<p>Does anyone have any stories on when someone's top choice ends up being a disappointment? I'm not really worried this will happen to me, but I'm just curious to see how this could happen.</p>
<p>I wasn’t admitted to my top choice top school for undergrad, wound up going there for grad school and couldn’t be happier I didn’t go here for undergrad.</p>
<p>Not quite the story you’re looking for, but somewhat similar.</p>
<p>Being surrounded by the best and brightest can be intimidating. It can be hard to make your little light shine bright enough to be noticed or appreciated. You apply for a campus job, feeling you have great summer work experience to prepare you for the position. But meanwhile the applicant waiting next to you founded and ran his own company. You are recuited to play on a team, and are a very good athlete. However, the jock training next to you won an international youth championship and will be going to the Olympic trials. After being an academic superstar in high school, you study your brains out at Elite U but are still failing a class. This is not at all fun, especially knowing your high school buddies are having a blast and getting A’s at Podunk U. And that D on your transcript just shot to h*** your chances of med school admissions, by the way.</p>
<p>No longer being the smartest kid in the room can be a tough adjustment. Generally not a problem if you end up someplace you really, really wanted to be because, having visited, you “just knew” it would fit well (and not because US News said it should be your first choice).</p>
<p>I went to an academic summer program where many people have, to my surprise, gotten into top schools like Princeton, Swarthmore, Duke, etc. I didn’t feel that discouraged at all. In fact, I was a bit disappointed about the lack of intellectual curiosity there, although in retrospect I probably should’ve spent more time getting to know other people. (Being at quiz bowl camp was a different story though) So I think that’s my biggest fear about going to a top school.</p>
<p>Happened to us:</p>
<p>It had nothing to do with not being one of the smarter kids in the classroom (he still was).
It had nothing to do with being intimidated (he wasn’t).
After being at his top choice school and living on the campus, he quickly realized it wasn’t what he had hoped for in terms of the campus environment. He found the student body to be very clique (?spelling), stuck up, and the campus boring. He had no interest in drinking until being hauled off to the local hospital on the weekends and other then this activity, nothing much was available to do on campus. He transferred from this particular private top tier school to what most CCers would consider a non-impressive instate public. He was at the top of the crop when he left the private and graduated at the top of the crop at his transfer school. He went on to his top choice grad program at a different college and finished the program at the top of the crop again. </p>
<p>Don’t fear going away to your dream school. If you end up not liking it, simply transfer to another college. It happens more than you think and the reason isn’t always because one can’t keep up academically. Sometimes, it’s the desire for a different type of campus environment and student population.</p>
<p>We’ve known kids who had this problem, and it’s been my opinion that the problem generally wasn’t that they went to a selective top school, but that there was something about THAT school that wasn’t a good fit.</p>
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<p>The other thing to remember is that these schools aren’t perfect paradises where chocolate flows from the fountains, no one has a bad hair day, and you flit from engaging discussions with professors to fun times with friends and rest your head on a bed of lilies. There’s no place that EVERYONE is guaranteed to like / love.</p>
<p>This is going to sound simplistic, but in my view, for many, if you are lucky enough to make a couple good friends in college, and get a girlfriend, you will probably be reasonably happy at the college you go to. But if that doesn’t happen, (and that could be because of pure chance), then you might not like going to that college that much.</p>
<p>Also, visiting the college once or twice, and getting a gut feeling that you will like the college, is no assurance that you will actually like it when you attend.</p>
<p>Life is not that simple.</p>
<p>In the end, college, to a large extent, is what you make of it.</p>
<p>OP: by "top school " do you mean “highly regarded” or students’ “first choice?” </p>
<p>Most of the comments so far are about the former</p>
<p>My son was very unhappy with his school the first year and did transfer applications. He was disappointed in the intellectual environment and the quality of the professors/TAs. He ultimately decided to stay, and changed a few things for himself. He got into higher level courses (at the expense of leaving some required courses until senior year…) and created the environment he wanted. He graduated in 2010 and says he does think it was a good experience and that much of what he learned was through contacts that he met outside the classroom.</p>
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<p>It can be even simpler than that.</p>
<p>If you are lucky enough to get a compatible roommate and a room in the middle of the corridor in your freshman dorm, where lots of people stop by and chat when you leave your door open, you will probably be reasonably happy. If you get a roommate whom you can’t get along with, in a room at the end of the corridor where nobody ever walks by, you’re going to have a much tougher time.</p>
<p>Post #9 by floridadad55 is so true.</p>
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<p>A friend’s D was accepted to a couple of “top” (as in highly regarded) northeastern universities, and picked one over the other because it seemed much friendlier, on her campus visit. The student subsequently spent an academically successful but socially rather lonely four years there. She just never found good friends.</p>
<p>The young woman is now in grad school in the midwest, has found a great boyfriend (fellow grad student) and is reportedly immensely happier with life than when she was an undergrad.</p>
<p>This person’s experience illustrates floridadad’s claims, and I think also illustrates that life goes on - it’s possible to survive a less-than-optimal social experience at college, but go on to thrive somewhere else. This tale was quite influential with my D, who resisted campus visits before applying. She likes to visit after getting an offer, and is cautious about reading too much into her impressions of campus “vibe.”</p>
<p>By posting in the parents forum you are going to get the parents opinion/interpretation/second hand information as to why a student was supposedly unhappy at their school. Perhaps posting in the college life forum might get more direct responses. Just sayin’</p>
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<p>This would be my experience.</p>
<p>Luckily, there was another set of incompatible roommates on our floor so a switch occurred after first semester. Things went better for all involved after that.</p>
<p>Anyone who wants to read about disappointed students at top colleges/universities should go read the posts at that other web-site which features **************, which you can probably easily access by googling “college students review”. There are plenty of rants from students. Read the Harvard and the Notre Dame posts; plenty of unhappy students and most (but not all) posts read as sincere disappointment rather than trolls.</p>
<p>Actually I just goggled “students review” and found the site. It’s not *******.</p>