Reply to Interesting Read: "I dropped out of an Ivy and my life is way better for it"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My thought is that generalizations like this aren’t accurate but that the piece is helpful in that it demonstrates that fit is everything.

My child is at an Ivy and is thriving in ways I could not have imagined. So it does happen. But it’s also true that some kids aren’t as happy there. We looked at LACs and realized most of them were too small to have the academic speciality my kid really wanted. And another friend’s child recently transferred out of a top 30 LAC to a very big school in a bustling city.

As is true at almost any school your mileage may (really) vary. [/quote]

Agree- my dd landed at an Ivy that truly is a wonderful fit for her, and highly collaborative. But there were only 2 Ivies she considered , the others - as fine an education as they may offer - were not the environment she wanted. I could have imagined her being happy at a good number of schools including ones with less obvious prestige. By same token a neighbor of ours went to one of the tippy top SLACs hoping for a nurturing environment and found it insanely competitive - go figure. It’s not Ivy vs SLAC, it’s goodness of fit[/quote]

That’s wonderful about your daughter. Do you mind sharing the names of the two Ivies and the SLAC? [/quote]

Sure. She is at Yale, also loved Brown. Neighbor’s kid went to Williams.[/quote]How are the selective clubs?[/quote]

Oh that’s a big topic. Definitely a lot of competition for some of the clubs. Much has been written about this phenomenon at some colleges. When my DD got there, she just decided to apply for/try out for a ton of things figuring she wouldn’t get most of them (accurate), but she would get a few (also accurate) and it would all work out. Some people get upset about it, but it makes sense to me. As an example, my DD and a friend of hers were both state debate champions in their particular division, neither of them made Yale debate team. But you know how many kids trying out for those spots state debate champions? Probably all of them! You can’t have a student run debate team with 300 kids. It would be chaos. And these kids all want to do so many things! so the key at these schools with the competitive clubs is just to keep an open mind and give lots of things a try. Also, while some of the clubs are competitive to get into plenty are open to all. My DD approach has been to have a balance  in her activities of both selective and open. [/quote]

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