<p>We all hope for the right college choice and a fabulous first year experience for our kids. Unfortunately, it doesnt always happen. Heres our story, about my daughters less-than-totally-successful first year of college. But the moral of the story is that if a high school senior doesnt make an ideal college choice, its not a disaster or an embarrassment. A wrong first choice can be a good growth experience. And theres a good solution, i.e., transfer.</p>
<p>Some of you know that my daughter is finishing up her freshman year at Colgate. She is a classic BWRK: a well-adjusted, well-liked kid who had very fine high school grades, very fine test scores, and a solid but in no way earth-shaking roster of extra-curriculars. As a high school junior/senior, she went through the motions of doing her research and making her college visits, but she never engaged fully in the college search process. (It was a source of great frustration to me, and I sure wish I had discovered CC earlier.) She really could not pinpoint exactly what she wanted from a school, let alone precisely where she wanted to go. She wound up applying to nine schools, ranging from large to medium to small. As of last April (2004), she had been accepted by four, waitlisted by four, and rejected by one. True to form, at the end of the process she was not any more in love with any one school than she had been at the beginning, so she decided not to stay on any waitlists. She chose Colgate, and we supported her decision both because it's a fine school and because we believed that the LAC experience would be terrific for her. We were also sure that, because of the kind of kid she is, shed be happy wherever she landed. </p>
<p>From the start, however, she was just OK. There were certainly good parts. She was doing well academically. As expected, her profs at Colgate were uniformly excellent inspiring and committed to teaching undergrads. Her advisor is a prince. She was also getting involved in a few activities and quickly made a small circle of friends. She was not miserable, but she never expressed the sort of joy many parents on these boards report hearing from their kids. The enthusiasm was just not there, although from 600 miles away, we couldnt quite figure out why. We just thought the transition was taking a little longer than anticipated. Still, when she came home at Christmas and told me she had been concealing her unhappiness, toughing it out in the belief (unrealized) that things would get better, and that she was strongly considering a transfer, I was only mildly surprised.</p>
<p>Here is the most important thing weve learned about LACs. Every LAC (and probably every small university, too) has a dominant social culture, a dominant intellectual culture, and a dominant academic culture, and there is significant overlap among the three. If a kid is thinking about attending an LAC, he or she MUST understand the culture there. We learned the hard way that its tough to accomplish that during an admitted students event too much courting, too much camouflage, too many bells and whistles, dogs and ponies. Although it can be financially and logistically difficult, I think its vital for a student to do an overnight at an ordinary time NOT during an event that has been carefully choreographed to woo admitted but not yet committed students. (Interestingly, in the fall of her senior year, my daughter had briefly considered applying ED to a different LAC. She did an overnight there and nearly decided not to apply at all, let alone apply early. Turns out the culture at Colgate is quite similar to the culture at that school.)</p>
<p>And once a kid understands the schools prevailing culture, he or she needs to decide whether it fits. If the fit is there, great. If the fit is not perfect, that can be OK too -- for some kids. There are a number of kids who are outside the mainstream at Colgate and are quite content. It is a large enough school to accommodate clusters of happy non-conformists. My daughter, however, now understands fully what she already knew intuitively about herself: She is most comfortable when she is part of the mainstream. She is not in the mainstream at Colgate. So although for many kids its a wonderful match, for her it is not. </p>
<p>Heres what else we learned. Making a wrong decision when you are 18 is not the end of the world. My daughter matured this year. Once she decided it would be best to try to transfer (and I thought it was a brave decision) she found it remarkably easy to pinpoint what she needed from a school. It helps that she now knows her major, so she focused on schools that have strong art history departments (thanks to Momraths great posts we learned what to look for in an art history program), schools that have the kind of culture shes looking for, and schools that are at least reasonably transfer-friendly (i.e., they accept a decent percentage of transfer applicants, have some housing for transfers, and accept many transfer credits). She applied to four schools, all mid-sized, all near or in cities. Ironically, three are schools she applied to last year (two waitlists, one acceptance). I read and commented on essays and proofread applications (man, I did NOT expect to be doing THAT two years in a row!!) but she quarterbacked the process this time. (Im nice, but not a masochist.) She got everything done on time no cattle prod required. </p>
<p>Even the transfer application process itself was not too bad. Some of the schools that waitlisted or accepted her as a senior simplify the process to some extent for transfers; certain materials did not need to be resubmitted, and one school even waived the application fee! (I must add, however, that transfer admissions offices seem to lose/misplace a lot of stuff. Some are downright disorganized. I guess that because theyre dealing with smaller numbers of applicants, their internal machinery is not well streamlined. My daughter has spent lots of quality time on the phone with admissions people.) </p>
<p>And thanks to what I learned from many of you on CC and passed on to my D, writing the essays and cover letters was not that difficult for her. From Soozievt, Jamimom, InterestedDad, Garland, and so many other posters, we learned that she needed to dig deep into her schools websites to learn as much as she could about their art history departments and about their campuses, to articulate very specifically why she would like to attend each one, and to show why would be an asset to each campus. My feeling is that unless a kid can coherently do those things, he or she should NOT be trying to transfer. My penpal and friend Searchingavalon even read her main essay, which was on how she discovered her love for art history. I am so grateful for all the knowledge and generosity on this board, and I hope to pay it forward by helping others who find themselves in a situation similar to ours.</p>
<p>So far she has heard back from two schools accepted at Wash U and at Tufts (waitlisted at both last year). She is so happy more excited than when the answers started rolling in last year. She knows that the transition as a transfer will be somewhat scary, but she is ready. </p>
<p>So...Thats our story in a nutshell. Meanwhile, Id love to hear from parents with kids at Wash U (Lizschup?) and Tufts. Id especially like to hear from any art history majors or minors out there.</p>