<p>Stupid mistakes only happen when you don't know something you should, or because of some personal flaw (like arrogance, happens a lot). </p>
<p>I can definitely see a lot of these decisions like passing up some tier 1 school for a less prestigious if you visit it and want to live there 4 years, especially when the less prestigious school is very strong in your area of study, but a lot of these are simply not doing your homework, which is just plain bad.</p>
<p>I chose Columbia over Northwestern for prestige (stupid decision #1), and I ruled out applying to schools I would have loved (stupid decision #2) such as Dartmouth, Amherst, Penn, and Stanford for marginal reasons. Luckily I learned alot more after a few months of college and I got into all my transfer schools. I switched to Dartmouth (best decision of my life).</p>
<p>it's only stupid if they get divorced, which, unfortunately is very likely at their age.</p>
<p>i guy ino passed up a full ride at U Minnisota-Twin Cities for Cinncinati. Well, his parents are *******s and he knew that when he was applying to colleges and accepted UC...which by the way didnt give him hardly any money. So now, he stresed out beacuse his parents aren't willing to pay the 30 grand a yr...which he also knew before applying to colleges and accepting there.</p>
<p>Another stupid decision made by a smart kid.</p>
<p>It's pretty hard to find a 47 year old who wouldn't like a bunch of "do overs" from their life ... some of these decisions might have been mistakes ... the bigger question is how the person handles the situation, do they learn, and do they move on to a better place.</p>
<p>BTW - some of these situations might have just been bad outcomes ... a very different beast than a bad decision. Wearing a seat belt is a good decision ... and everyone knows a story where wearing a seatbelt actually turned out to make someone's injuries worse than if they had not been wearing one. Good decision (wear seat belt) with a bad outcome (car on fire and driver stuck in car because seatbelt won't release). Bad decision (don't wear a seat belt) and good outcome (get thrown from car right before it gets tossed off a cliff)</p>
<p>Very true in my case. In fact I think in the end I was better for my mistakes.</p>
<p>Bad decisions are where information is ignored or discounted to arrive at an unsupportable conclusion. We have all done it many times if we have gotten a few years under our belts.
I have made some really bad decisions in my life. The key is to learn from them and try to gain some good from it.</p>
<p>So many of these stories seem like bad research or convieniently ignoring information or facts that the student doesn't like. One thing that you learn after a while is that ignoring something usually doesn't make it go away, it just has it come back later in even a worse way.</p>
<p>I have a friend that met a guy the summer between her Senior year of HS and Freshman year of college...and got engaged after knowing him for only two weeks. They met "cruising the loop" in a nearby town ::rolls eyes::.</p>
<p>Long story short, the engagement was broken off about a month later. It's been a very messy breakup...obviously...and they still have issues a year later. </p>
<p>She credits this as the dumbest thing she's ever done.</p>
<p>I also have a really smart guy friend who wanted to go to Rochester Institute of Technology but decided that he'd never get any money from them so didn't even bother to apply. I tried to get him to since you really never know what a school will offer unless you apply, but he ended up not applying to ANY school until about February...yeah. </p>
<p>He also managed to get his older girlfriend (who already had a kid by some other guy) pregnant, so they got married while he was still in HS. Anyway, he got into a school close by and has a really good scholarship based on his ACT score. </p>
<p>I really wish he wouldn't have gotten into the mess he did, though. He's very intelligent, but it's going to be so hard for him now. </p>
<p>Anyway, those two win the awards for dumbest decisions made by a guy and girl I know.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>My friend who didnt take the SATs and doesnt plan to. Also doesnt try too hard in school. He isn't going to college. He got his degree...er..certification as a mechanic, which isnt nec. a bad thing, but he thinks he's going to turn into the next West Coast Customs. No.</p></li>
<li><p>Friend 2. Doesnt try too hard in school. Does 'ok'. Didnt prep for the SAT. Got a 1300ish/2400. Probably going to end up at Slippery Rock (ugh..) University because his uncle is named after a building there. Doesnt care about where he goes to college, even though he's going to be in a major with a lot of VERY intelligent people. (Comp. sci., programing, stuff like that)</p></li>
</ol>
<p>I don't know, my BIL followed his girlfriend to college and they broke up. He ended up transferring to the place he should have been all along. However, I don't think the year at a different place was so terrible for him. It was broadening in its own way.</p>
<p>I swear every year Michigan has students turn them down for Michigan State with the stated reason "U-M is just too big." I'm not knocking choosing MSU--it's the right choice for some people, for many reasons, but based on size? That makes me shake my head in wonderment.</p>
<p>I swear every year Michigan has students turn them down for Michigan State with the stated reason "U-M is just too big." I'm not knocking choosing MSU--it's the right choice for some people, for many reasons, but based on size? That makes me shake my head in wonderment.</p>
<p>Doesn't MSU have like 15,000 more students than UM?</p>
<p>Yeah. MSU is definitely larger.</p>
<p>I think it's a clear sign that MSU does a better job telegraphing their image as a "personal" place to these students (whether or not it's true, I don't know). But it's as if the students who say that didn't even bother to check out the numbers.</p>
<p>I think size is a big deal. I would hate going to a school like UT or A&M because they're just too big. On the other hand, I couldn't do the small private thing either. I need a public that's big but not overwhelming. </p>
<p>I don't really get the MSU vs. UM, though. There's really not much of a size difference.</p>
<p>Right now MSU has (total) about 100 students over 45,000 while UM has about 100 students (total) under 40,000. So hoedown, you're right, the 'UM's too big' argument doesn't make much sense. I do know that MSU has long marketed the small (usually dorm-based) undergrad programs (Madison, Briggs and others), and it's Living-Learning dorm system where most larger dorms have classrooms and faculty offices in them. I know UM has the Residential College and the Alice Lloyd program, but I don't think UM emphasize them as much as MSU does its.</p>
<p>... oops, sorry, I meand Drew, not hoedown.</p>
<p>MissSuperFantastic, you're a horrible person for saying that the person made a mistake by going to UChicago. It's an amazing school, and competes with Harvard on just about every level and in some regards they're better. Ask a grad school prof who they'd rather have, a Student from UChicago/Swarthmore or a student from Harvard, ceterus paribus. The answer will be UChicago/Swatty unless the prof's trying to save his alma mater's name :-)</p>
<p>"It's an amazing school" Response: Yes</p>
<p>", and competes with Harvard on just about every level and in some regards they're better." Response: No.</p>
<p>Calling someone a "horrible person" for giving their own opinion is also quite rash.</p>
<p>UChicago does compete with Harvard on many many levels. They just have a different focus - UChicago could care less about rankings and whatnot, and are definitely more about the intellectual atmosphere. They're also better on some levels, including number of Nobel Prize Winners and Economics.</p>
<p>I don't know if this is a bad decision...
my friend was in the top 5% of his class...got into top schools in the state...and ended up going to a two year community college.. and then with a 3.8GPA/good essay and a good recommendation got into two ivy league schools..and got a full ride to Yale University...which he attends right now.</p>
<p>"They just have a different focus - UChicago could care less about rankings and whatnot, and are definitely more about the intellectual atmosphere. They're also better on some levels, including number of Nobel Prize Winners and Economics."</p>
<p>yes they have a different focus (Uchicago definitely more intellectual) but Harvard is actually #1 in Economics. Harvard Medical/Law/Business are also unable to be matched.</p>