Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think your daughter's perspective is normal. My senior DD is so excited for college. She's just committed to a school she's really enthusiastic about (which is a few states away), she can't wait to make new friends and get the heck out of the confinement of high school and have new freedoms. She's excited for the social life and fun of college and (she says) all the new academic and extracurricular challenges too. I do notice more girls than boys being at this stage of readiness but that could be purely anecdotal among my friends' kids.

My Senior son is 100% ready, but he is also older (late Fall bday) so he was 18 in October. He will be almost 19 at the start of college.

I see myself 100% in him. While I enjoyed HS, it wasn't my 'glory days'--even winning a State title and excelling, I wanted more. Things started to seem trivial. Also, I felt like everything I did was leading up to getting into college somewhat--keeping grades up, etc. It was such a huge relief when acceptances came and I was ready to move on.

This is a good point. I’m one of the PPs whose senior DD isn’t really looking forward to college yet. She’s also on the young side, won’t be 18 until after she starts college.

Sounds pretty typical to me! I just kept reminding mine about the process (and how soon it's coming up) and the need for her to start engaging with schools to see what might appeal to her.

I think the schools forcing kids to apply to a specialty and then almost locking them out of it later if they don’t is crazy. There were only a few schools like that 20 years ago - and most still has pathways you could transfer in if your gpa was high.

My DC who is a junior is very stressed and overwhelmed since he cannot envision what a few different career pathways would be - so trying to find ways to get him a bit more exposure while also looking for schools that allow a bit more flexibility to go into business, engineering, CS etc after freshman year.

This is like my kid. Super smart and sweet and well rounded but was not sure about college and major. They are at Pomona college now sampling classes in public policy, economics and environmental science. They are extremely happy there, loves the course offerings, dedicated professors, diverse background students, strong alumni networking, and plenty of clubs and activities across the 5C or 7C, and SoCal weather and suburb LA location.

btw, they often pack the night before

Very typical. Make sure she goes away to college.

Lord- I went undecided. The first year courses area about the same for everyone. I learned what I really liked. I studied that, declared major only after first year--no clear idea of what I wanted to do with it. That's how I progressed, doing things I was interested in and figuring it out along the way. It all worked out and I ended up getting grad school paid for by being a TA--been at my same company for close to 30 years and like others said: work to live. I enjoy my work--but passion?? I'm passionate that it pays very well and is extremely flexible and I can WAH. My job fits into my life and always did and allowed me to spend my free time on things I loved and gave me the resources to pay for it.

As I woman, I did have the idea of the flexibility of it because I knew I wanted kids, wanted to be around them growing up but didn't want to give up working.

Anonymous wrote:I think your daughter's perspective is normal. My senior DD is so excited for college. She's just committed to a school she's really enthusiastic about (which is a few states away), she can't wait to make new friends and get the heck out of the confinement of high school and have new freedoms. She's excited for the social life and fun of college and (she says) all the new academic and extracurricular challenges too. I do notice more girls than boys being at this stage of readiness but that could be purely anecdotal among my friends' kids.

My Senior son is 100% ready, but he is also older (late Fall bday) so he was 18 in October. He will be almost 19 at the start of college.

I see myself 100% in him. While I enjoyed HS, it wasn't my 'glory days'--even winning a State title and excelling, I wanted more. Things started to seem trivial. Also, I felt like everything I did was leading up to getting into college somewhat--keeping grades up, etc. It was such a huge relief when acceptances came and I was ready to move on.