Regret. Was a first generation college grad before that was a "thing" so got zero familial advice or college admissions boost. I'm sure my application was cliched crap. I just did not have a clue about higher ed/academe. Was an IR major before that was ubiquitous, so only looked at a very small pool of schools.

l got wait listed at Tufts and Georgetown, rejected by an Ivy and ended up at my safety, a small 3rd tier liberaL arts school in NE that was on no way shape or form international. Transferred to GWU (Washington DC! Embassies!), spent my junior year abroad and got a thoroughly perfunctory, anonymous education from GW. Like the GWU grad poster up thread, not in touch with anyone, zero feeling of connection to the school.

If I had a do over I'd go to a small top liberals school where I'd have had a better shot at connecting to faculty and getting a real education. Or better yet, should have gone to a women's college like Wellesley or Smith. I redeemed myself for grad school but definitely felt that my classmates from SLACS were way better prepared, more polished, and just knew how academe worked and the world of work "worked."

Happily, my kids are benefitting from the wisdom gained from my mistakes.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I went to a "posh" college and I don't think the people there were particularly classy. There were a lot of cliques and segregation and fratboys or lacrosse bros or whatever obnoxious white guys are called now. I have met many sophisticated people from state schools. You can cultivate class in yourself by reading a lot and being kind. People always find that classy.

Cookie if you can guess what "top" college I went to.

Duke? I went there, and I could have written this and more. I regret it, absolutely, but I don't think I would have spent any less time drinking at Local State U. I am working on making sure my kids don't just follow the herd and hopefully wherever they go, they can spend time doing what they want to do instead of what they think is "cool".

Ding ding ding!! We have a winner! I wish I could email you and we could sit around and bitch about this, I feel so uncomfortable telling people who ask me about my college years that I sort of hated Duke.

14:09 here... I know! It's so hard to smile and nod when people say "Oh, Duke, you must have had so much FUN there what with all the basketball games!" Kindness was not something I saw a lot of at Duke; often it seemed like people were mean to other people for sport. Nothing classy about that. I actually think a lot of my friends really struggled there. We certainly were all bulimic, which tells you something. I realize that "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" and all that, and I feel stronger having made it through that difficult time, but also I have so many regrets about what I did and what I didn't do with those four years.

On the bright side, knowing what I know now, I've tried to help guide my kids' educations so they can hopefully see that there are other paths besides the one I took, and they can make a conscious choice about where to go and not just pick their school based on superficialities.

See, this is funny. I went to big/local state U because a lot of people from my high school went and it was a pretty typical path. I didn't like my experience at all - trashy students, stumbling drunk, unkind, and not particularly smart either. Many of us were also bulimic or anorexic. I WANT my kids to realize they can go to Duke (or whatever school) and they don't have to follow the herd or do what's school.

This is hilarious; I went to an Ivy and you just described a huge chunk of the students there. Guaranteed Duke or whatever other "lofty" school you dream of for your kids will have the same kind of kids. People like this abound, regardless of the status (real or perceived) of the college.

Regret the school I went to?

Hell yes. University of Rochester -- good academics, but terrible weather and filled to the brim with apathetic/snobby/trust-fund/drunk Greeks whose parents couldn't quite buy their way into the Ivies. (Many of them from the DC suburbs -- not exactly a great introduction to DC folks for someone like myself who grew up somewhere else.)

On the other hand, I loved my graduate experience at a well-regarded state college filled with smart, motivated, unpretentious students.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Went OOS to a state university in a great town. There are probably other schools I would have liked too, but I have no regrets and good friends, even after 30 years. They are smart, funny and open-minded people. I had many small seminar type classes with great profs. There were gazillions of clubs, events, intramurals, opportunities... I eventually lived off campus, learned how to cook, how to rent an apartment (utilities, rent terms, etc.) and negotiate with a landlord, manage my money, manage my GPA and still have fun. Even took classes at the neighboring SLACs in the consortium. Nope. No regrets.

UMASS Amherst?

Yup. Only negatives I can think of were that the dorms were sometimes loud and the library was ugly. Sometimes I went to the other schools just for the aesthetics of the libraries. My department gave me a locking library carrel (a whole mini room) as an undergrad, though. That was great. My professors knew me. You could learn to fix your car or smith silver at the student run student union. Friends went on to law school, med school, journalism, academia and wild world adventures. Now that I think about it, I better send them more money.

