any advice on teens making collage decis

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-08-2005
any advice on teens making collage decis
11
Sun, 03-04-2007 - 11:01pm
ds 17 we thought he had it down what he was going to school for and choice of the two collages. he has been offered a schoolarship of 10,000.00 per year at the one collage and was accepted into the computer science program at both schools...he has been seeing this girl for about 3 months and comes home tonight from her house telling me he thinks that he has made a decision on what he wants to do about school...said he wants to go to school between Pennsylvania (home) and NJ because his girlfriend he found out next month is moving to NJ and he wants to go to school near where she is living. i can tell when he was telling me he was paying very close attention to my reaction and asked what i thought...i told him that i don't think he should base his collage decision on where a girlfriend of three months will be living. ... and his reaction was...well, the way i feel right now is i want to be near her and i will go to a collage that i can take my core classes and it doesn't matter where i go as long as i get my education. i tried to explain to him that if he lived at home he would not have all of those expenses ... he said that i took care of him all through hs and grade school and now he needs to do this....i chose to let this conversation kind of linger off because i am hoping that this was just a decision he made tonight after finding out she was moving and he will wake up w/i the next few months and realize differently. What is your opinions.? Does it ever end? arrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

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iVillage Member
Registered: 12-18-2006
Mon, 03-05-2007 - 2:29am

In the end, common sense should prevail when choosing a university.

Take me, for example.

I got into Monash University, a prestigious university in my home state. However, to get there meant a lot of travelling - we're talking five hours there and back for a one-hour lecture. It just wasn't feasible, because I don't have a license, nor did I want the upheaval of living away from home in my first year of uni. It's double the transitions.

So instead, I applied for Victoria University. My mum works at the same campus I'm doing my degrees at, and I get the added bonus of free transport. Even without that, though, it would still be easier to get to VU than it would be to get to Monash, because I live much closer to VU.

In the end, you really have to weigh up what's important. If the course isn't offered anywhere else and that's your dream, then go there by all means. But what you need to ask yourself is, "Is my dream worth giving up my life?" Because it's gonna be a long three, four, five, even SIX years, kiddo. A long, hard few years.

And I can pull out my acceptance letters and say, "Hey, I got into Monash. I did it. I just chose a different dream."

BTW, here in Australia, there are very few occurrences of "following friends to uni". Most people I know don't follow anyone to uni, they follow the opportunities their final scores gave them.

However, take my advice with a grain of salt as we have fewer universities. I still see heaps of people from my school at VU - I joke that like, a third of the Class of 2006 ended up there!

The only people that generally live at, or near, uni, are international students, country students and people that live on the other side of the city who think commuting sucks.

Lots of kids, though, do end up moving out of house and home or commuting to university.

My friend is studying a double degree at Deakin University, which is located on the other side of Melbourne. She travels five hours, there and back (on a good day), sometimes for only a one-hour lecture. She comes home late and she doesn't want to study. We are only beginning our second week of uni, and already she complains about how tired she is.

I'm tired too - I feel like I've been run over by a particularly nasty, vengeful, sadistic, heartless truck - but my days, for the most part, will never be as long as hers.

My cousins attended the University of Melbourne (this is the big one - this, along with Monash, is the Ivy of Victoria). They lived just outside of the city and could walk to uni. One moved to Monash because she found Melbourne "too snobby". Their father rented them an apartment ten minutes away. The other started out at Monash and moved to Melbourne.

My point? It's not about what university you attend. It's about whether it suits you, whether you get what you want and need from it, and what you become.

Any employer who refuses to employ you on the basis of what uni you did, or did not, attend, is not an employer you want to be working for.




Edited 3/5/2007 8:34 am ET by abbag1rl
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Registered: 02-14-2000
Mon, 03-05-2007 - 9:44am
Hopefully he'll come to his senses and realize that there is a good chance they won't even be an item by the time he starts college!
Pam
iVillage Member
Registered: 08-08-2005
Mon, 03-05-2007 - 12:46pm
thanks for the input. i don't want to use the leverage cuz he will just blow off and say then he's not going to collage and go and pump gas. i've gotten that befor. They just do not realize the importance right now of the decisions he is making. I further reminded him in his sophemore, jr years to keep his grades up..he screwed up and did not make up some tests, was skipping last period so his grade in that class went way down and broght down his gpa. so now he wants to beable to get into Temple...i know this requires extreme grades which my son ... on his own screwed up when he should have been more serious and concerned. we all learn the hard way i guess. i just hope he comes to his senses soon. Thanx.
Avatar for soccermom03
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Registered: 03-27-2003
Mon, 03-05-2007 - 3:02pm

I'm pretty sure I'm the other mom going through a similar thing that Pam referred to in her post, lol. My DS18 has chosen to go to the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. UArk is a good school, and Fayetteville is lovely....but we live in Indiana. DS had been accepted at several prestigious schools (Notre Dame, Vanderbilt, Northwestern to name a few), but has been in a relationship with a girl from outside Fayetteville since fall. We have a family history with UArk (my brother got his doctorate in Optical Physics there) and he had always considered going there, but it jumped to #1 on his list after gf entered the picture.

