I have seen it stated over and over to a kid or parent who has expressed interest in schools that are seen as “very different.” A big state school and a small LAC for example.
Why is it so hard to believe that a kid might be interested in both? Why do posters on CC automatically seem to assume that it means that a family “hasn’t done their research?”
In my case I did my undergrad at GWU, my graduate school at UW-Madison and law school at Lewis and Clark College. Big and small. Public and private. Urban and rural. I loved all three of them. Why can’t that be a possibility for kids looking at colleges?
My own DD has very urban, somewhat urban, and suburban schools on her list. She has public and private. She has big and small. I’m ok with that. And we HAVE done our research.
M kid had two top choices…one a private school with 5000 undergrads, and the other a public university with 25,000 undergrads. and they were 3000 miles apart. But both were in balmy climates.
Usually on CC when I question this…it’s because we are hearing a parent POV…and not the student. I usually ask why those two choices? I don’t think that’s an unreasonable question.
I agree with you. My senior son has the same variety on his list. He’s 17 - he has no idea what he really wants in a college! We have visited them all so he will apply, see where he gets in and then decide. Don’t worry about what anonymous people on a message board have to say.
Not an unreasonable question @thumper1 but what happens is usually like what happens on the Berkeley v. Dartmouth thread - an assumption is made that the parent or kid has no idea what they want from a school because they have a list that has a wide variety. I think that is an unfair assumption.
My D1 was all over the map in terms of size & type – but honestly, that was our ignorance vs thoughtful planning. In retrospect some of her schools would have been poor choices. I wish someone had said that to us early on, honestly!
D2 had some variety – she had one tech-focused school on her list, a bunch of LACs, and UChicago. Guess what? She picked an outlier, the tech focused school. But it was a thoughtfully prepared list, and her accepted student visits were to a LAC, the tech school, and UChicago. So variety CAN be okay. But sometimes it isn’t. I think the question is fine.
Some students may not be all that picky beyond the basic constraints of affordability and suitable academic offerings. These students may find a very wide range of schools (even those that seem different at first glance) to be suitable.
Others may be significantly more picky about various school characteristics. Schools that seem different at first glance may raise more questions with such students.
I think when kids say, “I’m applying to ALL the Ivys,” it can appear that they haven’t done their research and are just prestige-crazy and just want to be able to say, “I’m going to (HYPCCBPD).”
IMO students need to figure out what type of school they like – for some students that may be one specific type of school and for other students many different types of schools can fall within their comfort zone. In addition, many students need to look beyond their ideal type of school for financial reasons. Like most things, there is not one right answer that fits everyone.
OP, you have a valid point, but I think it isn’t big versus small as much as it about temperament of the colleges on a list. If a list has, say Oberlin and Sewanee, or Wesleyan and Elon, it might be reasonable to assume the person hasn’t done a lot of research to figure out what those colleges are really like and if they could be happy there.
It’s possible to know you’d be happy at various sorts of colleges. My D1 was confident she had explored what mattered to her: her major, (not commonly offered in a more pure form,) the amount of academic stretching she’d need to do, and the social environment. In the end, she said, which school doesn’t matter, I will do well at any of my targets.
I nag about the research because, over and over, I see kids don’t. They post vague assumptions and focus on stats. (And lots of adults point them fast at the CDS.) They don’t understand the differences between one Ivy or top LAC and another. They don’t know how to match themselves and keep asking, should I retake, can I add an AP, etc.
Then there are the kids who know themselves. You can often tell from their writing that they think. They could be just as satisfied at Berkeley as, say, Middlebury, smaller, remote. But most kids continue to cite what their friends think, what they heard from someone who heard it from someone, and this notion only a top school (name recognition on USNews) builds a good future.
I went to a teeny college and a large school for grad. Yes, you can like both, each for their own reasons. But don’t go in blind. Try to know why you like different colleges- and why they should like you.
My daughter was absolutely certain from the start that she wanted a small LAC. We had her look at large schools, too, but she ended up at a LAC. My son only knew he didn’t want to be in a city. Yes, we had him look at some city schools to be sure, but sometimes a kid has strong ideas, and sometimes those ideas are right.
A person who wants to apply to all the ivies HAS figured out what kind of school they like: Prestigious. I’m kind of sick of the “application police” too. These are kids. They should be applying to a variety of schools if they aren’t sure exactly what they want. And they shouldn’t be pressured to choose a “type” prematurely–which is the application process. Apply everywhere you want to apply! You don’t have to choose until May 1.
