The social continuation of High School

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Great thread here, my kid feels this too. Totally done with this area and the other students in school. Wants to go to a very outdoors college with laid back vibe but still work hard without as many cutthroat people.

Trying to do all this btw not easy.

My kid feels the same-high school a miserable experience-praying college will be better!! Going far away!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I really would prefer my DC (HS class of 2026) stay in VA-both due to proximity and also cost, However they feel that they do not want the social continuation of their HS-with the top 10% academically going to UVA, top 30% to VTECH and most of the rest of the kids to JMU, VCU, GMU or NOVA. We are in a high achieving public HS in NOVA.

Have any of your kids expressed similar views?

Yes, and I am prefacing this as we can afford any school in the country.

What we did was if they wanted an OOS school because they wanted a large school like a Michigan they had to pay the difference in fees to our instate which is UMD.

If they got into say a Stanford or MIT etc then we pay. They did so we did.

However our youngest didn't want MD or those others he went to NC State Engineering, and it was cheaper than going instate to MD when he went LOL so we paid. And I hated writing that check because he was accepted at better schools which irritated me his mother to no end. Meanwhile, his career trajectory has been just as good if not better than his siblings. LOL

It is there life but they should understand how finances work.

We also had our kids work starting sophomore year and summer monies they paid for any extras while in school.
There is no reason they can not work part time and go to school. I did because I was poor, they could because they are capable humans.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There's a lot to be said for getting to be a new person when you start college. I was a wallflower in HS, but went to an out of state private for college and was super social, becoming student body president and the graduation speaker. Sometimes kids don't grow up to be the same person that thry were at 5, 10, 13 or even 16 yo. I know not everyone makes this sort of leap, but it does happen.

I'm the PP who ended up at the local LAC. Yeah, I could've really used this and regret that I didn't learn those social skills to help me in my later years.

I don't think being at the close LAC prevented you from learning these social skills. Like I said up thread, wherever you go, there you are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I really would prefer my DC (HS class of 2026) stay in VA-both due to proximity and also cost, However they feel that they do not want the social continuation of their HS-with the top 10% academically going to UVA, top 30% to VTECH and most of the rest of the kids to JMU, VCU, GMU or NOVA. We are in a high achieving public HS in NOVA.

Have any of your kids expressed similar views?

My kid was in this position and ready to move to the opposite coast to attend school. Then she went to an admitted students day and fell in love with a Virginia school. There are several kids from her class also attending, but guess what? They're the kids who were in her AP classes and involved in many activities and with whom she has a lot in common. She changed her mind and now considers it a benefit to go to school with some kids she knows and likes (all have agreed to not room with anyone they know from high school...wisely...). Many of the schools you list are large enough that the kids will not run into their high school classmates unless they want to.

[Anonymous]

There are 26,000 students at UVA, my DS never saw the other kid from his high school and he never saw other Eagle Scouts that he knew. GMU has 40,000 students. My other DS never saw anyone from his public high school

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There's a lot to be said for getting to be a new person when you start college. I was a wallflower in HS, but went to an out of state private for college and was super social, becoming student body president and the graduation speaker. Sometimes kids don't grow up to be the same person that thry were at 5, 10, 13 or even 16 yo. I know not everyone makes this sort of leap, but it does happen.

I'm the PP who ended up at the local LAC. Yeah, I could've really used this and regret that I didn't learn those social skills to help me in my later years.

I don't think being at the close LAC prevented you from learning these social skills. Like I said up thread, wherever you go, there you are.

That is only true to a certain extent and mostly only for fully developed people--so our frontal lobe only grows up fully at age 24. I do think that your formative years and especially college experience can make or break people.

[Anonymous]

My kid went high performing FCPS to WM, which is one of the smallest schools. She knew kids from her HS who went. Roomed with someone she knew a bit an EC they saw each other at over the years, but who was not from her HS.

She expressed the same concerns, but it was fine. The first couple of months, she sometimes met a good friend from ES who had split feedered to a different MS /HS for lunch on campus. And I think had a meal once or twice with a HS friend first semester. But she had he major and ECs and they had theirs. And by the end of first semester, she had no regular contact with kids from her HS v

Of course, your kid could pick a HS friend to room with and make an effort to stay attached to the same peers. But if they don’t want to, those relationships will peter out pretty fast.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There's a lot to be said for getting to be a new person when you start college. I was a wallflower in HS, but went to an out of state private for college and was super social, becoming student body president and the graduation speaker. Sometimes kids don't grow up to be the same person that thry were at 5, 10, 13 or even 16 yo. I know not everyone makes this sort of leap, but it does happen.

I'm the PP who ended up at the local LAC. Yeah, I could've really used this and regret that I didn't learn those social skills to help me in my later years.

