If you had strong apprehension about the school your child wanted to attend...

[Anonymous]

Why on earth did you let her apply to this school? OMG! the horror! IT's not Catholic and there are sororities on campus. FYI: My son paid his own frat dues with his summer earnings. Please let her breathe and make her own decision.

[Anonymous]

j2415 wrote:Hi, selecting the right college is one of the most important choices we will ever make. My son is now in sophomore and we already talk about college, some of the considerations that we are looking; if that school has good academic reputation, graduates get good jobs, offer good financial assistance plus the location. Maybe your daughter thinks that the best school for her. May be having a talk with your daughter would help.

This article that I found talks about preparing the future of our teens, it says that teens desire to make their own decisions…when it comes to making college decisions, teens want to know that the choices are their own. This article, http://bit.ly/2mbIKri, might help you. Thank you for sharing.

Teens want a lot of choices--some of which are extremely bad for them. It doesn't means as parents that we have to acquiesce just because they "want" something. Teens should definitely have a voice in where they attend college but theirs should not be the only voice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why on earth did you let her apply to this school, OMG! the horror! IT's not Catholic and there are sororities on campus. FYI: My son paid his own frat dues with his summer earnings. Please let her breathe and make her own decision.

She did get into to several other state schools- MN, IA, and is waitlisted at Michigan but those are all much closer to home and without the ramped up Greek culture. She was told to budget between 8-9k for sorority dues/expenses at that school. There is no way she could earn that much from her summer earnings.

[Anonymous]

Parameters we set: We can pay for public out of state. Wants to be an engineer. We told him that we will research completion rates and the ability of accepted students to switch majors. We will not pay for anyplace that weeds out too many kids, or won't permit a transfer from one engineering field to another. Right now he knows what he wants to do, but for all we know he will get turned on to something he has never heard of before. We want him to be able to switch. we can only pay once.

[Anonymous]

Parameters we set: We can pay for public out of state. Wants to be an engineer. We told him that we will research completion rates and the ability of accepted students to switch majors. We will not pay for anyplace that weeds out too many kids, or won't permit a transfer from one engineering field to another. Right now he knows what he wants to do, but for all we know he will get turned on to something he has never heard of before. We want him to be able to switch. we can only pay once.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why on earth did you let her apply to this school, OMG! the horror! IT's not Catholic and there are sororities on campus. FYI: My son paid his own frat dues with his summer earnings. Please let her breathe and make her own decision.

She did get into to several other state schools- MN, IA, and is waitlisted at Michigan but those are all much closer to home and without the ramped up Greek culture. She was told to budget between 8-9k for sorority dues/expenses at that school. There is no way she could earn that much from her summer earnings.

So the big question is how would she feel about the school if she went there and could not join a sorority. Have you told her you'll pay for school/R&B/textbooks/travel home, but not sorority expenses? She still gets her choice of college, but not a choice of lifestyle. Another approach might be to have her do a list of pros and cons for her top 2-3 and see how much the Greek thing is driving her choice. You could do your own list of pros and cons and compare notes, discussing which issues are dealbreakers, how to mitigate the cons, what needs to happen to take advantage of the pros.

[Anonymous]

Is 8-9 K for sorority dues normal? If so wow - I had no idea!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is 8-9 K for sorority dues normal? If so wow - I had no idea!

[code]

I'm not very familiar with the Greek thing but yes, 8-9k is higher than normal. She is looking at Alabama which for some reason has higher costs associated with rushing.

I really like the idea of creating a list of pros/cons and how does this school stack up if the sorority part was absent. Thanks for the sound suggestion.

[Anonymous]

UGA? Their honors program is phenomenal. I know someone attending there now, where both parents are former Greeks--and he is not. I went there (albeit for grad school), and regardless of how it might appear, it is not all tailgates and sorority parties.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why does it feel "bad" OP?

Big party school? large impersonal campus? Recent school shootings or sex scandals? High crime area? Very homogeneous student body?

Depends on the reason.

OP here- It feels like a bad fit for a few reasons..it is a large state school when all the other schools DD looked at were small to mid-size liberal arts schools. DD is not a big party type and this school is known for great tailgating and a thriving greek life. It is an SEC school and we live right outside of Chicago. Traveling there will be less convenient than other schools she is considering. We will not be paying for a sorority so she will not be pledging. I don't think the networking will be as beneficial up here as it would if she were planning to live down south after graduation. Also, we are Catholic and really would like to see her at a Catholic college. I believe the culture will be pretty different than what she is used to and I would rather her not be looking for a new school if it can be avoided.

I was just wondering what type of parameters other parents set (if any) when their DC was looking at schools. We have been fairly specific in pointing out how the other schools she is looking at might be a better fit. She is revisiting her top three choices as an admitted student in the next few weeks so maybe she will come to that conclusion on her own. She is our oldest so this new to us.

Honestly, this "bad fit" sounds like it's more about you than your daughter. I went to a school well known for partying, tailgating, and great football. I'm a dual major engineer with no interest in any of the above. It is an SEC school as well. It's not as if everyone at these big schools is into that.

She won't stop being Catholic just because she goes to an SEC school, either. Nobody knows where she is going to live after graduation. She may or may not be better off having gone to a bigger school with more name recognition. Who knows? Maybe she likes the fact the school is big. If she's in the Honors Program, it will feel smaller to her anyway.

None of your reasons really seem like a good reason for your daughter not to go--do you want her to resent you? I graduated from college in the 80s, and still slighly resent that my mother wouldn't let me go to school in Boston. Too big, too far, too northern. What if I turned into a Catholic? (kidding)

[Anonymous]

OP are you thinking she will marry outside of Catholicism and that worries you? I think that's not an unreasonable worry if that is how your family mostly functions. But unfortunately you can't impose that on her, really.

[Anonymous]

OP, I am from up north and went to a small liberal arts school (religious founders) outside of a huge northern city. I chose an SEC school for grad school for basically no other reason than I wanted to live someplace new and see what the big-school scene was like.

I LOVED IT. I moved back north because of my family but I can tell you I don't regret my decision at all. I didn't have a problem finding a job at home. And so what, my parents only came to see me once or twice. I came home for Christmas and for a week in the summer, that was it. There is really no need to be constantly visiting anyway. Unclench. Let her go. Open new horizons and experiences for her.