Best non-stressful selective schools

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Consider staying out of the Northeast, where the default speed of everything is higher than the rest of the country (eg, the time between when the light turns green & the guy behind you honks his horn).

+1 Both of my kids wanted out of the east coast/stress atmosphere and left the area. The difference is noticeable from academics to housing and parking. Not as crazy, not as scarce, not everyone competing for the same scare resources.

I purposely pushed my child towards the west...

First comments were "everyone is really nice here" No friends in high school. Lo and behold, several friend groups now to do things with. I was not surprised.

[Anonymous]

A state university. Doesn't have to be in your state. Take a light load 1st semester Freshmen year (btw, 12 credits is still considered full-time) Feel free to drop/add classes, experiment with classes at different times of the day. Whatever works best. Explore majors. Make sure the U has a good residency program for undergrads. Most students living on campus, in dorms.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Brown

Even though it is so difficult to get into Brown?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Stress is self-imposed. You could go to Harvard and not stress yourself out to get perfect grades. You could go to community college and be a basket case of stress.

This! It's the kid, not the school

Of course the campus atmosphere matters. If you go to a school where everyone else you know is relentlessly focused on GPA, it’s much harder to maintain a healthy perspective.

100%! I went to a less prestigious undergrad where no one talked about grades and it was (relatively) stress free. Then I went to a high-pressure law school where everyone was obsessed with grades and it was awful!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The Claremont Colleges.

Came here to say I wasn’t stressed at one of these schools. Best years of my life!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Probably better to increase your IQ, stamina, and work ethic to match the college. It’s not stressful if learning and hard work comes easy to you.

+1

I think there’s a lot of value in “grinder” schools like CMU.

For students who are strong enough to handle that, not for students who aren’t.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:William & Mary

They have an entire wellness center focused on helping kids stay balanced.

Big hint here that if the school needs a center for this, then stress is actually a huge problem on campus.

UVA has a 160,000 square foot wellness center.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:William & Mary

They have an entire wellness center focused on helping kids stay balanced.

Doesn't William & Mary have a reputation for being a pressure cooker? That's what I have heard.

My DD who has ADHD and an anxiety disorder is a sophomore at WM. She is doing very well. She says she’s busy and she feels pushed academically, but— and this is what we watch for— she is not feeling overwhelmed.

Given her history of perfectionism and ADHD, we check in periodically and make sure she know she can withdraw from a class by late October and still have a full load. At WM the first 2 withdrawals don’t even show up on the transcript. Thus far, she has not withdrawn. Her sibling did withdraw from a class sophomore year at his college and it was fine.

She’s at 18 credits (4 3 credit classes, a 5 credit language, a music lesson and a performing arts group), and says alls well. If that changes she’ll talk to her advisors (double major) and us. I’d rather have her at 13-15 and feeling good than 16-18 and overwhelmed/ panicked.

My other kid goes to a midwestern SLAC, which was a great choice. He also has ADHD and anxiety. Feels more pressure than my WM kid. But has weaker EF skills.

Which comes to my point: a lot of this is kid specific. Some kids can take more pressure and more pressure and more pressure and be fine. Some get overwhelmed easy. It’s fair to ask how your kids strengths and weaknesses will play out in a given college. But “my kid is/isn’t doing well at WM/ midwestern SLAC”. is a data set of 1. School policies help: like withdrawal for any reason without penalty late into the semester, accessible professors, strong tutoring center, good linkage between on campus crisis counseling and off campus (long term) mental health care, reasonable accommodations policies, a wellness center with drop in and semester classes and resources (my SLAC kid did “Relaxation Techniques” and “Meditation” classes for one credit, P/F), a system for anyone (parents, RAs, professors, peers) to anonymously report a concern. These help. So does the tone set by Admin. None of this helps if your kid doesn’t use it.

