Reply to Is it tough for nova kids to make friends at Ivys?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Figure 50-75 a year at the best nova high schools get into UVA, plus the kids old and younger than you. Plus local kids you know from sports, clubs, church, family connections. Easy to get to UVA and know a few hundred faces.

versus getting to an Ivy and loosely knowing maybe 1-3 kids.

Big difference.[/quote]

I went to an Ivy from a private school (the only kid from my class at that particular Ivy for that particular year, maybe a max of 10 from my school were at the Ivy at any given time and we averaged 75 kids a year). That aside, was it strange and scaring going to a college where I didn't know anyone? Sure. And I coped.

Every college is going to have incoming freshmen who struggle to settle in. Sometimes it's personality (shy, reticent), sometimes it's sheer bad luck (placed into a dorm where, for some reason, person has nothing in common with the rest of the floor and can't make friends). And each year there are students who transfer to other schools for a fresh start.

Coming from NOVA, which in the eyes of the rest of the country is already a privileged area that sends hundreds of students to the Ivies each year, is no different than coming from anywhere else in the US (substitute affluent suburb of X city for NOVA).

When articles talk about "middle class" kids struggling to fit in at the Ivies they're really talking about lower middle class kids from anonymous places or small towns where very few people go to the Ivies, let alone the flagship state university. NOVA does not fit in this category. [/quote]

+1.

I went to an FCPS public and then to Princeton.  When I got there I knew three others from my high school who were already there.  It was a bit of a culture shock to meet wealthier kids, primarily from either the New England prep schools or from NYC.  But there were tons of other kids from suburban public schools similar to FCPS, and some of the kids coming from private schools were from areas where the public schools aren't on par with FCPS, APS or MCPS.  It might have been easier as a freshman to have gone to UVA with over 30 other kids from my graduating class, but it wasn't tough to make new friends by any stretch.

I do recall a couple of classmates transferring.  One was a woman from NoVa (Robinson) who did, in fact, transfer to UVA.  I never found out why she left.  The other was a very bright guy who didn't like the social atmosphere and transferred to Haverford, which he thought would be quieter and more academically focused.  But, overall, even the quirkiest of kids can find their niche at the Ivies (even the smallest, Dartmouth, has over 4000 undergraduates).    [/quote]

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