I don't think being at the close LAC prevented you from learning these social skills. Like I said up thread, wherever you go, there you are.

Oh yes, you're right. How did any of us on here not realize you are the oracle?

People who paint life in such broad swaths miss out on nuance. For me, I didn't necessarily grasp what was happening in the moment. I did feel hindered by my perceptions of what my HS, now college, classmates would think of me if I stepped out in new and different ways. And it was complicated because I felt terribly lucky to even be in college, a first gen kid, so that was an additional burden I carried as I made my way through school. Grad school for me was probably like what many experience for college, but that came later in life.

[Anonymous]

There are certainly a lot of people on dcum who seem surprised that their kid that had trouble making friends in high school continued to have trouble in college. But I didn’t take that as what op was asking about.

[Anonymous]

My DS rejected two in-state options, including one that gave him 10K/year in merit, for an OOS private with good merit but still $20K more than the in-state w/merit and $10K more than the in-state w/o merit. He has lived his whole life in our state and does not want to stay in-state for school (both in-state schools are within an hour's drive from our house). It is not so much for him about the other kids there as that it just feels to him like he would not be getting away.

I justified the cost by telling him he gets a certain dollar amount for school, for all 4 years combined, and whatever he doesn't spend he can get back to use towards grad school, a serviceable car, or a house down payment. If he goes "over" that threshold he has to take out loans to cover the balance. I then showed him how much was "left" with each option. He chose the OOS where he will have very little "left" but is still under the threshold.

[Anonymous]

I had no idea there were so many current kids who disliked high school / the people in HS so much that their driving criterion is getting far away from the people in their HS. Wow.

(Yes I get that “curious about a different vibe” is not the same thing. Many on this thread describe kids specifically fleeing away vs. wanting to check out New Mexico because it seems cool)

What the heck happened to all of you in high school?!

[Anonymous]

I think one of the problems is that lots of kids choose their own roommates, and choose people from their high school. This definitely narrows the pool of new people they meet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There's a lot to be said for getting to be a new person when you start college. I was a wallflower in HS, but went to an out of state private for college and was super social, becoming student body president and the graduation speaker. Sometimes kids don't grow up to be the same person that thry were at 5, 10, 13 or even 16 yo. I know not everyone makes this sort of leap, but it does happen.

I'm the PP who ended up at the local LAC. Yeah, I could've really used this and regret that I didn't learn those social skills to help me in my later years.

I don't think being at the close LAC prevented you from learning these social skills. Like I said up thread, wherever you go, there you are.

That is only true to a certain extent and mostly only for fully developed people--so our frontal lobe only grows up fully at age 24. I do think that your formative years and especially college experience can make or break people.

ok, but you can "grow" at an in state just as easily at an oos college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There's a lot to be said for getting to be a new person when you start college. I was a wallflower in HS, but went to an out of state private for college and was super social, becoming student body president and the graduation speaker. Sometimes kids don't grow up to be the same person that thry were at 5, 10, 13 or even 16 yo. I know not everyone makes this sort of leap, but it does happen.

I'm the PP who ended up at the local LAC. Yeah, I could've really used this and regret that I didn't learn those social skills to help me in my later years.

I don't think being at the close LAC prevented you from learning these social skills. Like I said up thread, wherever you go, there you are.

Oh yes, you're right. How did any of us on here not realize you are the oracle?

People who paint life in such broad swaths miss out on nuance. For me, I didn't necessarily grasp what was happening in the moment. I did feel hindered by my perceptions of what my HS, now college, classmates would think of me if I stepped out in new and different ways. And it was complicated because I felt terribly lucky to even be in college, a first gen kid, so that was an additional burden I carried as I made my way through school. Grad school for me was probably like what many experience for college, but that came later in life.

You're making sarcastic comments about "not realizing", and then state how you "didn't necessarily grasp what was happening in the moment".

You seem rather clueless about yourself still.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DS rejected two in-state options, including one that gave him 10K/year in merit, for an OOS private with good merit but still $20K more than the in-state w/merit and $10K more than the in-state w/o merit. He has lived his whole life in our state and does not want to stay in-state for school (both in-state schools are within an hour's drive from our house). It is not so much for him about the other kids there as that it just feels to him like he would not be getting away.

I justified the cost by telling him he gets a certain dollar amount for school, for all 4 years combined, and whatever he doesn't spend he can get back to use towards grad school, a serviceable car, or a house down payment. If he goes "over" that threshold he has to take out loans to cover the balance. I then showed him how much was "left" with each option. He chose the OOS where he will have very little "left" but is still under the threshold.

IMO, 17/18 yr olds don't understand dollar for value. They are willing to spend $80K+ extra just to experience living in a different state? As my college aged DS would say, "That's not value".