BUT, and this is HUGE— do everything you can to build resilience during HS. My WM kid did junior year in the basement, 5 APs. It could have made her or broken her. There were days she was almost broken. But, we pushed in all the help we could, and came out with incredible self confidence (“if I can do that, I can do anything”). She also learned great self advocacy across multiple media (email, zoom, in person), and has no trouble staying after class to talk to a prof or going to office hours. We also did psychiatrists/meds, therapists, executive functioning coaches, etc. Remember: once they start college, you lose the ability to intervene if they need treatment unless it’s life threatening. You can say “I think it would be helpful to make a therapy appointment”. And, they can ignore you.

We also reset out expectations. In some classes, we expect As. It’s right in the kids wheelhouse. In others, a B is great and took hard work. Our expectation depends on the class and the effort. A B where the kid never got tutoring, missed some classes, never went to office hours and hall asses the papers is a problem. An B that the kid worked hard for gets congratulated. So, they tell us if a grade is good or not, for them. And, I think they are pretty honest with themselves and us.

In fact, while typing this I just got a “I got an 83 in Hard Class’s midterm. Class average was 82. My current grade overall is 87”— with dancing emojis. This is a pre-rec for her major in an area of weakness. The series of 4 classes (this is #3) are known as the weed classes for the major. Last semester, her roommate failed Class #2 despite tutoring and office visits and studying with DD and decided to change majors. So, I learned to put away my perfectionist tendencies and reinforce DD’s feeling good about less than a A, because in this case, a B/B+ is great for her.

I do think being aware of add/drop and withdrawal and re-setting expectations to “what’s reasonable for this kid” has helped a lot on the pressure front.

Wowzers. I don’t believe you are in a position to give advice. No wonder your children have anxiety. I highly recommend therapy for yourself. I also recommend you implement a new policy where you do not ask about your kid’s grades or even their classes. Going cold turkey will help you untangle yourself from your kid’s academic endeavors. It will also help your kids not to seek your approval or advice, which is super important. Good luck

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:William & Mary

They have an entire wellness center focused on helping kids stay balanced.

Big hint here that if the school needs a center for this, then stress is actually a huge problem on campus.

You are off base. What used to be called student health centers are now commonly called wellness centers.

[Anonymous]

I have a Freshman at W&M.
Just about every school we toured mentioned some kind of wellness or mental health initiative/system/center of varying degrees.
There was even a school that had a counseling center with therapy available to students at no extra cost.

I think your student's experience will depend more on their personality.
-Do they have coping mechanisms?
-Do they have a productive way of managing stress?
-Are they open to feedback and using the school's resources?
-Do they tend to absorb the drama in the room or are they able to ignore that drama and focus on their work?
-Does their personality fit the culture of the school?

My DC chose W&M knowing that it isn't going to be non-stressful.
I'm the one who has had to ask DC to pump the brakes every so often but they seem to do really well managing their workload.
DC was already studying on Friday nights in HS and it's no different at W&M.
I told DC I'm not even going to check their grades at all but I barely did that in HS as well.
I'm not expecting the school to "handle" my DC's stress level.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’d second the advice to look outside of the east coast and avoid schools with quarter system. Also, sounds like a lot of SLACs in your family but I’d look at honors college of a university. Just a bigger school with more variety. Also may help to know her learning style. We looked at more collaborative focused schools for our social DC and that worked well. It takes effort to find the right fit.

My kid found the quarter system helped with stress management. Yes, you can't "check out" as easily as you could in the semester system, but that's also why you are less likely to fall behind. Also, the quarter system tends to mean breaks with no studying whereas schoolwork can still be hanging over you in the semester system.

[Anonymous]

My undergrad was in the quarter system.
Grad school was semester system.

I liked quarters much better. Fewer classes to deal with.
Semesters dragged on. More classes hanging over your head at one time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Brown

Even though it is so difficult to get into Brown?

Posters here are like special computers where you ask about college suggestions and they automatically spit out schools with less than 10% acceptance rates, they weren’t programmed to know about the existence of other schools.

[Anonymous]

Oberlin

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Claremont Colleges.

Came here to say I wasn’t stressed at one of these schools. Best years of my life!![/quote]


BUt if Scripps or Pitzer long ago, it's best to say that up front. I would not call the others "stess-free" at all