I also went to UMASS Amherst and had a very similar experience. The students and professors are diverse in the best sense of the word and the Happy Valley is a great place to be a student. I grew so much during my time there and found it to be a far more intellectually stimulating experience than the highly-ranked grad law school I went on to attend. The insecure me sometimes thinks it would be nice to have gone to a brand-name school more likely to elicit impressed nods at cocktail parties, but that's the only thing lacking from my college experience.

Anonymous wrote:I went to a well-regarded small, NE SLAC and loved every minute of it.

Interestingly, I have a friend who went to Duke and a friend who went to Stanford and both said they wished they had gone to my college.

PP here - probably due to size and/or 'gunner' mentality that pervades those two schools.

Knowing myself as I do now, I would've turned down Duke and Stanford for Williams any day of the week.

At 17-18 though, I wouldn't have.

Yes - i went to a large well known state school that has a love/hate relationship with this forum.

I turned down much higher ranked and smaller schools.

I regret that decision quite a bit.

For me though it is less about the fact that i turned down much more elite schools, than turning down smaller schools.

Going to a large school was a terrible fit for me.

the ideal combo for someone like me would've been small school/big city.

Anonymous wrote:If the biggest regret that a well-off, successful Washingtonian has in life is that they did not attend a good-enough university, then consider yourself lucky because you have a great life.

Totally not the point of this thread.

I went to a well-regarded small, NE SLAC and loved every minute of it.

Interestingly, I have a friend who went to Duke and a friend who went to Stanford and both said they wished they had gone to my college.

If the biggest regret that a well-off, successful Washingtonian has in life is that they did not attend a good-enough university, then consider yourself lucky because you have a great life.

Pp here. Sorry for the iPhone typos.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I went to a "posh" college and I don't think the people there were particularly classy. There were a lot of cliques and segregation and fratboys or lacrosse bros or whatever obnoxious white guys are called now. I have met many sophisticated people from state schools. You can cultivate class in yourself by reading a lot and being kind. People always find that classy.

Cookie if you can guess what "top" college I went to.

Duke? I went there, and I could have written this and more. I regret it, absolutely, but I don't think I would have spent any less time drinking at Local State U. I am working on making sure my kids don't just follow the herd and hopefully wherever they go, they can spend time doing what they want to do instead of what they think is "cool".

Ding ding ding!! We have a winner! I wish I could email you and we could sit around and bitch about this, I feel so uncomfortable telling people who ask me about my college years that I sort of hated Duke.

14:09 here... I know! It's so hard to smile and nod when people say "Oh, Duke, you must have had so much FUN there what with all the basketball games!" Kindness was not something I saw a lot of at Duke; often it seemed like people were mean to other people for sport. Nothing classy about that. I actually think a lot of my friends really struggled there. We certainly were all bulimic, which tells you something. I realize that "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" and all that, and I feel stronger having made it through that difficult time, but also I have so many regrets about what I did and what I didn't do with those four years.

On the bright side, knowing what I know now, I've tried to help guide my kids' educations so they can hopefully see that there are other paths besides the one I took, and they can make a conscious choice about where to go and not just pick their school based on superficialities.

See, this is funny. I went to big/local state U because a lot of people from my high school went and it was a pretty typical path. I didn't like my experience at all - trashy students, stumbling drunk, unkind, and not particularly smart either. Many of us were also bulimic or anorexic. I WANT my kids to realize they can go to Duke (or whatever school) and they don't have to follow the herd or do what's school.

But you don't understand... I am the op (the first pp who went to Duke) and I actually did resist the culture completely. I never got drunk, I wasn't interested in impressing other people, I wanted to find my own way and most if my friends were the same.

And it stunk!! It stinks being so far off from the schools baseline culture. It stunk being somewhat naiive and unrealistic and thinking people would want to have discussions about books and big issues and getting there and realizing fun for me was not fun for everyone else. There was very much a careerist ethos where people left their intelligence at class. A lot of kids were like me and didn't care about other people. But I was extremely sensitive to me environment- I hated that the social scene was segregated, I hated finding vomit in the hall on Sunday morning, I hated watching extremely intelligent girls like the other pp obsess about their looks and stumble home from parties half naked on Sunday as I walked to the library or chapel. I look ethnically ambiguous and for the first time in my life I felt that white people just did not want to talk to me- and I grew up in West Virginia!!! It was just such a toxic place.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The sad thing is that I'm pretentious, loved my pretentious private high school, hated my state school that I was forced to choose for financial reasons, and have regretted it ever since. I was surrounded by rough crazy Christians and then those people who thought they were really hot shit because they had a Coach bag. I was not at home there, at all. I would have been very happy and perfectly at home at a snotty rich kid school. But my parents were in a bind financially and I was a good daughter and took the state school for it's in-state tuition and partial merit scholarship.

