to deal with the reduced population/activities on the weekends.</p>
<p>She went there prepared to be OK with this, and thought she had a good plan. But I will admit that she had a terrible first month or so. Some of it was just that it’s hard to adjust, and she couldn’t quite manage all of the work it took to get settled, do her schoolwork, be away from home, etc., etc. - the usual college adjustment. Much of it, though, also was because the campus clears out on weekends. Not only that, it sets off a chain effect where there are very few campus activities scheduled on weekends as a results, nor are students groups as present on weekends. Her sister and I both visited during October, and we both did feel the emptiness there, a great contrast to the Universities we attended, which were about the same size, in about the same setting (all with good city access). </p>
<p>Fast forward, and now my D is busy and happy. This is what has made the difference for her:</p>
<p>1) She went there into two programs that are very time-consuming and provide a lot of social connections. Her major now takes up most of her time 7 days a week, and those kids are most of her friends. It just took a while for the “busyness” to start, and she couldn’t pick up other ECs because she knew this would develop during the second month of school. September felt like a lonely “holding pattern” for her.
2) She and her friends have gotten much more in the habit of going into the city (and we subsidize her train tickets for this purpose). D does not like partying or sports nor is she interested in Greek Life. She’s accepting that in order to do more, she has to go off-campus.
3)I do believe more kids are staying at school, that people were going home a lot those first few weekends because of homesickness or because other activities hadn’t started yet. Some were making the rounds of visiting their friends at other schools (that idea sadly occurred to D only later).
4) She had to open herself to some new ways of finding friends and of getting together with people. It’s hard when you’re starting fresh with everyone. And she had to learn the systems - the shuttle buses, how to find out what’s going on, etc. I think the school could have helped her integrate a bit more, but that’s spilt milk at this point.</p>
<p>I can imagine if a kid is feeling like she was, at a school where he is more isolated, and if schoolwork and activities still aren’t filling his time or attracting him sufficiently, that might be a good reason to transfer. I know my D considered it, but at this point she knows now why she is at that school and what it can provide for her, and has connected enough, is busy enough, that she’s doing just fine.</p>
<p>I do think that she plans to help recruit freshmen to her department, and to be very supportive of them as they make their adjustment next year, especially the out-of-state kids. She understands very well that at a school where this isn’t the norm, sometimes the students have to make sure the right supports are available. D actually was assigned some mentors who had been really great about connecting with her over the summer, but they disappeared once school started (a coincidence, since others’ mentors continued to be great). D says she is looking forward to being a great mentor to her freshmen next year!</p>
<p>Well in GVSU’s case there are 21,000 undergrads and roughly 13,000-15,000 of them live near the campus in Allendale. There are around 6,000 people that live on campus. Only some of them go home on the weekends, it’s mainly just some insecure freshmen. There’s stuff to do at GV on the weekends, and it is a lot better on the weekends than it used to be. What it takes is the student making an effort and getting out and meeting people. I didn’t go to MSU or U of M, but if I had to guess you don’t meet people just sitting in your dorm or going home every weekend at those schools. </p>
<p>Mingtoi, as for the campus being all cornfields that isn’t true at all. First, a lot of students take classes at GVSU’s campus in Grand Rapids, which is right in the middle of the city. Second, the Allendale Campus is surrounded by the Grand River on one side, M-45/Lake Michigan Drive on the other side, a large row of apartments and a golf course on the other side, and Pierce Street on the south end of campus. Really, the only area where there is cornfields is around the apartments, but in the past couple years they have made a lot of those cornfields into apartment complexes. To be accurate, there is much more trees and wooded areas on or near campus than “cornfields.” Also, GVSU is not a dry campus, just the area where the freshmen stay is “dry.” </p>
<p>As for the U of M stereotype, I was just giving an example of what people say about certain campus. Trust me I know U of M people are intelligent, you don’t have to tell me. You are entitled to your opinions mingtoi, and if you didn’t want to go to GV that’s fine with me. Still, some of what you said was false/inaccurate about GVSU. By the way, I am a male.</p>
<p>Lots of kids from my community go to GVSU, and most really like it. I have heard that fewer students go home every weekend after freshman year, so it may be that your S will find it better next year. On the other hand, I know a few students who chose to leave & are happy they did. </p>
<p>My kids both had “starter schools.” It wasn’t that they made mistakes the first time around … they just found that their wants/needs/goals changed during that very life-changing first year of college. D went from a small LAC in a small (but lovely) town to Vanderbilt. She transferred for academic opportunities and for the city itself. S was at Ferris, in the 6 year pharmacy program, and he decided he wanted bio instead of pharmD. He didn’t like the bio program at his school so decided to switch. It was too late to get into UM, so he started at Oakland this year with the intent to transfer this winter or next fall. Lo & behold, he likes OU and wants to stay. I think it’s fine to make a move if the student wants to try something else.</p>