College
When I was young, you had to sort of kind of guess which colleges might accept you, because there wasn't the same volume of information available. And you decided which colleges you wanted to apply to based on the brochures they sent, if, like me, you were going to an out of state college (we moved my senior year in HS, in-state wasn't going to be a thing for me, I needed merit money). And there wasn't a common app, which meant actually doing a complete app for every school. I applied to 5, which was a lot. Didn't visit a single one, though I had been to William and Mary and UVA before. And then when I got my acceptances, I used the brochures and the financial aid packages to make my choice.
Now, you have to go visit the colleges. I suggested to Zoë that unless a school indicated they wanted to see demonstrated interest, she didn't actually need to go visit beforehand. She was offended. So there's this list of 13 colleges she's interested in that she wants to go visit. And it's not even a complete list, it's the names she's recorded. She's talked about others. It doesn't help that her friends are visiting colleges all over the place, and I'm ... it seems like wasted money and effort. I suggest we visit local colleges so she can assess criteria, but no. I'm like, you say you want a big college, but before we plan a week trip to see all these big colleges, why not visit UMD. And if UMD is too big, then we can limit the big colleges to the one or two she thinks she likes for reasons in addition to "they're big." I know she wants to break out of small school, since she's been in a school of 800 students since Kindergarten. But she thinks the local high school (2K students) is huge. But I get it. I picked colleges in part based on which didn't have required classes.
Which is all to say. I'm excited she's excited about college. I'm excited to see her go to college, experience college, enjoy college. I am not excited about the picking-a-college bit.
Now, you have to go visit the colleges. I suggested to Zoë that unless a school indicated they wanted to see demonstrated interest, she didn't actually need to go visit beforehand. She was offended. So there's this list of 13 colleges she's interested in that she wants to go visit. And it's not even a complete list, it's the names she's recorded. She's talked about others. It doesn't help that her friends are visiting colleges all over the place, and I'm ... it seems like wasted money and effort. I suggest we visit local colleges so she can assess criteria, but no. I'm like, you say you want a big college, but before we plan a week trip to see all these big colleges, why not visit UMD. And if UMD is too big, then we can limit the big colleges to the one or two she thinks she likes for reasons in addition to "they're big." I know she wants to break out of small school, since she's been in a school of 800 students since Kindergarten. But she thinks the local high school (2K students) is huge. But I get it. I picked colleges in part based on which didn't have required classes.
Which is all to say. I'm excited she's excited about college. I'm excited to see her go to college, experience college, enjoy college. I am not excited about the picking-a-college bit.