<p>First, I need to apologize for the fact that, in my writing haste, I made a poor and improper analogy in my last post. I don’t see any way to make revisions to my earlier post or I would.</p>
<p>Thanks, Varska, for the kind words; I hope you don’t get flamed for them!</p>
<p>I began posting here with the intent of letting you more competitive teens understand that many of the toughest competitors you will face for admission to the super-elite colleges are the type who don’t post online and don’t brag about their accomplishments in school; most of the truly exceptional kids, like my sons, have long since learned to keep their mouths shut about the fact that they are so different, so out of the mainstream. There are thousands of these kids nationwide.</p>
<p>I tried to give you that rarely-seen silent perspective. Somehow this devolved into me attempting to briefly summarize every tough parenting decision I have had to make over the last decade and a half to a bunch of amateur psychoanalysts with no experience in actually raising a family. I’m fine with a healthy argument, but we now seem to be hung up on a round-robin tag team of the same handful of posters obsessed with exactly what my older son did when he was 9 – he’s 20 now, folks, and doing just fine – let’s move on.</p>