We told DS how we felt about his decision, and told him what we were willing/able to pay toward his undergrad and then left most of the decision up to him. Darned if we didn't get notification this weekend that he has been awarded a $40,000 scholarship that offsets the gap between what we will pay and what out of state tuition and fees are. LOL, that kid is nothing if not resourceful. DH and I have accepted that he has made his decision and we can either support it or not support it- and we've never *not* supported him in anything. He is a good kid and has kept up his grades, never been in trouble and has always made us proud so I feel he has earned the right to make his own decision regarding college. We had always hoped that he would go away to school- don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to get rid of him or anything, I just think it is important for kids to leave the nest for college even if they are just going across town to live on campus. I'm not sure I'm going to like having him 8 hours away, though!

We're going down to Fayetteville the first week of April (spring break) to meet with the Honors College advisors, see dorms and meet the track coaching staff (DS would like to try to walk on to their track team). I haven't been to Fayetteville since my brother's graduation 12 years ago, and although DS has been down twice in the last 6 months this will be our first "official" campus visit with a guided tour and all. I am looking forward to it and am really excited for him.

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Registered: 02-14-2000
Mon, 03-05-2007 - 5:41pm
Yes it was you that I was referring to!
Pam
iVillage Member
Registered: 08-08-2005
Mon, 03-05-2007 - 9:09pm
THIS Is is all so different from my situation it think...you son is going to a collage offering him $40,000 and you son is sports driven too...my son is not. i am afraid that he is going to go all the way out there and not beable to survive or shall i say be responsible. First and foremost, my son is on 3 different meds one taken twice per day and the other two taken early morning...he is terrible in remembering to take them,... i practically have to place them in his mouth or he forgets...the meds are not ones you can just forget to take. Secondly, my son is laid back and is on the comp 24/7 when he is not hanging around this girl or playing his guitar. i just don't think he would do well away from home. He is just plain irresponsible. he is now as we speak, applying on line to Temple in Phila.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-05-2007
Mon, 03-05-2007 - 11:59pm
I suggest that you give him your heartfelt advice and concerns in a kind voice one more time. Then as hard as it is, let him make the final decision. He will resent you if you try to force your opinion on him. He will always wonder what could have become of that relationship with that girl. Odds are that if his relationship doesn't work out, he will still succeed in school, etc. But who knows what will happen if he goes to school far away from her and is miserable. Will he be able to concentrate? He needs to make this choice on his own. If he regrets it, that is his to own. Just be supportive.
iVillage Member
Registered: 08-08-2005
Tue, 03-06-2007 - 8:45am
you are probably right. he went on line last night and applied to Temple. i hope he is not crushed. my son use to do so well in school and his last 2 years he slacked off so his gpa is not as desierable and may not be what the collages are looking for ..,he is around a 3.0.... he thinks nothing of missing gym class because he has a medical excuse but it is laziness when he misses most times. i just don't think he is prepared to be on his own. he has no sense of responsibility and in saying that, maybe it would be good if he went away to school. may be a rude awakening. :* (
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Registered: 03-26-2003
Tue, 03-06-2007 - 9:29am

Both my son and his best friend were unhappy with their choice this, their freshman year. The best friend transferred at semester. I convinced ds to stay out the year but he will not be returning next year

It was THEIR choice but they didnt really investigate. They wanted to attend the local university but a 3.0 doesnt cut it here either. So they just randomly picked this college because there were limited dorms and they thought theyd get an apartment. This mom refused-other mom would have and surely blames me for their unhappiness-oh, well. I'm confident I was correct in that decision.

He will be at our community college next year with hopes of transferring to the original desired university his junior year. Mom is caving to the apartment this time-not sure that's a good decision :(

It's tough! I think there are so many more choices than back in the day, its overwhelming.
Anyway, my point was-kids transfer-a lot. If this doesnt work, he can transfer at the end of the year

I ran into DS2's English teacher a few weeks ago and she asked how he was doing. I filled her in and she said "Oh, he'll be fine; it took me 6 to get it right"

Oh, please no!!

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-14-2006
Tue, 03-06-2007 - 11:10am
to answer your question...no i don't think it ever ends. LOL I went through the college selection process twice, with my DS and DD. DS only wanted one school so he was easy. DD and I visited several colleges..never had quite the same problem as you with them wanting to be near a bf/gf. I think you were right not to react too much yet, he may have been anticipating your arguments and by not reacting too negatively you may have diffused some of them. I would suggest visiting the schools, cause with my DD sometimes that was all it took to make up her mind, if they don't feel comfortable on the visit, i don't think they will feel comfortable there. Perhaps discuss with him if he would be comfortable at the school with the girlfriend out of the equation, because they won't be together 24/7. She will make new friends and want to spend time with them, and he will need to have his own life at the college, will he feel comfortable with that? I know some of my daughter's friends based their college decisions on things that didn't pan out the way they thought and are now unhappy with their choices. Some of them didn't realize the schools were out in the country with nothing around, so that if they didn't have a car, there really was not much to do on campus. My reaction to this is, what were they looking at? Did they not see that when they visited, since that was a major criteria for my DD. Suggest to him that he apply to several colleges even if he doesn't plan to attend them, but just so that the option would exist in case he changes his mind. This way you are not saying no to the idea of going to school close to g/f, which only makes them more stubborn IMO, but at least won't lock him into something that by June may not seem like such a good idea. As for the medication and worrying about him being able to take care of himself, sometimes, they actually surprise you. Good Luck!

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