<p>I just want to ask a question.
Did the fear of failure play into anyone's college decision? </p>
<p>I mean, many have obsessed about colleges and choices but did anyone's kid just say, I'm afraid I'll fail if I go there? Will anyone admit to this? How did any of you who considered this handle the fear? Did child bravely plod ahead or reconsider? So much money and time and grief at stake these days.</p>
<p>One of my son's felt this way and did opt out. He received an initial interest from a major science university and S looked at the fail out rate, which was over 20% and said if I get into here, I just may not make it and I don't want that grief. There were actually some colleges where some thought about this came into play and these were schools son could have gotten into.How did any of you handle the stress of considering this consequence?</p>
<p>I would not say fear played into the decision, but I would say that my daughter did have an objective for her overnight visit of making sure she was comfortable with the work. She went to a couple of classes, did a lot of talking with students, and came home confident that she could muddle through. She said the classroom discussion (the prof had e-mailed her the short Dostoevsky novel assigned for that class so she could read it) was do-able.</p>
<p>I think you really have to take the cues from the kid. If the kid is expressing fear of a tech school curriculum (a reasonable viewpoint, IMO), it probably wouldn't be good for force the issue. That could lead to a whole heap of blame coming your way later!</p>
<p>One of the things I think a student has to consider before deciding on a tech school is, "what happens if I get there and find out I don't like (or I am not cut out) for college science? It happens a lot.</p>
<p>I am many years out of college (>15). All I can do is agree with interesteddad and advise a campus visit while classes are in session so your child can see what the classes would be like and get a sense of whether or not they're what he's looking for. I did not do this for ALL of the schools I applied to, but I wish I had. It was very clear to me that one school I was accepted to would have been torture to attend. The classes I attended did not grab my interest. The classes at my first choice school fascinated me. Even when I didn't understand everything being covered (engineering classes), I knew I WANTED to and would be willing to put in the work to get there. I had a total of 2 classes I did not enjoy in 4 years of college. One was an elective, so I dropped it. The other was required for my major, so I suffered through it. </p>
<p>I do remember looking at schools' drop out rates. I was under the impression they just showed % not returning for whatever reason (not necessarily failing out), and any school with a high % did concern me. I wanted to be at a school I'd be happy at, with other students who were happy to be there.</p>
<p>backhand: My son does not seem to think about this. But I am ashamed to say that I do. :( And I worry it influences me in a subliminal way to steer him to the less selective school... I'm fighting that urge really hard though. (Don't know how successfully.)</p>
<p>I don't think anyone would have a problem if they are in the top 10% of their h.s. class. But say you are in the top 20%, and say the h.s. is less than fully equipped, could become an issue later. </p>
<p>You can go to a less than top college, do well, and then go on to grad school comfortably. But if you go to a top school and LEAVE because of the stress or difficulty level. What a downer and blow to one's ego!</p>
<p>I considered this factor too. In hindsight, my S has been stimulated by the challenges, learned time management, thrown himself into ECs outside of the academic pursuits, and has succeeded beyond my expectations. (He chose the more challenging college.)
Weenie, IMHO, let your S fly!</p>
<p>great question ... and one that I believe it a vital "fit" question for each individual child. </p>
<p>Some kids will thrive when thrown into the deep end ... as they respond to the higher level of expectation around them. Other kids thrive when they are more comfortable and can build off clear successes ... and can push themselves when they are among the top students. My main argument for top tier schools is the fit for kids in the former group ... for some kids a more challenging envrionment pushes them further. For other kids this is not as good a fit.</p>
<p>In CC I have mentioned many times after my campus visits I turned a higher ranked school to pick the school I did attend. There were 4 main reasons and one of them was fear of failure ... it seemed to me I would be one of the weaker students entering the school and I did not have very good study habits (OK, I had none at all) ... and I thought flunking out was a real possibility and it definately effected my ultimate decision ... as I choose a great school but a school where I was an "average" entering freshman.</p>
<p>If you have been accepted by a college the odds of failure(ie flunking out) are very slim. However there are other ways to define failure. If you need to maintain a minimum gpa to retain finaid, that may be a serious consideration. I know it was one consideration for our son. Another standard may be a personal one. For some with high expectations, maintaining a high(3.5+)gpa/grad & academic honors/etc may be the expectation. However it is almost impossible how to be assured of such success. Highly selective colleges with high avg gpa's are no guarantee for a particular student. And at the other extreme, neither are public flagship universities. I know, having attended one and taking those pesky calc/chem/physics weedout course sequences.</p>
<p>Summary, if the concern is merely graduating the acceptance is the indication that success is around the corner and go for it without hesitation. If some higher standard is in play, I would still recommend that you go for it but be prepared to accept little disappointments if they should come your way.</p>
<p>Good point.
One of my sons went into a strenuous program at a large university and immediately started to have problems with one of the technical courses.A lot of this had to do with the prof., his lack of English skills, fact the class only had a midterm and final, was really early in morning, etc. Other similar kids who had another prof all did okay.This poor showing in an intro tech class really buzzed my son.He retook the class, not because he failed but because he needed a certain grade to continue and did fine. But he really started to not like his major. I just wish he had the easier prof for that one class. It may have made a difference.</p>
<p>
[quote]
If you have been accepted by a college the odds of failure(ie flunking out) are very slim.
