<p>What was her high school experience? If she attended a large public school, it would seem that the state flagship might have a similar or better demographic. It may be very difficult integrating at another school as a transfer student after freshman year. Students have made friends, and may move off campus to apartments together where they do not mix as much with other students. I agree with the poster above that there are many disillusioned students at the top schools and there is plenty of drunken debauchery to go around; be careful what you wish for. It is, indeed, a rude awakening to realize that hard work alone is no guarantee of success, merely a prerequisite. I also believe as parents we do our children no favors making the university experience the brass ring, the pinnacle of our existence. A good life is a journey with a series of peaks and valleys. My university experience has progressively diminished in importance with each passing year; four years is a blink of the eye to an adult, an eternity to a young student.</p>
I wanted to write an update 4 years later⊠maybe this will help other parents. We had a very tough time, as a family, in my daughterâs freshman year. She became depressed and we were visiting weekly, from 3 hours away, just to provide support. We were desperate, not knowing if the decision to pull her out was better than to support her and help her finish the year and then transferâŠBut⊠gradually things got better. She got involved in physics research at the end of the first semester freshman year winning an award from NASA for women in STEM. By the summer her professor wanted her to continue her work over the summer so they could present in the fall at a conference. Which she did, earning second place for her presentation. Getting deeper involved in research meant meeting like minded students and making a few friends. Also playing the violin, first in the orchestra and then in a quartet, added more friendsâŠShe finally built herself a solid circle of people that she enjoyed spending time with, not feeling isolated any more. The next few years were packed with classes, taking over 20 credits each semester as she majored in Physics and Spanish and minored in violin performance and math, while maintaining a 4.0 GPA.! She did a lot of research, presented at national conferences and eventually earned a Goldwater Scholarship. She is now happier than ever after just completing her application season for a Physics PHD and gaining acceptance at all the schools she applied to, six of them being the top six programs in the country. We were so afraid that this will be a repeat of her college admission heartbreak, but it showed us that hard work, determination and focus will be rewarded. I wanted to put this out there for other parents who might feel that their brilliant students were unfairly overlooked for college admission at famous institutions and might have lost their chance at a great career. Actually I believe that the opportunities my daughter had at our state university could not have been more diverse! The fact that she is where she is now is because of the support and encouragement sheâs had during the college years. Once she got past the initial disappointment and managed to find a place for herself, she thrived. So my advice is to be patient, supportive and most of the time things work outâŠ
Thanks for this uplifting update! The mods usually close old threads like this, but maybe they will keep it open for a little while, so others can read your daughterâs story and be inspired.
Thank you so very much for taking the time to come back and post an update. Iâm certain this will help others. It has already helped me! Yay for your daughter! (and you!)
I strongly endorse Comment #2 in post #60 by JHS.
The reward for all of the hard work in high school is what your daughter has learned, and what capabilities she has developed, in physics, math, writing, music, and other areas. I surely understand the feeling that one could have wound up in the same place with much less work and more fun in high school and the feeling that oneâs efforts werenât really recognized. From my observations of QMPâs high school experience, there was quite a lot of work that was needed to maintain a high GPA, but that was intrinsically worthless. If I could echo JHSâs line âStop it!â I would direct it at the high school teachers who assign thatâwell, letâs be honest hereâjunk.
I also object to the characterizationâcommon on CCâthat there are thousands of students out there just as well qualified as your daughter. They must evaporate somewhere along the way in college (!!), because there are not anywhere near so many who are well qualified for graduate work, especially in physics. Not even remotely. I acknowledge that some very smart people want to leave academia after the bachelorâs degree for multiple reasons, some of them very sound. But if there were literally as many people as talented as your daughter, it would not be necessary for US universities to admit such a large proportion of foreign students to their graduate programs.
The good news I can offer is that admission to graduate programs, especially in physics, is based on academic promise. Participation in ECs is irrelevant. The research project your daughter is working on should not be considered an ECâit will be very valuable to her.
Is there a Society of Physics students where your daughter is? A Putnam Team study group in mathematics? That was one of my best social groups, back when. Or another group that is seriously focused, academically? Or a string quartet that needs a member? (She might already be in one of those.) At my campus, the Tolkien Society tended to be a good place to meet intellectually-minded fellow students (of course, that was before the films came out). There might be a âSpanish Tableâ or something similar, where the students converse in the language they are acquiring.
Another really good idea would be to encourage your daughter to go to the seminars in physics, usually given by visiting faculty and sometimes by grad students and post docs. She will not understand everything at first, but she will start to pick up ideas along the way. Also, if she talks with the grad students in the research group she has joined, she should find others with a lot in common intellectually. This past year, I just met again with one of the grad students in the research group that I had joined as a freshman. I learned a tremendous amount from him, and it was really nice to re-connect and talk about what we had done in the intervening years.
Classical languages, maybe? Linguistics? She should try courses that tend to attract intellectually oriented students. Itâs harder at the beginning, because even though your daughter is advanced, she is still taking essentially the bread-and-butter courses.
Does she have a special honors academic adviser? That person can be a really good source of suggestions about courses to try.
@QuantMech , this post is four years old. The OP updated today. Read post 81.
I guess my remark is coming about 3-4 years too late to be applicable for the OP. But I am not the least bit surprised about the grad school outcomes in physics. The physicists everywhere want students who can think (really think) and who work hard. They have not bought into the prevailing admissions dogma at the âtopâ undergrad schools.
While there is much good that can be said about highly selective liberal arts schools, an aspiring physicist is really much better served by studying a large research university (in my opinion, to be sure), even if that means getting past the early yearsâ unrewarding social (and maybe academic) scene.
@Violinmama â thank you so much for the update in post #84. Your daughter sounds amazing! Itâs wonderful that she is doing so well.
Iâd also point out the obvious: her âmisfortuneâ in losing out on admissions from prestige elite schools (Harvard, Yale, Columbia, UPenn, Princeton and JHU, from your post #13) resulted in her attending a school where she had an opportunity to excel and gain recognition early on, as well as the opportunity to pursue both her musical and academic interests. Would a professor at Harvard have taken notice of her abilities as a freshman and mentored her in the way you described? Possible, but far less likely.
Not that admission to any one of her top choices would have been a bad thing⊠but she might have had fewer opportunities to distinguish herself and excel in a more competitive environment. There is something to be said to being a big fish in a small pond â not only in the actual opportunities presented, but also in terms of the studentâs developing confidence in herself.
Iâd add that there is also value in experiencing failure and disappointment â and it is something that many high performing students donât run into early enough in life. For your daughter, that meant a very rocky emotional start to college. Thereâs an important life lesson in being able to move on and push forward past rejection, especially in the working world where many positions are far more competitive than anything encountered in the college admissions process - where it is typical that there might be 150 applicants for a single opening.
I do not know which U your daughter is at now, but all those schools she was turned down from have pretty significant party atmospheres of their own.
Re Lindagaf #85âYes, sorry, I reacted to JHSâs post #60 without reading further before posting, and also without looking at the date of the post. 