We survived the Ivy-League dropout phase!

Parents Forum
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<p>I just wanted so much to have a place to share my excitement, and I knew people here would understand...</p>

<p>So, in Spring of 2005, D got the magic gold ticket: A nearly free ride to one of the very top Ivy League schools. She felt honored, but also was ready for something other than academia. She deferred entry for a year, worked five months fulltime in a bakery to accumulate travel money, and then spent the next five months travelling in Europe and Morocco with a girlfriend, working on farms and couch-surfing.</p>

<p>She starts college in Fall 2006. Is immediately unhappy and goes downhill from there. Her reasons are subtle; she has friends, her classes are good, her room-mate acceptable, but she's deeply alienated from the whole Ivy League cultural juggernaut and doesn't see the point of it. And it gets in the way of her writing, she says. By Thanksgiving she's already saying she wants to leave. She sticks out the year, but by the end of it she's so desperately miserable that I worry about her. I've never heard her so unhappy.</p>

<p>She left school after that freshman spring semester, trailing perhaps at least one incomplete. I didn't ever see her grades. </p>

<p>I had been like any parent here in these forums, laying awake at night full of my own dreams and hopes and deadlines while she went through the application process. When she stopped going to school -- THAT school in particular! -- I struggled with so much disappointment I couldn't even see straight. Her free ticket to The Perfect College was worth more each year than our household even earns! </p>

<p>Technically she was on a leave of absence, but as that Leave entered its fourth year, I had to force myself to accept the likelihood that she'd never go back. We talked, and I made my case for school, and she rejected it. I had to listen and love her anyway. What else do you do with a self-supporting young person? Meanwhile, she worked on farms, did street performances and political activism, rode over a thousand miles on her bike, made herself successive solvent lives in Manhattan and Alaska and various other places, and wrote. I see her about twice a year, on average, for a couple weeks at a time. She is 24, and has grown up.</p>

<p>This morning she called me out of the blue from where she lives 2000 miles away and said she'd just finished all the re-entry processes with deans and financial aid offices and so forth, there are just a few financial aid pieces I have to help with, and she's headed back there in September!!! She wants to be a journalist, and now she craves the training in journalism, history, political theory, that only a college can provide. She's excited.</p>

<p>I'm swimming in joy, although this time I know that even if she didn't attend The Perfect College she would have been fine. It's just such an incredible feeling to have gone through this parental odyssey. I live far out in the country, and just needed to share my story with someone.</p>

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<p>Thanks for sharing your story. I am very glad your D had the emotional maturity and self-awareness to realize that even though she was at The Perfect College, it wasn’t perfect for her (at the time). That was probably the hardest part for her – knowing that she got in, got a full ride, and yet she wasn’t happy, so what’s wrong with this picture? Kudos to her for being able to realize it and have the strength to convey it to you. It must have been equally hard for you to let her follow her own path. Fortunately, it sounds like she has chosen to return and will really get a lot out of her studies. Good luck to all.</p>

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<p>What a wonderful story!!! Your daughter will bring to college a range of experiences and maturity and will now focus on her education…she has had the best of both situations. Congratulations to your daughter and wishing her all the best.</p>

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<p>This is one of the loveliest things I have read on CC. Congratulations on raising such a dynamic daughter.</p>

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<p>Thanks so much for sharing, what a great story! </p>

<p>Your restraint over the years is something for you to be proud of and, I believe, helped her find her way back to school. I’ve always said that if we had a crystal ball to see that the future would be okay we would lose less sleep in the present.</p>

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<p>What a great story…not only or so much because your daughter is headed back to school (though that is certainly worth celebrating), but because she followed her heart and carved out what sounds like a really interesting path for herself. As m-3 said above, she will bring to school a range of experiences that will make for a richer education and, what’s more, she’ll appreciate it and get so much more out of her undergrad years than she might have if she’d stuck with it four years ago. Congrats to you for loving her through it all. I know that if my S decided to take such a path I’d have a hard time with it…your story is a great lesson and reminder to us all…</p>

