Reply to DD applied "wrong"

Forum Index » College and University Discussion

Reply to "DD applied "wrong""

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My DD has a dream school. She could not care about any other school besides this one school. Despite telling her that there are other schools, in better locations, with better programs in a major she seemingly chose out of thin air. I gave up and let her put all her efforts into this one reach school. She applied to about 5 other schools, basically pulling names out of a hat.
She did not get into dream school.
And is now in a tizzy because she hates her other choices. And she announced she is not interested in her major and doesn't know what she wants to do.

All this to say you aren't alone....

What we did and are doing - touring the schools she got into. Telling her that every school will prepare her for the next step (career or grad school) and that no one (her friends, her teachers, other parents) can legitimately state that one school is better that the other unless they have been to all of these schools. These are opinions based on their own personal preferences and what they have "heard". I told her that she doesn't need to choose a major right away and finally, she can transfer out if there isn't a fit.

After touring a couple schools, she actually does like one of them. We are waiting for other results. She is still sad about not making it to her dream school, but she is getting excited about the other prospects.[/quote]

This is an excellent example of why you should work to convince your student to have a great balance of reaches, targets and safeties.  And that the targets and safeties are not actual choices if your kid doesn't LIKE the school.  You have the opportunity to select them carefully, and given that most kids do NOT get into their reaches (they are called reaches for a reason and for top students, most are single digit acceptance rates), you need to focus on Targets and safeties so you will ultimately pick from choices you LIKE

Also, why you don't hype up a dream school mentality.  [/quote]

That's all well and good when your kid likes multiple schools. Mine is looking for a liberal arts school (because she doesn't know what she wants to major in), with a specific extracurricular, on a pretty campus, not too far from and not too close to home, that isn't too big or too small. She is not interested in "reach" schools and does not believe it's worth $60K + a year to go to a more prestigious school even if she got into one (all her belief development, not ours. We never ever told any of our kids to let the posted tuition keep them from applying if they are really interested in the school, because you never know what offers you may actually get etc). Anyway, my point is, you can apply to 20 schools covering the range you cite. But if they aren't interested in any of them, it really doesn't matter. You should have at least one sure back-up. Unfortunately, some schools that have been strong back-ups are becoming more difficult to get into merely because of the number of students applying to them. The sure thing back-up just might be community college 2+2, or GMU if you're in a school that offers automatic acceptance if you have "x" GPA at the end of your junior year.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics