<p>It must be going around.
I never went off to college, but I know that more than a few my age attended schools without previously having set foot on campus, let alone puruse video tours of the dorms & football stadiums.</p>
<p>Not to say I think we should return to the stone(d) age, ;) but there is great value in learning to adapt to the situation. Considering that many students only make their choice after carefully weighing out criteria and talking to their peers about it for weeks, it seems wasteful to chuck that planning when the idea of college doesnt match up with what they perceive as the reality. </p>
<p>Transitions are hard. Even when they have been eagerly anticipated. Perhaps * especially* when they have been eagerly anticipated because the bar is then set high.</p>
<p>We may want things to be effortless for our kids, but is that really best for them in the long run?
Learning about yourself & knowing you can survive in difficult circumstances will pay off. ( acknowledging that attending one college rather than another is a first world problem, if I ever saw one). I also think changing your mind quickly, is more likely to make you doubt your own judgement, rather than ease your mind.
Hold back for a bit, don't allow giving up to be an option before you have given yourself a chance.
"The Grass is always greener", is not just a pithy slogan..</p>
<p>Well said! It often takes 6 months or so to adapt to a place to the point one feels comfortable more often than uncomfortable. And one should not expect to form deep relationships in less than that time either. So much can change so quickly, that it seems unwise to decide to transfer after only a few weeks.</p>
<p>As the mom of a formerly extremely homesick freshman, I agree with you. But I’ll also say that trying to make a sobbing 18-year-old understand this wisdom is easier said than done.</p>
<p>Im a big advocate of a gap year. Doing something not connected with a classroom.
Both my kids took a gap year, youngest didn’t even reapply to colleges but just asked the schools to hold a place, which they did. Oldest added a school during her gap year, which was an academic & financial stretch- but as they met 100% of need it worked out.( taking a gap year was a newer thing when she first applied & so schools asked her to reapply)
They grew up alot during their year, which helped them to get more out of the school when they finally arrived on campus.</p>
<p>Youngest especially had hoped for a different setting, but she reasoned that it was only a short time for an undergrad degree ( relatively) & the price was right.
It did take longer for her to acclimate than we hoped, but in the long run it has proven to be a better fit than we could have dreamed- or more probably, she found that the things that were disappointing, were fewer than the things that she grew to really appreciate.
Working two retail jobs for six months in order to fund a five month volunteer vacation in a developing country also helped her perspective.
When you come across children who are maimed by their parents to increase their draw as a beggar, you appreciate your own good fortune more & possibly even feel a responsibility not to dismiss your own advantages casually.</p>
<p>I desperately wanted to leave our state flagship U ASAP. I couldn’t find/meet my tribe or peers. It was a largely commuter campus and the sorority I tried first semester was a disaster. I finally got pretty active in two honor societies, just before I was accepted and went on an exchange. I think I may have been able to make things work by getting more involved with the honor society new friends but have no regrets about transferring. </p>
<p>I heartily agree they it takes time to find your way around any new place and figure out where you fit best. When I transferred, initially, I found a nice group of freshmen to hang out with. That imploded after a few months and I decided to find a new group and get involved in other activities, which I started upon returning from winter break. </p>
<p>Much easier to force yourself to grow where planted if you “pit your mind to it.”</p>
<p>Our experience was the opposite. S moved into College A, the one he selected for various reasons, on a Friday. By Sunday, he was seriously considering transferring and by the end of that first week, he was sure he was transferring. Although we had visited the school many times, there were still things that were not discovered until he actually moved in. And they were deal breakers.</p>
<p>I think he would have left right then, but we were able to talk him into sticking it out for the first semester (me thinking maybe he might change his mind with time and find a way around the deal breakers). Plus we hoped he could at least pick up the credits to transfer so he didn’t lose a whole semester. So he put the wheels in motion and did the paperwork for the transfer to college B, which had accepted him previously as an incoming freshman. He started at college B in the spring semester, and it was absolutely the right thing for him. He was happy, he thrived, he had a great group of friends (and they even forgot that he was the “new” kid because he fit in so seamlessly), and he graduated on time.</p>
<p>So it really depends on the situation and the reasons for wanting to transfer. For him it was the right thing and it was good that he didn’t wait the full year.</p>
<p>Agree. D is a freshman and went though some intense feelings of homesickness. Transferring even to a local school doesn’t resolve those feelings because I firmly believe it is the transition that is hard. Even kids who stay home feel this way (at least here) because all their friends have left. I think as parents we just need to acknowledge how they feel Understand it is an inevitable emotion tied to this time in their life. It doesn’t make handling those teary phone calls any easier. </p>
<p>Geary phone calls any easier though does it.</p>
<p>The college years were not my happiest, and at first it was unclear how much of the discontent was due to not finding as many good friends on campus as I had hoped. But after graduation, when I moved to first one new city for a year, and then to another for 2 years, I saw that my inner struggles were following me. It was about me, not the place.</p>
<p>Beware also of “transfer fever”, when a student who is happy with his college choice begins to question it when other students are talking about transferring.</p>
<p>It IS an important time of your life, but that said, I think we sometimes make too much of it and over analyze the entire process. After pouring so much into high school achievement, writing the perfect essay and finding the perfect “fit” the inevitable disappointments of college life seem to take on outsized importance. There are many totally valid reasons for transfer, but I think it’s important for parents to prepare their kids for bouts of depression, disappointment and unhappiness as these are very normal parts of every phase of life and dealing with them successfully is a big part of living a good and content life. Lou Holtz said life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you deal with it.</p>
