<p>Any kid can fit on any campus if they can academically cut it and can afford it. </p>
<p>Everything else is Dulcinea.</p>
<p><a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dulcinea[/url]”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dulcinea</a></p>
<p>As a curmudgeon, I would normally say that fit is overrated and kids these days are spoiled, etc. But then I remember my own freshman year experience at UC Santa Cruz in the 70s, a place I thought would “fit” me because I was a hippie type, and UCSC was our Mecca at the time. However, as it turned out, I really bombed out there and I probably would have fit in a lot better at UCLA or Berkeley, somewhere more urban and academic. At 18, I really didn’t know who I was or what was best for me- I thought Santa Cruz was a perfect fit for my bohemian fantasy of myself. I was the poster child for the “gap year” idea, because I really needed another year or so to mature out of high school, except the concept of “gap year” didn’t exist at the time. After reading all the threads about kids having a tough time making the transition, I am even more convinced that a gap year or two helps kids figure how the world a little more; then they can find the school that “fits” them. As it turned out, mine was in Australia. Who knew?</p>
<p>Chasing fit is nice if you have the luxury of choosing among many and varied options. But for many students there are financial, academic, geographic, or family limitations on the choices available to them that often render “fit” into an afterthought rather than the driving focus of the choosing.</p>
<p>But the good news is that a large majority of college student are young and flexible enough that they can fit and thrive in a wide variety of circumstances and schools. For them fit doesn’t matter all that much.</p>
<p>There’s this great couple of paragraphs near the end:</p>
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<p>That’s a great image. Funny, too, when you think how we as parents used to buy clothing for our children a little big because we knew they’d grow into it. Then as teens, they reach full physical size and we buy for perfect fit. Now comes the college search, where we’re back to buying with a skosh more room in the seat. 
;)</p>
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<p>As a parent of a HS senior, I understand the desire to seek comfort. But bear in mind that the process that leads to personal growth begins with a phase that psychologists call “cognitive dissonance.” Stretching your assumed limits and boundaries is a process that by nature includes some discomfort. It’s not too dissimilar from physical development - “no pain, no gain.” If we give our kids the message that they need to avoid situations that require some adjustment and personal re-evaluation, we’re limiting their growth. And the positions of “I’m liberal, so I only want to study among liberals” or “I’m conservative, so I only want to study among conservatives” or “I’m of this religion, so I only want to study among people who share my own faith” is a matter of downright intellectual self-mutilation.</p>
<p>I’ve always thought that this ‘fit’ thing is way overrated. Sure there are some parameters you seek out in a school, to help you distinguish and choose between one and another. But the idea that there is this ideal paradise, where it so instantly feels like ‘home’ and everyone is ‘your people’ and where it will be 4 years of summer-camp bliss, is a wasteful illusion. It seems like a set up for severe disappointment. As I think someone else mentioned, this is like believing there is one magically person in the universe you should marry, someone who will never have faults nor ever disappoint you. </p>
<p>I think it is a much bigger issue in the US than anywhere else in the world. In part because it can be so costly but also because there are so many choices. But the whole ‘machine’ of ‘going off to college’ in the US is like no where else in the world because only a part of it seems to be about education. Most if not all countries in the world, there simply isn’t the same focus on finding ‘fit’ (except in the academic sense). You more simply choose a school that provides the best education and training, not choosing one for the particular social experience, growth, culture, to provide an all encompassing developmental four years of ‘being away’. </p>
<p>Parents that lament 17 year olds seeking fit…well so too do almost all adults. Oh sure we espouse the higher principles of seeking, appreciating and enjoying the challenge of diversity but…the research shows, as do most ancedotes, that we all nevertheless gravitate to similar others. Sure we enjoy a provocative argument on the internet, or meeting very different people from ourselves at a dinner party…but the reality is most of us consciously end up living near, working with, being friends with people that largely share our values and interests. We read the same books and news sources. We like and respect people that vote the way we do. We hire similar others. We live in the ‘right’ neighborhoods (however defined). Ask anyone working in a place or living in a neighborhood where they are the odd man out, surrounded by a sea of folks that they don’t get and that don’t get them, and they will tell you it is not developmental but mostly draining and difficult.</p>
<p>All public schools are not equal. We live in an area with excellent public schools. I could have sent my kids to private schools, but opted for comparable public where I live.</p>
<p>I think there is a difference between preferences and fit. I would view preferences as things like campus size, rural vs. urban, Div.1 vs. Div. III sports teams, etc. Most kids can probably adapt to these things, despite some complaints, even if they don’t get what they want.</p>
<p>I think fit could be viewed more as something more internal, related to the individual’s values or cognitive complexity. While college is a time to expand one’s perspective on the world, if students have wildly divergent value systems from one’s own, I think a student would struggle. Similarly, I think that we all view the world from a different framework in terms of complexity. That’s why there still is ability grouping in many K-12 schools, even if it’s not always considered politically correct. An intellectually complex kid who wants to discuss philosophy on the weekends probably would not be happy at a school where beer is the only activity.</p>