So much regret. People look blank-faced when I mention my alma mater. I hate it.

You must be young if you still worry about what people think about where you went to school. There are smart successful people from both state and private schools. As you get older people judge you on what you have actually done with your life.

+1

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I went to a "posh" college and I don't think the people there were particularly classy. There were a lot of cliques and segregation and fratboys or lacrosse bros or whatever obnoxious white guys are called now. I have met many sophisticated people from state schools. You can cultivate class in yourself by reading a lot and being kind. People always find that classy.

Cookie if you can guess what "top" college I went to.

Duke? I went there, and I could have written this and more. I regret it, absolutely, but I don't think I would have spent any less time drinking at Local State U. I am working on making sure my kids don't just follow the herd and hopefully wherever they go, they can spend time doing what they want to do instead of what they think is "cool".

Ding ding ding!! We have a winner! I wish I could email you and we could sit around and bitch about this, I feel so uncomfortable telling people who ask me about my college years that I sort of hated Duke.

14:09 here... I know! It's so hard to smile and nod when people say "Oh, Duke, you must have had so much FUN there what with all the basketball games!" Kindness was not something I saw a lot of at Duke; often it seemed like people were mean to other people for sport. Nothing classy about that. I actually think a lot of my friends really struggled there. We certainly were all bulimic, which tells you something. I realize that "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" and all that, and I feel stronger having made it through that difficult time, but also I have so many regrets about what I did and what I didn't do with those four years.

On the bright side, knowing what I know now, I've tried to help guide my kids' educations so they can hopefully see that there are other paths besides the one I took, and they can make a conscious choice about where to go and not just pick their school based on superficialities.

See, this is funny. I went to big/local state U because a lot of people from my high school went and it was a pretty typical path. I didn't like my experience at all - trashy students, stumbling drunk, unkind, and not particularly smart either. Many of us were also bulimic or anorexic. I WANT my kids to realize they can go to Duke (or whatever school) and they don't have to follow the herd or do what's school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I went to a "posh" college and I don't think the people there were particularly classy. There were a lot of cliques and segregation and fratboys or lacrosse bros or whatever obnoxious white guys are called now. I have met many sophisticated people from state schools. You can cultivate class in yourself by reading a lot and being kind. People always find that classy.

Cookie if you can guess what "top" college I went to.

Duke? I went there, and I could have written this and more. I regret it, absolutely, but I don't think I would have spent any less time drinking at Local State U. I am working on making sure my kids don't just follow the herd and hopefully wherever they go, they can spend time doing what they want to do instead of what they think is "cool".

Ding ding ding!! We have a winner! I wish I could email you and we could sit around and bitch about this, I feel so uncomfortable telling people who ask me about my college years that I sort of hated Duke.

14:09 here... I know! It's so hard to smile and nod when people say "Oh, Duke, you must have had so much FUN there what with all the basketball games!" Kindness was not something I saw a lot of at Duke; often it seemed like people were mean to other people for sport. Nothing classy about that. I actually think a lot of my friends really struggled there. We certainly were all bulimic, which tells you something. I realize that "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" and all that, and I feel stronger having made it through that difficult time, but also I have so many regrets about what I did and what I didn't do with those four years.

On the bright side, knowing what I know now, I've tried to help guide my kids' educations so they can hopefully see that there are other paths besides the one I took, and they can make a conscious choice about where to go and not just pick their school based on superficialities.

There is a college in Miami called "Florida International University" that claims to be the most selective public school in Florida because it has the lowest acceptance rate.

In reality, the flagship schools: FSU and the University of Florida are much harder to get into, and their average freshman GPAs and test scores are much higher, but they have higher acceptance rates because they have smaller, higher-quality applicant pools.

FIU is a commuter school, and commuter schools get large numbers of unqualified applicants.