The dark side of college admissions (or is it just CC?)

<p>cheers - why do you think selecting a spouse is way more important? MILLIONS of people can deliver virtually the exact same service!</p>

<p>Cami215: I am sorry to hear that your son is having a bit of a rough time despite some great acceptances. What surprised me, though, is that the waitlist school (Brown, I believe) is his first choice, since I remember your previous posts last year when he was deciding where to apply early. Given his decision to apply EA to Chicago, I had assumed that that school had won out in terms of his affections. Was there a more recent change of heart, or was it just that he was not ready to commit to ED at that time. Since those two schools differ most in terms of curriculum, does he feel differently about the core? In any case, he truly does have some great options, and will surely have marvelous opportunities, whatever he ultimately decides. Best of luck.</p>

<p>Although I have 2 kids going to college this fall, and I am struggling, I have a completely different opinion of the process. I do not think choosing a college is the most important thing in their lives, although I guess many kids do. I think it is more important to choose a good profession, not run yourself into monumental debt that will affect your quality of life for a very long time, understand that in several years in a profession nobody cares where you went to school, just how good you are at what you do. and of course that you have a good time being a kid, enjoying things and not taking everything so darn seriously. I see way too much seriousness and AP courses and agonizing over "did I do enough community service" etc. life is just too darn short.......I feel bad for these kids who struggle so much</p>

<p>I am very surprised at the number of students with multiple acceptances who are more concerned with choosing the highest ranked school (according to USNWR) rather than the one that suits their personal and academic goals. Choosing a college according to some magazine's list is kind of sad.</p>

<p>I know I should probably just start a new thread, but I really respect opinions from people like Edad, Northstar mom, etc. . .so I thought I ask what you thought since you are already contriibuting to this thread.</p>

<p>D's top choices right now are UCLA (no aid) , Pepperdine ($22k aid) or Baylor (Full tuition scholarship). </p>

<p>She likes the choices and diversity of UCLA, but also likes the chance to have small classes and foster deep relationships at Pepperdine. </p>

<p>The cost of Pepperdine and UCLA should be about even. She is worried that UCLA may be too big, we visited Pepperdine this past weekend, and Hubby and I are worried that Pepperdine might be too small and that she would get tired of the campus for 4 years (freshman class 750, total undergrad 3000, the campus is about 1 1/2 times bigger than her high school where her total high school enrollment is about 2100).</p>

<p>At Baylor, she would get full tuition, but the campus is in Waco and when we visited there, it is a little hard to get to, as it is about 2 hours drive from the major airports such as Houston or Dallas. The distance may make that harder for her to get home on a weekend to see her littler siblings theatrical performances, etc. She is our oldest, and pretty close to the whole family. (now some of our other kids coming up the pike, wouldn't care about coming home to attend their siblings performances)</p>

<p>I think she is the type of kid who would adjust anywhere. Personality wise, she likes deep relationships rather than lots of more superficial ones.
In both colleges, she has been asked to joined the honors program (NMF, 3/464, 4.7 weighted, 4.0 unweighted). Interests wise, she is conservative, a Christian, loves the fine arts (dance , theatre, flute) and would like to be able to still be involved in her intrests even though that is not her major. </p>

<p>Her major at this point is math, although she is not sure what she wants to do with the degree.</p>

<p>I have read your posts, and have always appreciated your levelheaded responses. Any tips, or suggestions?</p>

<p>Go to UCLA for math.</p>

<p>I have misgivings about Baylor, due to its discrimination towards and condemnation of gay people. I wouldn't send my kids there for any reason, even if it would have been free. (And it would have been free for number 1). Pepperdine is not small for a LAC, and your daughter can broaden her experience in any number of ways, including a semester abroad, internships, etc. A college campus feels bigger than a high school - and she will be exposed to 5250 students by the time she graduates (each year 750 new students arrive.) Choose between UCLA and Pepperdine!</p>

<p>There doesn't seem to be much point for her going that far away, if she has two good choices in Ca. Which does she like best? Does she like Pepperdine?</p>

<p>Getting back to the original question, I think TheDad put it best last year when he said that this is the first time they get to make choices using "live ammunition". This decision involves 100 to 200K and a four year commitment. I have heard GCs say that making up your mind in April is the hardest part about college admissions. It's comforting to note that the vast majority of students are happy with their choice at the end of the first semester.<br>
Hey, maybe we could make up an MAT (marriage aptitude test) and use GCs to help our kids pick spouses.</p>

<p>Seems to me like there are really two factors at work in these circumstances: one is kids and parents learning to deal with real world Disappointment and the other is kids and parents wrestling with ideas that there is the possibility of making or not making The Perfect Decision. Both of these are developmental challenges we all have to take on sooner or later (and probably repeatedly) until we reach some kind of equanimity. As parents we can experience a lot of sadness or anger when our kids (or we) are disappointed, but ultimately I think it is our job to model how one gracefully accepts realities in life and finds the joy in the unexpected outcome. The more insidious threat to kid and parent mental health is the idea that their is a "perfect decision" that will be measured somewhere against some kind of existential ranking system (hopefully USNWR will not win the bid on that....) A whole lot of the work before kids and families right now is learning to listen to hearts, look mindfully at the facts and then trust that when you head into any enterprise with good intentions you have a good chance of excellent outcomes....</p>

<p>MarDad:
There is a standard optimization problem called a 'matching problem' that will actually find the best set of 'marriages' for you, given a pool of (say) N girls, M boys, and some function that tells you how good a marriage of (girl x, boy y) would be for every possible pairing. </p>

<p>Hmmm... maybe we should extend this to solving for the best pairings of (college x, applicant y) while we are about it... it would be a nice operations research project/ paper. Any grad students out there looking for such a project?</p>