Lions and tigers and bears..oh my!...and college visits!

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Oi Vey!....went to a college visit/junior day with my son to a Christian Liberal Arts college in Pennsylvania. Sucked.
He's not going there. They charge "pheasant under glass" tuition fees but try desparately to sell you the crappy college, feed you slop for lunch, then give you some plastic piece of s**t drinking cup with their logo on it. I feel absolutely "had". I do believe in God but if you're not a theology student, you need to talk less about God and more about the courses. That wasn't the case here at this institution. I can't give the name, it wouldn't be right to slander the place. It could be right for some people but not for us.
The students had their artwork up on the walls - terrible. I guess they don't even give constructive criticism. They give no internships to their business students. The only program worth considering there was nursing BECAUSE it is in conjunction with an excellent university for health studies in the Philadelphia area. What a waste it was. The moral of this story is DO VISIT SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES because virtual tours and pics are VERY misleading!! !! This place is for the children of the independently wealthy who don't have to work for a living. Cute/sweet/nice doesn't get you a job - you have to really know what you're talking about regardless of what kind of degree you are holding. What about finding a job after graduation!!? Oh, by the way, the dorms were excellent but the education........ much to be desired.

Such a "fun" process, isn't it? Always good to cross an expensive school off the list, however

My son hadn't visited his current school until after he was admitted, and even then it wasn't until the 2nd day of the visit that he started to realize he could actually do well there. Basically, there is only so much you can get from a tour; the real test is talking to a variety of students. In this case, we knew the school had an excellent reputation, but what my son couldn't tell was if he might actually fit into a school that was far too big, not his favorite geographically, and quite bureaucratic. Yet, now that he is there ... its been perfect.

I wish you all the best with this awful, stressful, unpredictable process. Don't fall in love too much with schools that look good either; you don't yet know how your son's admission process will play out: it truly is a crapshoot, so aim all over the map. My son got into the school on his list that he considered himself least likely to be admitted to, and wasn't admitted to one of his sure things. Totally unpredictable. More often than not it all works out for the best, but one can be unlucky ... so be prepared to hedge your bets and not get too deflated if a few years of community college end up being in the cards.

Indeed it is important to visit to see if a college is a good fit.
Sometimes, it is hard to tell even with a visit, because it is hard to know what school and life there will be like from a visit compared to attending.

To be honest, I'd rather see him go to a community college for a bit to take some more math courses - about two semesters - I wouldn't say a few years of community college. His SAT's could've been better too.

I totally agree with doing your due diligence to pick the right college. And by "right", I don't meant the one that looks right. Now, my rant/forceful advice won't be very parent-friendly. But it will make a world of difference to the college-bound student. So read on, and don't get offended by borderline sexual references.

Now, I picked my college for all the wrong reasons. (My aspie naivity is to blame.) While it had a very strong program in my major, I picked it for two unrelated---and wrong---reasons: (1) almost no one I knew from my high school was going there, which meant a fresh new start, and (2) there was good public transit in the area, which was extremely important, because I didn't have a car. It was cheaper than where my parents wanted me to go, only that one didn't meet my criteria, so they didn't object. I lived at home, which hurt me even further.

I got my academic education, all right. Only the school's social scene was so boring, I wanted to poke my eyes and ears out! In the four years I went there, I had only one girlfriend, someone god-awfully incompatible with me. Not only did I graduate a virgin, I didn't even kiss a girl the whole time, at least no one at my school (read below). Heck, I started smoking out of sheer boredom on campus. Good thing tobacco taxes were lower back then.

By contrast, when I visited my friend at another school, I made out with a girl at a bar/party/something-or-other within a few hours of arriving on their campus. She was really affectionate with me (wink-wink) during the whole process, and her hair felt nice against my hand, although we were both sloshed into oblivion. (Of course, having taken dance lessons helped greatly, since me and her were dancing, and she liked my moves, which I think were a bastardized version of rumba/salsa/whatever.) Such a scene at my own school was simply nonexistent!

If you take away nothing else from my post, take away this. NEVER underestimate the importance of having a friendly, vibrant social scene. You'll be surprised how easily aspies can fit in at some (but not all) college parties And even one crazy night like mine can be more beneficial to an aspie's personal growth than a whole semester of Anthro 101, Bio 101, and Calc 105. (And oh yeah, make him take dance lessons; he'll be glad he did. )

Aspie1, you and my son are SO different! Gosh, I was laughing reading your experience. My son's school is incredibly boring - and he LOVES that about it. He's totally sworn off girls for now as something that would just get in the way of his studies (or, worse, land him in legal trouble if he misreads signs), but his best friend is actually a girl (not sure if she might want something more romantic; he can't read the signs and he refuses to ask her, but she makes sure he has always arrived home safely, etc and they have dinner together every night). He's got his play testers handy in his dorm (he invents games as a hobby; someday he may get lucky and make money off of it), a regular Dungeons and Dragons crew, and I could tell when I went to visit him that he was super happy.

But you are right that a high school Aspie may not have the best sense of what it is they really want (do many teens?). My son thought he needed a small school anywhere but southern California. Instead, he is at a giant school in southern California. He was attracted to schools with character; this one is solidly vanilla. But, as he has discovered, it really works for him. I don't know if he would have figured that out if fate hadn't somewhat forced him to.

Last edited by DW_a_mom on 04 May 2016, 3:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Every student is different, so whatever path is right for him, I hope that will be the one he takes.

Being funny was my intention . I wanted to describe my first kiss experience exactly as it was: messy, erratic, and incredibly fun! A far cry from the sweet, romantic first kisses most NT guys get: at a middle school dance or an awkward-in-a-cute-way movie date.

It seems like aspies/autistics fall into two camps: sensory-seeking and sensory-avoiding. I'm a sensory seeker. (Probably even more so when I was 20, when my AS was more severe.) So me French kissing that girl, playing with her hair, loud reggaeton music blasting, colored lights flashing, alcohol sloshing around in my bloodstream, and us dancing bastardized rumba---all at once!---must have sent a massive surge of dopamine, oxytocin, and god-knows-what-else, straight to my brain. All I remember after that encounter is looking down a long, tunnel-like row of glowing streetlights, as my friends were taking me to a pizza place to get some food. (I have no memory of eating there; they filled me in next morning.) The only shame is that I had to get far away from my own college for it all happen.

Now, while your son may be different, I'd take THAT over a free semester at Harvard et al. (But I'm sure you'd prefer that he choose the latter, which he probably would, anyway.)

My school was devoid of character too. Excluding two or three oldest Art Deco buildings, most were your boring stucco or brick, looking more like motels than places of learning. The school where I got my first kiss was just plain gorgeous: historic buildings with Greek columns interspersed with modern glass-and-steel boxes. If I were a billionaire, I'd buy out my school, shut it down, convert the oldest buildings into museums, and tear down the rest.