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This is an objective fact. That said, as an insecure 18 year old knowing my academics were probably in the bottom 10% of the student pool I could not "see" that truth ... what I could see was my getting swamped by all the smarter kids. In reality I am sure I would have been fine ... but I was not self-confident enough to go into that deep of a pool at that point of my life.</p>
<p>Another form of being in over one's head - switching majors to something easier but abandoning the thing you wanted to do. For instance, say you really want to be a botany major, but end up getting weeded out with the pre-med gang. :(</p>
<p>After a careful review of workload and entering class profiles and sophomore retention rates there was only one super selective school that scared the beejeezus out of my D and it was CalTech. Other than that one school she was supremely confident of her ability to flourish. (She doesn't lack confidence.)</p>
<p>We read online about several kids who were arguaby and statistically well prepared for the rigors of what has to be the most difficult UG experience anywhere, yet found themselves overwhelmed irregardless of their level of effort. "Getting a UG education at CalTech is like trying to take a drink from a firehose." D believed it and decided to look elsewhere as she wanted a college experience that included sports and dating and silliness and she wasn't entirely sure that would happen at CalTech. (Although she spent some time with the HMC boys on a weekend to Scripps and found them funloving and hilarious, so she may well have been wrong about CalTech, too.)</p>
<p>As noted above , there are some kids who will do well almost anywhere, some that need to be pushed to give their best , and some that can run from the front and still turn in their best times. </p>
<p>What the rest of the class was doing was not really that much of a template for my D in high school. (Edited: TMI). </p>
<p>A kid who will do just what is necessary to get the grade they desire would not do that well in an environment where grades came too easily while some kids will keep raising the bar just to please themselves by deepening the inquiry because they are interested in the subject matter. </p>
<p>Know your kid and help them to know themselves. It is a matter of fit.</p>
<p>This was definitely a concern with my son and with good reason. If you have a student that is not internally motivated to do their very best and is then accepted into their reach school, I think there is a good chance that they will be a C student instead of a A/B student. </p>
<p>My son is smart but seems to be content to stop when it's good enough, even if that's not his best. My daughter, otoh, will do her best every time and if she's not satisfied with her grade will go to the prof to see what she can do to improve for the next paper/test. She has thrived with the raised bar of college, not so with her brother. He's fine but seems to blame the lack of tests, the teacher not making clear what he wanted, etc. on his getting B's instead of A's.</p>
<p>For my younger son, it is not a fear of failure but something related--Although his stats would match him for a pre-professional/pre-gradschool type of college, he is not interested in that type of atmosphere. He doesn't want to go somewhere where a large number of students are positioning themselves for the next step up in academia.</p>
<p>Also, as a possible math major with an eye toward secondary education, he is concerned with courses designed to weed out would-be Phd's.</p>
<p>Although his stats would match him for a pre-professional/pre-gradschool type of college, he is not interested in that type of atmosphere. He doesn't want to go somewhere where a large number of students are positioning themselves for the next step up in academia.</p>
<p>This kid, at this point, wants to be a math teacher. </p>
<p>He has spent the last 4 years in a very high-flying public HS, in classes with a lot of hard-driving students. He has always been, as he describes it, "at the bottom of the top". He has seen an incredible amount of compulsive resume-building among his peers, hates it, and wants to get away from it. </p>
<p>He's just a really uncompetitive kid, and despite his grades, does not work super-hard. He wants to get an education and do well in college, but does not want to spend the next 4 years with kids who are prepping their grad-school resume from day 1. (like the val hunt that starts on the first day of 9th grade)</p>
<p>I found out after the fact that this was the reason my mom was so pessimistic and lukewarm about my transfer. I had thought that she was just trying to protect me from getting my hopes up when the admission odds were so long. But it turns out that she thought that if I went to Harvard, I wouldn't get into anything there (i.e. plays, choirs, etc.). She didn't actively try to discourage me from going, but she was seriously concerned that I would be miserable there because I wouldn't be able to keep up. Go figure. I actually ended up more successful in the more demanding environment.</p>
<p>I just mention this to illustrate that even a very devoted and attentive parent, who knew her child and her child's skills well (and who had a great deal of respect for her child's academic and artistic talent), can sometimes end up wildly off the mark when predicting how her child will do. It's extremely hard to tell how someone will respond to a new environment.</p>
<p>Makes sense, jaybee and I really can't say I blame him. That's what "fit" is all about. Would schools that had a specific "stand alone" school of education be a good place to look for similarly motivated students?</p>
<p>H knows of two persons who decided not to go to certain universities because they were afraid they couldn't handle "failing": one turned down CalTech, another turned down Harvard. Both regret it now, even though their lives have turned out wonderfully. They always wonder, "What if...".</p>
<p>
[quote]
I just mention this to illustrate that even a very devoted and attentive parent, who knew her child and her child's skills well (and who had a great deal of respect for her child's academic and artistic talent), can sometimes end up wildly off the mark when predicting how her child will do.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>And that's why the parent's job is to counsel and the kid's job is to pick.</p>