<p>Dealing with the first taste of independence often leads to dissapointment. Some students forget why they are in college to begin with. Perception does not always translate into reality.</p>
<p>Transferring should probably be done more often. You're paying a lot
of money- you ought to get what you want. While I'm all for tenacity
being a virtue in say, marriage, and mountain climbing, it seems the
process of educating oneself ought to be viewed more fluidly.</p>
<p>Choosing a college is a lot more like renting an apartment than it is
like buying a family estate. Except for the cost, that is.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I don't think parents do a good job of really talking to their kids about what college is like.
[/quote]
I don't think parents can. College is a very different animal today than it was when I went to college. "Fit" wasn't nearly as important then as it is now. Fitness centers? How's the food? What are the dorms like? I asked none of those questions; I knew (1) there wasn't one; (2) lousy; (3) cinderblock cells.</p>
<p>Anything that I knew is 30 years out of date. All you can do is tell the kid, "This is not only where you're going to study, it's where you're going to live for the next 4 years. Check out the neighborhood."</p>
<p>i guess i kinda view transferring like divorce, but not as serious of course...lol. my mom said that when she was in college, transferring just wasn't that much of an option. you went to a school, you stuck it out, etc. now, thanksfully, transferring is almost a piece of cake. you don't like a school so much, you leave. alot of times it works out for the best.</p>
<p>Haha... it did feel like I "divorced" Smith... :) Even I head someone describe her relationship to her school as "my martial relations with X school..."</p>
<p>My son came very close to transferring out of his Ivy. It did not meet his expectations freshman year and he felt that he had made the wrong choice. It is not easy to get into some schools as a transfer student. He got one acceptance that he strongly considered (a more intellectual school with much less of a frat presence), and a couple that he felt weren't "good enough". At the end of the day, he figured out what he wanted out of his college and changed some things for himself so that he could get it. He moved off campus (after boarding schoo he is really over dorm life) and talked his way into some upper level seminar courses. He also changed his major. It has all worked for him.</p>
<p>It is so hard to know what college life at a particular school is like until you're there. There is no way you could know ahead of time what the other kids you meet are going to be like and whether you will find a great social group you click with, get great classes with professors that inspire you, have a perfectly suited rooommate or any number of contributing factors to a school's rightness for you. Chances are you may be dissapointed by one or all of these possibilities. That is why transferring is becoming so common. </p>
<p>And sometimes it is really the wrong fit choice of school. What looks good on an afternoon visit, may be very different once you're living there.</p>
<p>I'd like to know the "success" rate of transfers. Are they happier and doing better?</p>