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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Quiet low-key kids should go to LACs. We made the exact same mistake with our oldest. We knew he was anxious and overwhelmed and struggled to come out of his shell — but we sent him to the state flagship because it was perceived to be more prestigious than LACs within driving distance. He was immediately overwhelmed and became a loner and before long was ditching most of his classes. If you have no friends, you don’t even want to eat in the cafeteria because it’s so embarrassing to eat alone. If nobody invites you anywhere on a weekend, it’s embarrassing to even walk around the dorm, so you become a shut-in. Even the brightest kids spiral quickly.[/quote]

This is my fear about DS - but he’s determined to ED to the state flagship. I think however it’s all about the luck of who is your roommate and who do you meet in your dorm, right ?[/quote]

You have to step out and seek out community if you aren't lucky in clicking well right away with your roommate/hallmates. If possible, live in an living-learning community, although that's no guarantee. My son's at a 30K+ college and had always been pretty outgoing and made friends easily but even he found it difficult and he did think the covid senior year had hurt his social skills. He was in an LLC but didn't really engage with what they offered. But, for him, a big factor was a couple close friends went to the same school and he really leaned on those friends. I think if he hadn't had those, the need for friends would have given him more of a push to engage and he'd have gotten over the discomfort. He's in his 2nd year and still his core friend group is his high school friends.

We didn't really talk with him about this stuff before he went away because it had never been an issue. And he said when home at xmas and reflecting on the year so far that he expected academics to be hard and social stuff to be easy but it was completely the opposite. If I had an introverted/anxious kid, I would definitely talk with them before moving about strategies, that you should expect it to take time, review the website to ID some groups to join. Encourage daily/weekly goals around pushing yourself to engage. It takes work.[/quote]

This^^^ For first time, I had to map out social goals/expectations with my introverted kid for start of freshman year.  They are 3K miles from home and knew nobody.  Got lucky that their roommate is nice.  But roommate hangs out with the one friend they know from home, so my kid hangs with them and is slowly building more groups of friends.  But I'm glad my kid doesn't have anyone from home to cling to.  Because while they started out anxious, they have started making more friends, while the roommate is still hanging mostly with the friend from home.  [/quote]

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