<p>I went to a great, selective, top rated college. When I came home for Thanksgiving, I did not want to go back. I called my best friend and said I would just transfer to Local U to be with all my friends. He said, “Don’t do it! We all want to be where you are!” And that really helped me stick it out.</p>
<p>When I was at the airport after getting my second child set at college (drove up with a one way rental, and then flew home) there was a couple so distraught. They’d left their DD there crying and wailing and ever so unhappy. After one day there, she wanted to go back home. Her friends all went to more local schools and her boyfriend was back home too. It was really a tough situation. I never did find out if she stuck it out for the semester.</p>
<p>Two friends I made my first year at college transferred out. They hated it there at the onset and never changed their minds. Some did just leave, even back then, 40 years ago, so this is not new. Some did fill out the transfer papers and then decided to stay even when accepted (my nephew did that after his freshman year a couple of years ago). So none of this is new. Don’t know what to say. Like to tell them to just stick it out the year and semester, focus on the schoolwork and doing well so that they have more options. But for some, the option they want to take is just going local.</p>
<p>My son who put his nose up to staying local despite a free tuition offer from a college to do so, did see the advantages of it when he came home freshman and sophomore years. He’s very shy, and it’s difficult for him to make friends, so a larg out of state publice where he didn’t know but a handful of people, if that, was a rough choice for him socially. He saw a lot of his friends he knew from when he in elementary school enjoying their lives locally and doing just fine where he was pounding salt in a strange area without knowing anyone, everything being new and feeling very much alone and like an outsider. So there are some benefits to staying in a social comfrot zone. He’s finaly making inroads this junior year, but with so many kids living within an hour or in clusters with each other, at his schools, he is in the miniority, though in a school that size there are many kids in his situation. Had he wanted to transfer enough to do the paper work and apps, I would have supported him.</p>
<p>One of the kindest things older students told my kids, “I wanted to transfer within weeks of arriving at my school, I even had all the paperwork ready to go, give it a chance. By the time spring rolls around you’ll be glad you did. Take all the nervous energy and get involved on campus.”</p>
<p>My kids were told this by numerous college friends. It really helped my kid adapt. She was expecting to be uncomfortable, expecting to work hard at finding a group or two, finding groups to become involved.</p>
<p>Every situation and student is different. My only advice is to really, really give it a go. Then if it’s still not a good fit, transfer!!</p>
<p>D decided about midway through semester 1 that she needed to transfer. She had started school undecided about her major, but with a laundry list of possibilities. Over the course of her first semester, she recognized that she <em>really</em> wanted to major in some form of music performance and her voice teacher at that school was highly supportive of her decision. While her school offered a music major, the program was quite weak. She fully intended to complete the year, and she spent winter break researching schools, applying, and scheduling auditions. (She didn’t end up completing the year, but only because she had medical issues from a car accident about halfway through the second semester.)</p>
<p>Now she wishes her conservatory could be transplanted to her original university She <em>loves</em> the conservatory, but is not so thrilled with the overall school. But she does not regret her decision – it’s all a matter of trade-offs.</p>
<p>It looks like I have one of those kids. Never in a million years would I have thought this kid would have any problems making friends. He says he’s only been able to find two kids that don’t drink, which is a big issue to him.</p>
<p>I’m following abasket’s advice, as her son went through this three years ago. (There’s a long thread somewhere on this board. ) Her son stuck it out and is a senior. She advised that you look at the situation in increments. The little goals are making it to Thanksgiving break, end-of-semester break, etc. Eventually they’ll meet some nice kids and forget about transferring.</p>
<p>During my D’s junior and senior years of high school, she regularly emailed friends a year or two older who were freshmen in a number of colleges, especially at the beginning of the school year. They were happy to find out news from home, especially the EC which was the connection for most of them. They told her very honestly about their struggles. They wrote her about the “bad stuff”–the roommate who came in drunk 4 nights a week, the classes they were closed out of , the ECs they tried for and were rejected by, their loneliness. Some were miserable. By Thanksgiving, almost all had adjusted and when they came home were telling their younger friends how “awesome” college was.</p>
<p>I think that experience was invaluable and eliminated the expectation that college would be Nirvana from the get-go.</p>
<p>I think social media and the connection these kids have with their high school friends while still at college has led many of these students to feel like they are missing out on something and that the grass is greener at some other school.</p>
<p>Remember the old days when we went away to college and caught up with our old high school friends during thanksgiving break?</p>
<p>Mnm111, you are ever so right! When my son was sitting lonely away at college and got on his computer, he could see all of the kids at home and other places having a great time. Of course, the only ones posting were those having a great time to post. You don’t show yourself not doing anything–it’s the fun thngs you post.</p>
<p>mnm111, I also think you’re spot-on about the role of technology in drawing out the painful separation from HS friends. It also enables the student to keep their parents fully informed about their misery, in real time. And because they have so many people to talk to about how unhappy they are, I think it keeps them immersed in it for much longer than necessary.</p>
<p>Both of my kids transferred after freshman year. D knew her school was not for her very early on. It was a rough year, but she made it through. She was absolutely right to transfer where she did, and it was a good experience for her. Socially, things never quite clicked in college … but she found her niche in a new city this past year & is very happy. She grew up in the lakes area of Michigan, which may have prepared her to handle the winding roads! S is another story - he changed schools because he decided not to pursue a particular program. The first school was great for his original program but not for the degree he decided to pursue. There are many reasons for transferring.</p>
She <em>loves</em> the conservatory, but is not so thrilled with the overall school. But she does not regret her decision – it’s all a matter of trade-offs.</p>