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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]DD at Yale. Really intelligent and went to a strong public but not as competitive as some schools, so struggled in two classes. There are some truly brilliant, genius-level classmates and that’s been hard. She’s always been surrounded by smart hard-workers so brilliance was a shock, especially because these are kids who seem to have it all and have brilliance in another area, too, like a sport or playing in YSO. She feels the difference in free time between herself and classmates and that’s tough, because she does have to study and work to get so-so grades compared to the brilliant kids. She did learn not to follow their example and that they have time to party or socialize that she needs to use to study, and that that’s ok

Her experience with clubs and activities has been absolutely dismal so I don’t blame her for feeling a bit unmoored and lonely. Anything remotely connected to her previous interests or activities was too competitive and she was shut out from what she tried to join in the fall. She felt like she lost 3 months of socializing while trying for those activities and regrets that. Even intramurals were weirdly competitive in her residential college and controlled by guys and certain cliques.

She has a handful of friends, works out a lot, and got a job at the library. It’s not the buffet of opportunity she’s hoped for and I know that’s hard on her.
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I went to Yale, albeit a while ago but this resonates. It can be a hard transition first year. I went through it and so did my counselees (I was a freshman counselor). I hope she will keep looking for her people. I eventually found mine after cycling through several clubs/activities that were not a fit, and it was in a surprising place. I am sincerely sorry to hear that the clubs are competitive nowadays; that seems to be different from my time. As for intramurals, the residential colleges play against each other, and there are always a couple that get really, really into it (others didn't care at all). But at least in my day, there were some women only teams, so those would not be controlled by guys.

As for the brilliant classmates, well yeah, that's Yale for you! [/quote]

Thanks for this! Yes, her college is quite competitive and the teams seem run by a small group. It sounds like the majority or all of teams are co-ed with minimum requirements for female participation, so that’s affected the ability to actually get to play for her.

I think her struggle is that the good friends she’s made have all been accepted into clubs/activities. Apparently there are certain nights when all of the athletes and all of the YDN people and all of the whatever people are off doing their thing and places like the dining hall become pretty motley assortments of people (who she’s trying to befriend). That’s part of why she took the library job, because it started to feel like she needed a weeknight place to go that wasn’t watching boys play video games in a suite or going drinking.

She’s trying to get involved in more one-off things like going to visiting speakers and helping arrange residential college events. It is a hard transition from the level of engagement and satisfaction she got from her HS activities.

She was recruited for her sport at other schools and would have been a walk-on in it at Yale in 3-4 years ago, but they have brought in a lot of strong international athletes in her sport to fill in post-covid era gaps in classes so there wasn’t a path forward for her there. I know that’s haunting her a bit.[/quote]

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