My older daughter wasn’t even remotely excited about college until she attended freshman orientation.
I have a rising junior. He has visited zero colleges. If I ask him anything about college, potential major, etc., I get a blank stare or he asks me a question in return like "what is “liberal arts” or "what schools are in Virginia (home state), or “what do engineers even do?” I can’t tell if he is being obtuse on purpose, but it’s like talking to the dog about college. It is frustrating that he’s not more interested - I would have been in heaven if I had access to the Internet and all the college info back in 1989 when I was applying. But I can’t really be annoyed with him (yet).
I am completely confident that he’ll find a school that’s a good fit and have a reasonable list of schools to apply to this time next year.
A lot of kids can do well at a variety of schools. It might be unproductive to try to find magical perfect schools to fall in love with. My S is a “bloom where you are planted” kind of kid. We did think he would do better in a smaller environment so we steered him that way. I think he could have been happy at a number of schools.
That is probably true of most students. Getting into the mindset of finding the perfect college can lead to a big letdown if that college does not admit the student or is too expensive. But if the student has lots of suitable colleges which are affordable and include those which are safe for admission, then college admissions will be much less stressful.
This kind of indifference or negativity can be related to many things, beyond the ingratitude it can feel like. Choosing something new with real world consequences and a huge price tag can be overwhelming. Perhaps better to ally one’s fears by deciding that you may not even want X college anyways; before they can reject you or be deemed unaffordable.
With the advantage of hindsight, it seems that the most helpful thing was to use what we knew about how each kid handled transitions.Out of all the angst can come not only a careful college search, but also a kid who knows him or herself better and eventually, parents who can exhale.
@eh1234 , your post made me laugh. I am always more surprised by kids who say they want to be engineers, or who want to study communications, or international relations. How do kids know they want to study those things? Who is telling them about those majors? What exactly is involved in those majors? Even I am not sure!
My college D was pretty invested in the process. My son clearly is not, though we have had quite a few conversations about it. I marked pages in a guide book with post it notes for colleges I thought he might be interested in. He barely picked the book up. I am now compiling a literal spreadsheet of ratings on a scale of 1-5 of qualities I think are important to him. (Now admittedly, I actually find this fun, and given how active I am on CC, it is fair to surmise that I am probably doing this more for me than for him.) The plan is that I will then be able to rank these colleges and he will be able to easily see why the college is on the list. Then, when the list is a manageable size, he will (hopefully) do some research of his own.
Your post brings up an interesting point though. We have saved equal amounts of money for our kids’ education. Kid #1 is full-pay at her college. She worked extremely hard and earned it. Kid #2 is a good student, but is not “earning it.” While he definitely has some ideas about college, he doesn’t have true interest. We are now starting to feel reluctant to pay the same kind of money for his education that we pay for hers, which makes us feel a bit guilty. But I feel like you have a very good point, OP. If he isn’t that bothered, should we pay as much as possible? Seems kind of crazy.
My 17 year old is working her tail off at her part time job. And she is absolutely convinced that she wants to go away to school. I pretty much dragged her to see one in January, and she liked it. A second I dragged her to in June was an absolute NO before the tour even started-- we made our excuses and came home.
And that’s it. She has a rough draft of an essay, thanks to an assignment from a great Junior year English teacher. But it needs editing, and that hasn’t been done. Every time I bring up the idea of touring a school, the arms are folded and she gets “the look.” Forget about the mention of SAT prep.
I think she has a bit of a Peter Pan complex-- she’s afraid that looking at colleges will mean she’s an adult, and that kind of kicks her anxiety into gear.
And, like Lindagaf, I love the process. Any sort of a project is right up my alley. I have a whole set of schools she should be looking at all ready for her.
But the reality is that the more I nag, the more we argue. So I’m not going to nag this summer.
There are 2 SUNY schools that are pretty close to each other that she should look at (Delhi and Oneonta). Her odds are far better at Delhi unless her SATs improve, but I would like her to see both. So I think that’s where I’ll focus my “suggestions” for the summer. If I can get her to go for a second tour, great. And if she wants to bring a friend along, fine-- an overnight at a hotel isn’t significantly more expensive if she brings a friend.
She isn't excited about any school anywhere. Just whats the endgame..............be in medicine or be a doctor etc ... I feel like what is the point. If you don't care I don't care you can go wherever gives you aid or the state public and good luck. <<
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since your top 2 publics are Texas and TAMU, I really don’t see what the problem is.
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The whole process of finding the perfect school she literally could care less. Has seen enough schools that you would think one of them would "Wow her", but she always finds a negative.....her nature I suppose. <<
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Maybe she realizes that “the perfect school” does not exist and doesn’t want to go on a wild goose chase after it.
just back off. it could be that you are being too intrusive and it is causing her to react negatively to the whole college search. maybe she would be more excited if she had a sense of agency and control over the situation, rather than having the perception that you are hijacking the process.
again, it seems like she’s OK going to Texas or TAMU. I just don’t see the problem. she goes to a great school at a good cost and gets a great education for a great value. am i missing something here?
just have her apply to Texas and TAMU. maybe throw in Texas Tech, UT Dallas, and Houston if you want. and then tell her if she wants to add any schools to the list, it’s up to her to research them and let you know.
but really, just back off and leave her alone for a while. it could be that your are stressing out so much about it that she is sick of dealing with it all.
S is pre-vet. When he was an upcoming Jr. we started visiting colleges and he was totally unimpressed with anything. He felt it was too early to be looking but we had to due to time constraints and school rules about taking off. By the time he was a rising Sr. he was very interested and even liked some of the schools he was unimpressed with his Jr. year. The difference was night and day. We are in TX too but he just didn’t like the TX schools, particularly A&M, so ended up going OOS but with very good merit scholarships and his credentials were similar to your D’s but lots of pre-vet related ECs.
D is two years post high school. She just finished her first college class at a CC and is doing her second now. No clue what she wants to do. She is thinking about taking 12 or 13 hours this fall, quitting her full-time job and getting a part time one. I don’t really think she is ready. She says she wants to go away to college next year but won’t research, visit or take any real interest in the process. For this child we are not giving her OOS options. Small LACs in state are the only options that would even possibly work for her. Her lack of interest in ANYTHING other than boys drives me nuts!
I am finding that it’s easy to be pushy with the 2nd kid going through the process - I wasn’t bugging my older child about college prior to junior year (she did some college visits that summer, but only because we happened to be on the west coast and weren’t likely to return there for visits). She took her tests in winter/spring of junior year, but I’m encouraging S19 to take his in October. I’m going to try to back off until after his scores come back, but it is a little overwhelming trying to come up with even a preliminary list when you’re dealing with such a blank slate!
The process is fun for me, but it’s a complete mystery to him, and he (understandably) has other things he would rather be doing with his time for now.
It could be worse. Many kids gravitate towards the picture-perfect uber-expensive schools and are unwilling to consider pragmatic, quality, in-state options that are affordable!
As others have said, I’d back off for awhile. Some kids genuinely don’t have strong preferences and would be fine anywhere. And as somebody else mentioned upthread, your child may be anxious about entering adulthood and just doesn’t want to deal right now. I bet as her peers become more invested in the process, she will too. If her HS offers more hands-on college counseling, that will also bring her on board.
I would let her be for a bit, but it also sounds like you’ve toured only large schools. Maybe they aren’t her thing, schools that big might all look alike to her. I would wait a while and then take her somewhere completely different, a small LAC.
thx and some funny replies too.