Many of my daughter’s high school friends had a bad roommate experience freshman year. It makes the transition to college harder. Having the local family move away is hard too. As many have suggested, encourage her to seek a counselor at school, stick it out for the rest of the year, and try some things to meet people. It’s hard to reach out when you’ve had a rough start but it can really make a difference. The kid of our acquaintance who had a similarly terrible roommate experience and ended the first semester discouraged and in a single is now a happy sophomore with a decent roommate and many friends. My daughter also went far away to college. She did okay but there were tears at winter break and while she want back willingly, it was hard for her. She had a fantastic roommate, but still, the social aspect has been much better second year. More involved on campus, has a job as a peer tutor (great way to meet other students and your D has the grades to qualify for a job like that), and more confident in general. Encourage your daughter to be honest with herself in her assessment of the first semester. What things went well? Of what went badly, what can she do differently? What was just bad bad not her fault? What are her options to make this great school she’s at more of a home to her? There’s time yet for things to get a lot better before she has to commit to transferring.
I agree with those who say to finish out the year. Schools don’t want to admit someone who looks like they make impulsive decisions. S was ambivalent after his first semester - and part of the problem was freshman classmates who were bad-mouthing their first semester experience and talking of transferring, leading him to doubt that he’d made the right choice. A student who raises the specter of transferring is often shunned by those who are struggling to make it work - they just don’t want the cognitive dissonence. Remind your daughter that if she is unhappy, she needs to keep that close to her vest around other students so she doesn’t end up being shunned too. (Sharing those negative feelings with a counselor and the RA in her dorm is the right thing to do.)
She also needs to find connection with some faculty. I know she’s doing well academically, but office hours are absolutely not just for people who are struggling. They are also for the kids who are passionate about their subjects and want to know more, discuss some of the points that aren’t covered in class but appear in the readings, learn about related research, etc…This is how faculty become mentors and friends to students.
Lastly, is she getting enough sleep and exercise? It’s easy to feel bad about yourself and your situation, especially with an unhappy room-mate situation, if you are sleeping poorly and feeling sluggish. You can still have excellent grades by slogging away - but if you aren’t good to yourself, that neglect can express itself emotionally.
I wouldn’t object to a transfer but I would encourage her to finish out the school year.
Hang in there; it’s tough when our young adults are unhappy.
I also would encourage her to finish the full year…and do transfer applications for fall.
Also, she needs to leave her door open in her single room when she would welcome company.
Get a part time job…up to 10 hours a week should be OK.
Join some clubs, go to the fitness center and work out everyday, find some group to become part of. Does she sing? Of so, how about a church choir? How about volunteering someplace like a soup kitchen?
@BoulderBebe I think there are a few things that haven’t been fully fleshed out here. One thing that’s not been fully fleshed out on this thread is that teenagers (including those at the very end of their teenage years) do not handle life circumstances the same way adults do. Problems that you would consider trivial are far more frustrating to her because she hasn’t dealt with them before. Difficulty adjusting to college social life seems like a life-ending problem, but it can be fixed without her transferring.
She got a 3.9. She felt overwhelmed by her classes because she put in the extra effort necessary to get good grades. Proper time management and stress management will definitely help her, and she’ll at least get better at the former now that she knows what to expect in her classes. As for stress management, the best advice you can give would be to integrate de-stressing activities into her schedule. She can still manage a challenging courseload while taking time to relax or do something fun.
She’s been there for fewer than three months. She’ll have plenty of time to make friends, but she isn’t aware of that because of my first paragraph.
One thing to keep in mind is not many young kids get to choose where they go to K-12? They go to their town’s public school and most kids do seem to make it through. At every school there are nerds, partiers, conservatives, liberals, wealthy, poor…students. Go find them.
I think she needs a single room next quarter. That may resolve all issues and make her love her college again. Also it’s probably the cheapest solution.
So sorry- no- you could not have anticipated this. My main concern here is it unhappiness/ adjustment issues or something more- depression. Did something happen to her this semester that she hasn’t discussed? I would have her see a counselor at school right away. In a perfect world she would finish out the year and either be happy or know she wants to transfer. However, it’s not a perfect world and I would put the priority on her mental health.
The OP says she has a single room now, and is lonely. I was thinking, I bet her friends who are loving college aren’t pulling 3.9s at respected institutions, either.
If we’re talking about Northwestern, I know at least three kids who had similar experiences there during the first year. It did get better for them - not sure what is is about freshman year there. I would not force her to stay if she is miserable, but let’s see how next quarter goes. If it’s not the right school for her, she will have her choice of transfer opportunities with the grades she is getting. Is she interested in Greek Life at all? For two of the kids who had this issue, Greek Life made the difference for them. The third ended up transferring.
Posters who are commenting about this student leaving at spring break should remember that she is at a school with quarters. If she left after spring break, she would not be withdrawing from any classes. Rather, she would just have finished up winter quarter. I’d suggest that the OP tell her daughter that if she is still feeling the same at spring break and wants to withdraw, she can do so. With her excellent grades, she would be a good transfer candidate.
Something to consider, if you agree with her that she can leave in May at the end of the year, she may begin looking at schools for transfer. She may start looking forward to it. And it may relieve the pressure and unhappiness. Maybe even enough that she may enjoy herself more there. Best case, she never leaves. Worst case, she is less stressed out and begins her transition early.
