Is 'fit' overrated?

[Anonymous]

Fit certainly matters if you go somewhere small. A pre professional kid is not going to fit in at Hampshire, nor a pot smoking hippie kid at Washington and Lee.

I get that. But at bigger places, with classes even in the low thousands? The law of large numbers takes over. Your tribe will be somewhere to be found. Ranking, affordability, availability of majors, and location matter much more than fit for medium and large sized institutions, because they're big enough to fit many different types of kid.

In short, fit matters for SLACs, but not normal sized schools.

Thoughts?

[Anonymous]

Fit matters if you don't enjoy the atmosphere of your dorm, the general campus zeitgeist, etc.

I was a transfer student. I had a miserable time at big state school #1 and an immediately better time at big state school #2. My professors were good at school #1 but the social situation was unredeemable. I wanted out. I didn't want to bet on finding my tribe. 1 year was 25% of college. I didn't want to graduate from somewhere I'd only been for 50% of the time.

[Anonymous]

I agree. And if you haven't already seen this phenomenon, you'll soon realize that a huge piece of the "good fit" assessment that a 17 year old makes is....would I want to be friends with the tour guide? I think schools' reputations and even stereotypes can be somewhat valuable here, but also keeping in mind that what a 17 year old thinks they really want isn't always necessarily the best fit in the end (thinking of the many many kids from our small town who go to the far away/big schools and end up coming back.) But that's a journey they have to chart for themselves to some degree, and just be aware that there are so many unknowns when you leave for college.

[Anonymous]

PP again. One of the things I liked about big flagship #1 was it had 150+ majors.

I didn't realize that the Liberal Arts college was taken the least seriously.

I also didn't realize that most people would only be interested in drinking to socialize.

I was in an Honors program.

Very unimpressed.

[Anonymous]

Yes Op, you're right. Our family does large state universities, around the country. We paid some attention to geography and those differences.

[Anonymous]

Every now and then, I saw someone saying they found the perfect fit at Charleston. Well good for you.

T20 have twenty schools, a very large number. I doubt it one can't find one or a few fit schools among T20. If not, try T30, T50.

[Anonymous]

Fit is a personal choice, but it does matter no matter where you go. Sure, large universities hold more people, but their admissions departments still vet your ability to maintain a certain college culture.

It's kind of how at top LACs, you attract all these PhD track people, yet you have so many people at the ivies shoving to get into "prestigious" business careers. Even with both having top students with similar profiles, there's different tendencies to what students want. Telling a Swarthmore student you want to go into Banking will likely lead to a rolled eye and a lecture on ethics, meanwhile, telling a Wharton student you want to go into econ research instead of banking will give you some weird, tossed looks.

Examples here:
https://www.thedp.com/article/2019/10/wharton-four-year-plan-consulting-banking-ivy-league-upenn-philadelphia
https://www.thedp.com/article/2019/03/wharton-ivy-league-investment-banking-finance-urooba-abid-upenn-philadelphia
versus
https://swarthmorephoenix.com/2021/10/28/should-swarthmore-really-be-having-fireside-chats-with-goldman-sachs/

[Anonymous]

A lot of students are unhappy at big schools due to unserious student bodies and sports culture. Also, a lot of college towns are in...middling locations at best. These students don't end up at SLACs, because SLACs have way fewer spots than anyone else in general. Top universities are still heavily fit-based, though.

[Anonymous]

I think you should not dismiss the prevailing culture at some schools. Even at the larger schools. For example a kid who likes UMiami and USC may not like BU or GWU. Could a kid be fine at all of them? Sure. But these schools have very different student cultures and fitting in will feel easier than being an outlier.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes Op, you're right. Our family does large state universities, around the country. We paid some attention to geography and those differences.

If all you want is state uni, there is a certain uniformity across all of them. In size, sports, demographic profiles, majors, minors. There is little difference between University of Nebraska, Mizzou and Kentucky. By saying all you go for is state uni, you are basically saying you don’t care about student culture or fit, you aren’t looking for anything specific at all.

[Anonymous]

I would have hated a big school. I found my comfort zone at a school that was under just 4K kids. I now call it "Goldilocks size" - not too big, not too small.

Would I have done fine at a state school? Most likely. But it wasn't the college experience I personally wanted.

My own child would be absolutely lost at a big school. She is headed to a small college with about 1200 students.

Can you find your crowd at a large school? Sure, but I think it would take a lot more work for certain kids. Again, I likely would have been fine as I have always been an extrovert - my child ISN'T me, though, and struggles a bit in that area.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would have hated a big school. I found my comfort zone at a school that was under just 4K kids. I now call it "Goldilocks size" - not too big, not too small.

Would I have done fine at a state school? Most likely. But it wasn't the college experience I personally wanted.

My own child would be absolutely lost at a big school. She is headed to a small college with about 1200 students.

Can you find your crowd at a large school? Sure, but I think it would take a lot more work for certain kids. Again, I likely would have been fine as I have always been an extrovert - my child ISN'T me, though, and struggles a bit in that area.

Huge eye roll here. You didn’t create the term Goldilocks school. 90% of college counselors use this term all the time to refer to schools with around 7,0000 to 9,000 students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would have hated a big school. I found my comfort zone at a school that was under just 4K kids. I now call it "Goldilocks size" - not too big, not too small.

Would I have done fine at a state school? Most likely. But it wasn't the college experience I personally wanted.

My own child would be absolutely lost at a big school. She is headed to a small college with about 1200 students.

Can you find your crowd at a large school? Sure, but I think it would take a lot more work for certain kids. Again, I likely would have been fine as I have always been an extrovert - my child ISN'T me, though, and struggles a bit in that area.

Huge eye roll here. You didn’t create the term Goldilocks school. 90% of college counselors use this term all the time to refer to schools with around 7,0000 to 9,000 students.

NP - how interesting. I never heard that term until the previous poster. Not from our school college counselor, nor our private counselor. And my childe looked exclusively at schools in that size range.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Fit certainly matters if you go somewhere small. A pre professional kid is not going to fit in at Hampshire, nor a pot smoking hippie kid at Washington and Lee.

I get that. But at bigger places, with classes even in the low thousands? The law of large numbers takes over. Your tribe will be somewhere to be found. Ranking, affordability, availability of majors, and location matter much more than fit for medium and large sized institutions, because they're big enough to fit many different types of kid.

In short, fit matters for SLACs, but not normal sized schools.

Thoughts?

I thought you meant exercise. LOL

[Anonymous]

If anything is overrated, it’s rankings.