<p>My daughter recently showed me a video posted on her FB page.....it was about stress at Gtown. It was titled "You can sleep when you are dead". My question is.....is the stress at Gtown that intense? Is everyone doing something 24/7, and if you do have any down time to sleep, people shun you? Do you have to be involved with so many groups otherwise your friends will look down on you? All of the students looked so depressed....especially a transfer student from Michigan, who thought it would be different at Gtown. I'm not sure if this video was real or satire, but it sure put up my 'mom antenna'.</p>
<p>Comments about the realities at Gtown please! Is there any time "allowed" for fun/sleeping/eating? It is college after all!</p>
<p>I go to bed no later than 11:30 on weeknights and wake up at ~9-10. I currently take an intensive language, a four credit philosophy class, economics, and a reading intensive proseminar about Chinese politics. There’s a lot of work but I still manage to have enough down time to binge watch entire seasons of TV shows in one day, or bum it and watch like three movies in a row. </p>
<p>Tonight there’s a basketball game that tons of people are going to and I just got back from a movie. Finals are next week so I expect all the fun to really die for the rest of the semester, but yeah.</p>
<p>I have two daughters currently in college. The oldest daughter is a senior at Georgetown in SFS. The younger daughter is a freshman at Columbia in essentially a pre-med program (she was accepted at Georgetown also). Both were valedictorians of their high school class, and both set records for the highest GPA in their class at the time they graduated. The one at Columbia had the highest GPA in the entire school district. So, they both know what stress is.</p>
<p>Both have found that the stress in college is a good deal higher than high school stress for students who want to do well. But that is to be expected.</p>
<p>Although the one at Columbia is only just now finishing the first semester of her freshman year, it’s my sense that the stress level at Columbia is somewhat higher than the stress level at Georgetown. My Georgetown daughter has had time to be a GU cheerleader while the Columbia daughter isn’t finding time for much other than studying.</p>
<p>However, in my opinion, if stress level is a significant consideration in choosing a school, you may want to just stay home and go to community college. In other words, stress level shouldn’t be a factor at all. If you can get accepted at Georgetown or Columbia, you go and the stress be damned.</p>
<p>One other comment that might help you and others.</p>
<p>The “personality” of the school can be a factor in a student’s happiness at the school. My Georgetown daughter loves it there and it’s a very good fit for her. Georgetown is very preppy and jock-oriented. It’s acceptance rate is 18% which tells you that it’s not easy to get in but that not everyone is a high school valedictorian.</p>
<p>Columbia is much more ethnically diverse, which my Columbia daughter loves. She feels that for the first time in her life she is with people like her. Columbia is almost anti-jock. I think the students there take pride in the fact that their football team lost every game this year. While at Georgetown, the students and alumnae are already worried because men’s basketball has a 6-2 record at this point. The Columbia acceptance rate is under 7% which tells you that you need to be a wealthy legacy or a brainiac to get in, which does influence the types of students there.</p>
<p>My Columbia daughter has come to love NYC (so do we). However, DC also has much to offer. For us, having our daughters at schools in vibrant cities is a plus. I don’t think we would like Princeton, NJ, or Ithaca, NY nearly as much. So, as a parent there are things for you to consider because the school location will affect you as well.</p>
<p>Finally, going to a top school like Georgetown or Columbia does pay off in the end. My Georgetown daughter already has a great job upon graduation with a major consulting firm in DC. She had many other offers. She does eventually plan to go to law school, and when she does she’ll have many top law schools in the DC area to choose among. Also, her employer has a tuition-reimbursement program that will pay for it. If she had stayed in Florida and gone to, say, UF, her opportunities and alternatives would be far fewer.</p>
<p>So, the bottom-line is taking on stress has its reward.</p>
<p>I asked my child to look at the video. The response was the video did not resonate and something like “I like being around a culture of productive people.”</p>
<p>FlaPops - Senior at Georgetown SFS with multiple job offers, great job lined up after graduation, and tuition reimbursement for law school if desired. Thanks for posting. You made my day.</p>
<p>Thanks for your thoughts! My daughter, although not valedictorian at her school, is among the top ten percent and does work hard and is very involved, and does love to be around involved people…definitely not a slacker. I was just a little taken back by that video.</p>
<p>And as a parent, I too love visiting vibrant cities, so it seems as though it is a win/win. Now, let’s just hope she gets in…waiting for an answer this week!</p>
<p>My daughter is a sophomore at Georgetown studying government & english in the college. She does not consider Georgetown to be any harder than her high school which is a rigorous jesuit school. She takes more than the required amount of courses each semester because the course load is a little light for her otherwise. She maintains exactly the same gpa as she did in high school with approximately the same effort and is highly active in club sports and many extra curriculars. </p>
<p>I think the key is high school preparedness. Her frosh room mate who was a very bright girl and val from a public school not known for it’s academic rigor and in a rural area became overwhelmed the first semester and left the school by Christmas. As one parent to another, I would err on the side of letting your child be above the mean at the college they choose. Our daughter has always tested in the 99+ percentile and has my husband’s outrageous work ethic. So for her, Gtown is easy -whether it is a math based econ class or a upper level government or english class. She will be done with required course work for both majors at the end of her junior year, but plans to stay on to take a variety of courses in other disciplines. My friend’s daughter was accepted to WashU and I think there may have been some strings pulled to gain this admittance. The girl is overwhelmed at this school which sounds harder than Georgetown, especially in the sciences which is what the girl is studying. It sounds like she may transfer. It makes me sad to hear of students who are overwhelmed. Regardless of the prestige and future job opportunities, the well being of the student is most important. These choices are never easy. Your daughter will find the fit and she is lucky to have a caring mom helping her along the way. Good luck to your daughter on choosing the right school where she can learn and be happy and thrive.</p>
<p>Okay, so I just watched the video and realized that my response above was a bit off point. The video is a satire but there is a shred of truth to it as well. There was a girl running the GAAP weekend when my daughter and I visited and she looked exhausted by the end of the weekend - we both felt sorry for her! My daughter later commented that she had a class with this girl her frosh year and that she was hyper involved and over committed and running from event to event. My daughter is involved in a number of things, but chose not to accept a promotion offered to her at the Hoya because while she wanted to write for the paper, she did not want to spend hours editing or pursuing advancement in this organization. She walks to a yoga studio almost every day and one of her Christmas gifts will be a water proof blanket for the lawn in front of campus because she loves to enjoy time there on sunny days. She is type A - but there are limits for her. She is probably more like the michigan transfer girl where she wants to be involved but doesn’t need to be the leader of the whole group. If I had watched that video when my daughter was considering options I think it might have scared me! I completely understand where you are coming from with concern Cavmom! I am going to have my daughter watch it and see what she has to say and will let you know. She is coming home for Christmas break in a few days. Just spoke to her and she is studying in a beautiful room on campus where the school is providing tea, cookies and popcorn to the students while they study for finals. She doesn’t sound too stressed. Looking forward to having her home :)</p>