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<p>TPG, did you mean to be that profound?</p>
<p>The WK reference is quite hilarious: “To this day, a reference to someone as one’s “Dulcinea” implies hopeless devotion and love for her, and particularly unrequited love.” </p>
<p>Unrequited love between applicants and colleges? </p>
<p>PS This song will haunt you until January,
[url=<a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzOqx0V5-a4&feature=related]Jacques”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzOqx0V5-a4&feature=related]Jacques</a> Brel - La Qu</p>
<p>Starbright–few if any 18 year olds are fully formed in most values and beliefs. How many of us were liberal/radicals in college and now vote moderate/conservative. The idea that kids won’t change is just absurd. Few colleges are so uniform that one can’t find their comfort zone. And it is often as fun to be an outsider mocking the majority as one in the majority.</p>
<p>Xiggi - from the original article.</p>
<p>“Quixote’s tasks of knight-errantry are undertaken in the name of his beloved Dulcinea, of whom he proclaims, “all the impossible and fanciful attributes of beauty which the poets apply to their ladies are verified in her.” In fact, he has never seen her and she may or may not even exist; he has heard her name and ascribed attributes; she sounds a lot like the elusive MSUSWGSS.”</p>
<p>FIT and Dulcinea go hand in hand. People just make too much of it because they are allowed to. You would have been happy at UT right?</p>
<p>No chance of haunting. Don’t understand a word of it other than impossible.</p>
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<p>But isn’t it the case that, even in the US, most students focus mainly on academic and financial fit? I.e. the decision process for most students goes like this:</p>
<ul>
<li>Does it have a good program of study at the appropriate level of rigor in the major and other subjects that I want to study?</li>
<li>Can I get admitted?</li>
<li>Can I afford it?</li>
</ul>
<p>And, based on that, most students in the US going to college or university go to one of their state universities or community colleges, which cover the academic needs of most students, usually at an affordable cost.</p>
<p>The students with unusual or exacting requirements may well be very overrepresented among those posting on these forums. The student who see what s/he needs and wants at his/her local state universities and community colleges may have less need to come here and ask “what colleges and universities are right for me?”.</p>
<p>(And some of the students with unusual requirements know what they are looking for anyway – e.g. student looking at a military officer career will be looking at the military service academies.)</p>
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<p>Assuming that the quest for the best fit is both elusive and unwarranted, what is the REAL alternative? Let’s consider that it is true that a 17 years is rather clueless about his desires, ambitions, and ultimate goals in life. He or she does not really know! </p>
<p>Great, but does that assume that the erudites who have received the mighty seal of approval from te august NACAC … know better? Or should be we assume that it is better for teenagers to be dispatched to the school chosen by their parents or grandparents? </p>
<p>Should we also assume that weighing various criteria ranging from academics to plain social life is a poor substitute to pointing the family car wheels in the direction of the closest Big Academic Box where there ought to be a workable option for everyone? </p>
<p>The reality is that there is an uncountable and undepletable army of clueless teenagers who view college as the continuation of the “process.” And the beauty is that there are plenty of academic factories that will offer all remedial to state-of-the-art research one needs. </p>
<p>However, this does not mean that there are no students who have access to sufficient information to make reasonable determinations of what their next steps should be.</p>
<p>My words of wisdom to my kids on the issue of excessive searching for perfect fit boil down to:
- There are fifty colleges out there where you’d be well-suited and happy, not just one.
- The college changes the kid. Often into a kid that loves that exactly THAT type of college.</p>
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<p>Haha. I can remedy that by linking to an understandable version. Once you hear it, you will have a hard time getting out of your head. :)</p>
<p>Play at your own risk:</p>
<p>[The</a> Impossible Dream-Man of La Mancha - YouTube](<a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfHnzYEHAow]The”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfHnzYEHAow)</p>
<p>I agree with Auspicious.</p>
<p>I don’t think ‘fit’ is overrated at all. It’s something everyone hopes for. We tweak it as we need to re: finances, distance, etc. Are we going to criticize kids for doing their research and knowing what they want, or even what they’re hoping for? sheesh.
I actually agree with a lot of what xiggi posted above.</p>
<p>And – I thought this statement was a bit presumptuous</p>
<p>“Furthermore, whatever Fit represents is portrayed as ready-made; your right fit will be comfortable, easy, unchallenging, as if it were custom tailored.” </p>
<p>Says who? Moody?</p>
<p>What you wanted at 17-18 might be far different than at 21-22. Also anyone who can’t adapt a bit to about any environment will have problems later…</p>
<p>“What you wanted at 17-18 might be far different than at 21-22.”</p>
<p>It well might, and that’s one of the things they will learn in college and in life. Some will stick close along the lines of their chosen path and some won’t. </p>
<p>Does having a preference equate to not being able to adapt? </p>
<p>How far is the author willing to take his critique of ‘fit?’ If there’s a kid who wants to be an ME, are we going to give him grief for hoping to attend a school with a good engineering program? Or god forbid, one that happens to be in a city he finds attractive, or that has clubs or research opportunities he might like to partake in?</p>