@boulderbebe Any updates? Is any of this helpful?
@GraniteStateMom “Chicago is a great school … Fun has not died there, it’s just a vicious rumor.” lol
Lots of good comments. I’ll toss another idea out there.
People in the north, spending lots of time inside, who are sensitive to the shorter day lengths, might see themselves crumble as the Fall semester progresses and the day light rapidly shortens. Michael Terman from Columbia U is the Board of Directors for the non-profit Center for Environmental Therapeutics and CET’s website has a lot of good info on circadian rhythm disorders.
The site includes a tab to purchase CET-approved products, such as a light box. I understand a light box might be difficult to lug around or there might be some embarrassment for a college student to be using one. There is a Smart Lamp Dawn Simulator that is much more low-key, and might still help, in addition to getting outside and exposing oneself to unfiltered sunlight.
For years, I thought it was school that was crushing me, then the stress of the holidays taking a toll. I was clearly so much happier during the summer months, I just blamed it all on school. It took me until my 40s to realize it wasn’t normal to feel sleepy & sluggish all winter, having to prod myself to be productive and fighting off low mood.
Staring into brightly lit devices (iPhones, computers) late into the night, also disrupts our circadian rhythm.
Good luck to your daughter! I hope she sticks it out until the end of the year and finds her people & thrives.
Will just add you need to watch transfer application deadlines - they are approaching, some are Feb 1, some have already happened. Perhaps filling out the common app or other applications again for transfer (depending on school) will offer her time for reflection or at least give her hope that something can change, and maybe between now and processing time, things will settle where she is. If not, she has applications in and could be prepared to change. Many, many kids transfer and of those that I know that did (just a few), they were are all happier at their new schools. They had just picked a bad fit. They were truly unhappy where they were. As said, it would be great to finish these quarters if she can without it being overly harmful to her, and your gut knows when it has reached that point.
Many times it seems a bad room mate can really mess up the college experience. I don’t think it is everything, but it seems to be a strong start to a downward spiral. I appreciate schools that do a great job matching by using profiles or creating learning communities, versus random placing or little effort that others use.
I agree that not every college works for every kiddo, but I also know there are kids that have great difficulty socializing and finding and making friends. If this is the case it’s a crap shoot whether another place is going to be “better” socially or not. Plus it can take 3-6 months to find real friends when you drop into a new environment. If I were the parent I would have her finish out the academic year while perhaps putting in some transfer applications to places that were considered in the first round where the fit might be better. If it were my kiddo I’d let my gut talk, too, in terms of whether counseling would help or not. Could be nothing wrong…just a poor fit with the campus population. Kids do transfer all the time after freshman year especially from small colleges just because the fit is wrong. It’s why I, unlike some others on these forums, do think fit is a definite factor in college success. Birds of a feather tend to flock together and kids don’t go through huge transformation personality wise when they arrive on college campuses. I saw this even decades ago at my small college…there were always a few kids that would make you wonder why they chose the college because they were truly very different from the general campus populations and they were generally gone after freshman year. The most noticeable was a southern beauty queen…dropped into a college in the early seventies “up north” where not shaving your legs and armpits was not unusual and make-up of any kind was non-existent 
needless to say she, a very nice and obviously very beautiful person by the way, left after one semester but I have every belief she found her tribe at a new place. You can be different…but not quirky different in the sense we generally use…and still not “fit.”
A kid doing well academically but miserable socially is much closer to finding “her peeps” than the reverse. The answer is likely to get out of her room, the library and the lab and get a job on campus (coffee bar?) or join a demanding EC (college newspaper) or get involved in the community (tutoring program for local kids where the other tutors are students from your own university). It will take some measure of courage to “put herself out there”, but being in a place where she is thriving intellectually is the first battle. The second step takes longer.
And as pointed out upthread- the social media message that college is one long beer pong party with dozens of friends doesn’t help a kid who is having trouble adjusting socially. Encourage your D to take a break from seeing what her HS friends are up to and concentrate on her new life for a couple of weeks.
My nephew was here this morning and I talked to him about this. He’s a sophomore at CU and can name at least 10 kids from his high school or youth sports teams, friend who started somewhere else and transferred to CU after a semester or a year at another school. Some were unhappy, some just realized they didn’t want to be 2 or 4 or 6 hours away from their friends who are all having a great time at CU. A few even decided it wasn’t worth it financially so pay for another school when CU (or CSU) is cheaper. One friend goes to DU and he wants to transfer to CU or another school because DU is actually closer to his home than their hs was, and he sees all his friends in Boulder having a great time.
My niece, who is 3 years old, experienced the same thing among her friends. She went to USD and knew at least 15 kids before she even started, had a BFF as a roommate, but still struggled a little her first year and considered transferring to CU. Many of her friends did, from Alabama and U Chicago and other east coast schols.
Local kids like CU. I think OP’S daughter is pretty typical of this area.
Your niece must be very, very smart @twoinanddone!!!
If your daughter transfers to CU, will it be affordable? In general, transfers don’t get the best aid. Have you looked into that before she gets her hopes up on transferring?