Anyone who looked at my daughter’s list would think she was schizophrenic, lol. My daughter and her boyfriend would like to stay within an hour of one another, this has them applying to some large flagships together, him to some ivies, her to some ivy adjacent schools. If you just looked at her list at face value it makes no sense. I think some kids can be happy at a variety of schools, it doesn’t have to be all LAC’s,all states, etc…
For those that are going to say choosing colleges with your boyfriend is a bad idea, I know. We’ve told her she can apply wherever she wants and then we can sit down with acceptance letters next spring and see what makes sense. My husband and I went to college together too, so it’s hard to make too big of a stink.
I think there are plenty of bloom where planted types. It makes picking colleges a lot harder. My older son did not care about size or location, but did care about a strong CS major. My younger son cared about location (no urban campuses with no big green spaces, no rural campuses in the middle of nowhere), but he applied to one LAC, one college with a Core Curriculum and one with no requirements with the rest being mostly medium sized research unis.
OP, I completely agree with you. It drives me a little crazy when I see people advising parents to take their kids to some random selection of nearby schools because they fit into the categories of big U, LAC, and whatever, saying that after this kid will know what kind of school they like.
Well, no they won’t. They will only know what they did and did not like about those specific schools, and if none of them are likely to be on the final list it was just a total waste of time. Even worse, it might turn a kid away from looking at a whole class of schools if they are encouraged to believe that all LACs are like the one they saw, or all big Us are similar.
IMHO, kids should not be taken to schools that you absolutely KNOW will be unaffordable, no matter what, or that you KNOW the kid has a snowball’s chance in hell of getting in to. Why risk their falling in love?
My kid applied to a variety of schools, both LACs and universities. Of those where he was accepted, his final two were Dartmouth and the U of C. Some people think that there is no way a kid could find both attractive. They are wrong.
The only requirement my daughter had was to be in or close to a city. Any type of school could have fit that mode. It could have been LAC or university. In the end, she was choosing between St Johns University and Georgia State University. Georgia State won because she didn’t have to take out any loans to attend.
My youngest daughter who is only in 10th grade says she only want to go to engineering focus schools like Georgia Tech and RPI. The location and size don’t matter to her. But she is only in 10th grade and I’m sure she will change her mind 100 times over before the time for college applications comes around.
@CValle, my daughter definitely isn’t pigeonholing herself to one type of school. Her application list included two small LACs, two public Ivies, a couple midwestern land grants in towns she likes, our state land grant, and then there’s Boise State LOL. She ultimately chose schools in good college towns, lots of school spirit, good business programs, lots of part time job opportunities in and around campus, reasonable rent for off campus if she chooses to go off campus - the list goes on. She had specific geographic areas she wanted to move to. The list would make zero sense unless someone knew what she was looking for. She wound up applying to ten schools total (two had fee waivers, one waives until after you enroll). It’s going to be interesting to see where she winds up, as her thought is “I could go to any of these and be happy for sure.”
Well…I admit that I find the Berkeley vs. Dartmouth choice that was a thread more than a bit puzzling.
It’s not just that one is large and one is relatively small. It’s also that one is in a fairly warm climate and the other is in a cold one. At one, Greek life is extremely important and it isn’t at the other. From what I’ve seen, the kids most likely to enjoy Dartmouth are kids who like the outdoors and winter sports. You can’t do those sports at Berkeley unless you are on a team.
So, yep, I found myself wondering what is the common thread between these two schools? And no other schools beyond Berkeley and Dartmouth were listed, so it was impossible to figure out the overlap. When you see Georgia Tech v. RPI, it makes sense.
I used to have a client whose kid wanted to go to Princeton. The other schools on her list were, as far as I knew, very unlike Princeton. However, it turned out the kid was a tip top ice dancer and Princeton had an ice dancing team. So, if you knew she wanted to ice dance in college, her list made sense. If you know a kid wants to be in a city, then Georgia State v. St. John’s would make sense.
But in that B v D thread we had no clue as to what the overlap was and the parent was inquiring about EDing to Dartmouth. If you’re going to ED, you darn well better have done your homework and I think that’s what people were trying to make sure had been done.
I don’t see a lot of judgment on CC regarding a broad reaching list unless its apparent that the only commonality is a prestige grab, and usually the questioning is to get posters to have a more realistic list and to have reasons for applying that can be articulated beyond prestige.
Using @coloradomom2015’s post above as an example, it is evident that her daughter could explain why each school is on the list. Nothing wrong with a diverse list if that is the case.
Yup, I’d say we question when the kid doesn’t really know Why any of them, beyond superficials. And what’s really wrong with asking a kid why those schools which appear to be different? He can answer, as many parents here have.
