When you are forced to let go of the dream you had for your child
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
It was my dream to go to the Olympics but I didn't make that either. |
Anonymous
Good luck, PP, and be well soon. OP, can you quickly visit the two schools again? I like a PPs idea about ivy grad school. Big kudos to the mom who let her kid chose U of F over Yale. That would have been really hard for me to accept! |
Anonymous
|
I think a revisit sounds like a good logical approach with your husband and son. Make it a mini vacation and really approach the visits with an open mind. Looking at both the school he wants to attend and the ivy that you want him to attend may a second time around somehow hold more (or less) appeal and it might make a decision clearer than it seems now.
He is obviously a smart kid, smart enough to gain all those acceptances, you must trust his judgement in this as well...as hard as it might be. |
Anonymous
|
Probably too late already, but I would have made him attend the admitted students weekend or day at the school he wants to attend along with the Ivy you are obsessed about. His potential future peers at the two schools might make the decision easy, i.e. he will either realize his original choice is not intellectual enough or whatever you are worried about, or he will feel validated because he has a horrible time at preview because he doesn't like the other people.
All this said one of my two DDs ended up at an Ivy that is likely one of the ones you are obsessing about, and my other DD who was as strong a student decided quite early she did not want large, competitive Ivy environment and instead chose a top NESCAC SLAC to apply to ED (athletics entered into the decision at well, wanted to play d3 at a top school not have the demands of D1 even at an Ivy). While both have been extremely happy, academically challenged and pleased with the choices they made, the differences in terms of networking, summer opportunities and resources for student research and travel is quite strikingly different between the two schools. So part of me wishes the younger DD had considered waiting and looking more seriously at these schools because of the incredible opportunities they can offer both in college and in terms of jobs even immediately after college without grad school. |
Anonymous
|
OP here thank you for the replies. I hate to say I am often right but truthfully I am, when it comes to my kids. My son is a great and intelligent young man however he just turned 18 and that's just it, he is just 18. He lacks the wisdom and experience to really make a good decision here, one that could potentially affect and shape his future.
More than anything, it is the intellectual environment I think he will thrive in the most he really gets ignited when around that. So my husband has agreed that they will visit this coming week/weekend and then make an "educated decision" as we are running out of time. I appreciate the feedback. And to anyone who thought my post in any way was making it seem like I think this is a first world problem, I absolutely do not. I realize this hardly qualifies for serious hardship but in the moment, yes to me its a big deal..seeing my son make a big mistake that I feel in my heart of hearts, and one I just cannot let go. It has everything to do with whats best for him and very little to do with me, even if you might not agree. |
Anonymous
You have got to get off this idea that its a big mistake. Its a different college. Period. Too many people think that the college will totally make or break a person's future. Your problem is not that this is a first world problem. Your problem is that you are rigid and too fixated on bragging rights. Its just not true that you have to go to an ivy to get that great intellectual experience. What you will find at most of those schools these days is students gunning for finance jobs and business school. Thats hardly intellectual. You can find an extremely challenging intellectual environment outside of the ivys. But I don;t think intellectuality is what you are going for. You think that all the smarties are at ivys. That is just not true. The kids I know who were learning for learning's sake kids for the most part did not go to ivys. The competitive kids went to ivys/ there's a difference. You seem to think the only good decision here is the one you agree with. Your DS is 18. that is not only old enough to make this decision -- after all, he has to live with it -- but its vitally important that he make these kinds of calls at this age. You said it correctly in your title -- this is your dream, not your son's. He sounds like a great kid and you are well on your way to pushing his uniqueness out of him. I hope he stands tough and is true to himself. You need to work on living out your dreams through him. All you will do is rob him of his own. |
Anonymous
| OP, I wish for you some peace. You are entirely too engaged in your son's college choice. You need to let go and learn to appreciate yourself for who you are and all you've accomplished. |
Anonymous
| Take him on a tour of the Ives, maybe that will change his mind |
Anonymous
| Where does he want to go? You said it was a top university. If that's really true, won't the intellectual experience be what he makes of it (probably more if he's excited to be there) and his chances of admission to grad programs of his choice be pretty similar? |
Anonymous
OP, in all sincerity, I'm going to recommend you try therapy for your own issues here. You said yourself that the school he's planning to go to is a "top university," so he will still have lots of opportunities by virtue of going there. The only opportunity he's going to miss is to name-drop "Harvard" or "Yale." These are not the things that serious affect one's life happiness, unless one is incredibly pretentious. It doesn't sound like your son is pretentious, and you should be proud of having raised a child like that. This truly is about your fantasy for yourself, having a child who goes to Harvard or Yale, and not about some major life mistake he's making. |
Anonymous
|
OP, are you talking about a kid nixing Cornell or Dartmouth, and instead going to Hopkins, or UVA, or Northwestern, or Chicago, or Stanford, or something like that? Could easily be the right move.
|
Anonymous
| OP, this is the most obnoxious post I have read. I thought when I opened this you were going to say your child is severely learning disabled or physicaly disabled or something along those lines. Let your kid live his own life and get over it and yourself. |
Anonymous
| For what it's worth, OP, we went through a simillar dilemma. My DS choose a SLAC over the ivies and Stanford four years ago after attending one of the top prep schools in the nation. It was absolutely the right decision for him. My son has excelled and recently won a highly prestigious national scholar competition to conduct research overseas. In addition, he has been admitted to many top graduate schools in his field. Once again, he has passed over Stanford and the Ivy doctoral programs for a public research university after he completes the scholar program. We have learned that trusting him and supporting his choices makes for a happy and successful adult. |
Anonymous
This. Get a life, Op. |
Anonymous
| A child would have to have really good reasons for picking an "ok" school over an Ivy. I think the name makes a difference and helps in some fields. |