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<p>I have a similar story from my own D… not Ivy League but definitely was self-supporting while she “figured it all out.” It is so wonderful when they come full circle and made even more so when they come to it on their own. Congrats to your D… and to you for biting your tongue far more often than anyone probably realizes!</p>

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<p>You know Celebrating, students drop out for various reasons - some because they’re lazy, some because they’re intimidated, some because they’re addicted, some because they’re in over their head. And then some, like your daughter, hear a different drummer, have different goals and priorities, see a whole world out there that they want to explore. Your daughter sounds as if she had all positive reasons to take a few years off, and no negative ones. She sounds like a really neat young woman!</p>

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<p>I love stories like this! Where what might, for some, seem like the ‘worst thing in the world’ at the time you are in it, turns out to be the ‘best thing that ever happened’ when you look back. It really does sound like this was a far far better path for your daughter to have taken than the more predictable/expected one, on so many levels. Good for her, and good on you for having raised such a person (and dealing with it as you did).</p>

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<p>Thank you for sharing your story - complete justification for letting young adults own their lives and the choices they make. Congrats on raising a great kid.</p>

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<p>Love this story. It’s so difficult when you are in the trajectory of high school to realize that the kids do have options…there is no one “right” path. It’s also so easy to caught up in the rat race to college to job to marriage that you never had a point in life to just follow your heart and head. For most life is a long journey with enough time. I did my roaming albeit after my BA, but I’ll never look back and say “I wish I would have done this or that.” Kudos also to her college for giving these kids a chance to get themselves in position to succeed, even if it takes 3-4 years! I’m sure she’ll bring much contribution to the campus.</p>

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<p>Thanks so much for sharing. You were right about her belonging there, but she was right that she was not ready back then, and is now. Great story. So many like this were never get followup on.</p>

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<p>Thank you all for your kind words; I’m warmed by the community here on CC. </p>

<p>It’s true, as some of the comments say, that the whole college application process has become so complex and anxiety-ridden – a deafening drumbeat of imperatives – that we lose track of what we know about real lives: that they are improvised, fluid, subject to twists and turns we can’t foresee.</p>

<p>And, yes, Modadunn, you’ve been there yourself and you’re so right about biting my tongue. There were times it got pretty sore from all that biting! </p>

<p>I’m also humbly grateful to the college that it allows such lengthy Leaves of Absence. Many schools don’t offer this option, and for some students it makes all the difference.</p>

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<p>Wonderful, wonderful story, with an ending that is also a beginning, and a great one! Thank you for letting us share it!!</p>

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<p>Thank you for sharing her wonderful story with us. What a great daughter.</p>

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<p>This is a great story. You must have the wisdom of Soloman and the patience of a … I don’t know what. The last four years must have been difficult for you. These tippy top schools are hard to get into but once you are there they will do everything they can to help you succeed.</p>

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<p>What a wonderful, wonderful story. And from reading your posts, I’d say that your daughter got her writing ability from you. I absolutely love this from your last post:</p>

<p>" the whole college application process has become so complex and anxiety-ridden – a deafening drumbeat of imperatives – that we lose track of what we know about real lives: that they are improvised, fluid, subject to twists and turns we can’t foresee."</p>

<p>As I’ve posted in a few other threads, our son left his dream school (not an Ivy) after one year because his girlfriend was pregnant. They got married, had a beautiful baby and are finding their way on their own. (Fortunately for me, they are 10 minutes, not 2,000 miles, away.) I pray one day he will finish his degree but that will be his decision to make in his own time.</p>

<p>Faith is being sure of what we hope for; certain of what we cannot see.</p>

<p>Congratulations to you and your daughter.</p>

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<p>Celebrating, great story. Congratulations. The best of luck to you and your daughter.</p>

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<p>Thanks for sharing! I never know what my kids are gonna do next but I hope that they will all achieve the maturity of your child. She’ll likely gain much more from college now than she would have a few years back.</p>

<p>Congrats!</p>

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<p>I love your story and am glad you shared the journey with us. Congratulations and good luck to her.</p>