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<p>Strict policy of tough love around here. 
I’ve gotten burned, myself!</p>
<p>I’m going to tell my story, because your daughter’s story sounds familiar, and I’m in my late twenties, so I’ve got an odd viewpoint for the locale. I’m half-student, half-adult… The CC Centaur.</p>
<p>In high school, I was a “superlative” student, in that everyone talked about me in superlatives. I’d gotten straight A’s and had taken all of the AP classes I had time for, I had won every award in every subject, I was well-liked by students and faculty, I was a pianist, a ceramicist, a Girl Scout gold awardee, a drama geek, an engineering club president, a robotics award-winner, and I had my thumb in every pie on my elite prep-school campus. I was in the Cum Laude society, I won the Founder’s Day award, and I arranged and played the graduation song that our class sang. By the time college applications rolled around, I’d gotten a little out-of-breath from running the pre-college rat race. I wanted to stay close to home (but not TOO close… home was Dallas), I wanted a school with rigorous academics, and I wanted a school where I could relax a little bit and actually live life. Maybe earn a few B’s (wild and crazy). Maybe a C or two (apocalyptically rebellious).</p>
<p>So when I met with my college counselor (we had two full-time, twenty-year veteran college counselors for a class of about 110 girls), she said, “So where do you want to go? Sky’s the limit!” I hedged. We came up with a list. Cal Tech, MIT, and Stanford were at the top of my reluctantly Ivyish list. TUFTS was my SAFETY (what were we thinking!?). I planned an overnight trip to Rice, just because I felt drawn to it.</p>
<p>I visited Rice in September with my mom. It took two hours into the first morning after I set foot on campus to say, “This is it. This is my school.” I had my interview, I went to the bookstore, and I dropped forty dollars on a sweatshirt. I put it on and wore it with my uniform to school (blatant violation, but even the detention-happy faculty would just shoot me a thumbs-up and go, “RICE!”) every single day. I sent in my early decision application and some angels somewhere must’ve been looking out for me, because I got in and didn’t think twice about any of the other schools.</p>
<p>I went there and was deliriously happy. I worked hard, but I also played around with life a lot. I took piano tuning. I jumped in the university president’s pool. I was in the marching band, without ever having learned to play a band instrument. I started dating a composer as a freshman, and he was… gasp… a grad student! (I eventually married that grad student composer, too, and eventually, my parents approved of him! ;)) I took ballroom dance! I took self-defense! I learned about linguistics! I concentrated on living, since I figured that was what college was for. Much to my surprise, by the end of college, I’d racked up some B’s… and a couple of C’s… and a lot of A’s, without <em>too</em> much angst and frustration… and had gotten a high enough GPA to get into the grad programs in structural engineering at MIT, Illinois, UT, Georgia Tech, Berkeley, Stanford, and Cornell-- every place I’d applied. You could’ve knocked me over with a poke to the head.</p>
<p>So now you have a slightly expanded version of the “everything will be all right” response I gave earlier in the thread; everything will be all right, and I know it because I’ve been there. Have her start looking at some places that may not have jumped out at her at first. (Rice! Rice! Rice!) Success follows happiness. High school superstars who hit a blip are generally successful. It’s nice to be happy, and it’s good to have a school that fits like a glove. </p>
<p>Someone mentioned Rice as a safety… I’d say Rice is a match! Great school for her interests, particularly if she’s considering engineering. Many of the LACs and universities that your daughter is considering don’t cater to the engineering crowd, but Rice would provide her with a richly interesting environment, all of the academic roads that she might like to travel, and a campus full of students who work hard and live hard–Rice students love life and rarely say “no” to an interesting experience.</p>
<p>Often (and I know this from looking at my Harvard/Yale/Amherst/Stanford alumnae friends from high school), pairing the “best” students with the “best” schools doesn’t indicate that there’s a true MATCH there. I know people who have walked away with magna and summa Harvard degrees AND annihilated self-esteem, and there’s no reason that they should have had to go through that. Harvard wasn’t what they wanted in a school, it wasn’t what they needed in a school, and they only went because they couldn’t turn down the “best”… Be wary of the glossy viewbooks and tantalizing US News & World Reports rankings.</p>
<p>I hope your daughter finds a school that captures her heart, her mind, and her soul. Best of luck to you all in your search.</p>