<p>To me, this can be the downside of having your kid in a really top-flight school. They can be pressure cookers. You are either ON the fast-track, or you are off. The upside, of course, is that you have magnificent teachers, and a wide selection of fascinating courses that challenge your child to be all he/she can be. If you are on the GPA fast-track, you are always looking back over your shoulder, counting every A-, getting too little sleep, and work-work-working.</p>
<p>^^What surprises me about the OP’s description of her daughter’s school is the extent to which everyone seems to know everyone else’s business. How does a parent know that there are currently five 10th graders with an unweighted 4.0 GPA? Even in a highly competitive school, I find it unusual for others to acquire such intimate knowledge of the stats of the competition. That lack of privacy surely adds to the frenzy.</p>
<p>^In a very small highschool couldn’t her daughter just ask around? Shouldn’t be too hard to figure out.</p>
<p>Lots of schools publish a 4.0 honor roll and a #.## to 3.99 honor roll.</p>
<p>^^Not in my kids’ schools. One of my kids went to a large, highly competitive public and the other went to a tiny start-up parochial. Detailed info on stats just wasn’t out there at either school (aside from what you could glean from Naviance scattergrams starting junior year). Sure, you knew who was at the top of the class, but not precise GPAs. Nothing was published, and no one would ask. (Maybe that’s a Midwestern thing – more reserved?) Nor were kids engaged in this kind of serious jockeying for position about course selection, especially as early as 9th grade. It’s not that kids weren’t aiming high. They were, and some succeeded. But the bare-knuckles competition wasn’t there.</p>
<p>Here in the DC suburbs they print the honor roll in the newspaper.</p>
<p>^By asking around I meant ask students themselves. If someone has a 4.0 they know it’s a 4.0, there’s nothing to calculate. In a small high school all the top students probably know eachother, and can simply ask.</p>
<p>Neither of my kids would have asked a peer what his/her GPA was. I think they would have shared info on grades on a particular exam or maybe in a particular course, but questions about precise GPA would have been considered out of bounds.</p>
<p>At the private school my kids once attended, everyone was very competitive, but no one knew anyone else’s grades, and the school didn’t rank, or even show students its grade distributions. (It does have Naviance now, so they may be able to figure it out.) Kids were discouraged (explicitly, and by school culture) from talking about grades. So while everyone had a vague idea about who the good students were, no one knew anything precisely. (Also – no APs at all.)</p>
<p>At their public school, everyone knew everyone else’s class rank, and competitive kids knew each other’s GPA to the decimal point, because they all talked about it. Incessantly. The school had close to a one-factor prestige system, and the relative ranks of people at the top of the class were a subject of some interest (and occasional side-betting) throughout the class. Just completely different institutional cultures.</p>
<p>“Neither of my kids would have asked a peer what his/her GPA was. I think they would have shared info on grades on a particular exam or maybe in a particular course, but questions about precise GPA would have been considered out of bounds.”</p>
<p>…I guess that’s a… wherever you’re from thing. That wouldn’t have ever striken me as inappropriate. Infact, it seems inappropriate to try to hide something like that. Seems overly suspicious/paranoid.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Nope. Just a boundaries thing. And maybe an implicit recognition that there isn’t much intrinsic value in knowing that Johnny’s GPA is .015 higher than yours. </p>
<p>As JHS points out, these differences are also a matter of institutional culture. Judging by the OP, the kind of culture where everyone knows everyone’s GPA is the culture that’s more likely to breed paranoia.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Yes, our schools publish the honor roll information in the local paper too – but there’s a difference between “oh, look, honey, you’re in the paper,” ripping it out and maybe showing grandma, and filing it away in a memory box, and actually RETAINING the other information as to who else is listed in the paper along with your own kid. When I see those things, I scan it for MY kids. I might notice the names of their closest friends, but I certainly am not trying to retain the knowledge that there were 5 kids who had perfect 4.0’s or that John Smith is at the top of the class but Susie Jones isn’t. That presupposes an interest in other people’s children that, well, I simply don’t have, LOL, nor do I think it’s particularly an important thing to cultivate. </p>
<p>Frankly, I think there’s a certain level of boorishness in making an effort to collect and/or retain that information about other people’s children. I hardly think that I want to role-model for my kids that they should be noticing and caring about who is at the top of the class, or that other people’s specific GPA’s, test scores and accomplishments are their business too (beyond a “congratulations and good for you!” type of attitude). It’s one thing to know that Joe over there is really good at swimming and tennis and boy he’s some kind of whiz at math and he’s got his eye on MIT. It’s quite another to know that Joe has a 4.0129843275 GPA, scored 780 on his math SAT, a 5 on his Calc BC test, etc. Blech. Pay attention to your own stuff, kids. </p>
<p>Qwertykey, a student asking another student what his or her GPA is strikes me as beyond tacky, IMO. It’s like grown-ups asking one another how much they make. It’s nothing to cultivate, that’s for sure. </p>
<p>When I was a young employee in the work world, I was applying to MBA school and I had a boss who went to that school’s major competition and ribbed me about the one I had applied / was going to. He would ask me, in front of other people, how I had scored on my GMAT’s. Now, my score was nothing to be embarrassed over, but that wasn’t the point. He totally had no clue how inappropriate it was for him to ask me what I scored on GMAT’s, as he wasn’t the admissions committee and he had no need to know, and anyway I was in what was at the time the #1 b-school in the country, so obviously it was Good Enough. Tacky and boorish.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Inappropriate to hide?
So, what’s your bra size (if you’re female)? What’s your IQ? What do your parents make? What’s your house worth? How much credit card debt do you have? What did you pay for your car? What are you, paranoid? LOL.</p>
<p>OP here. </p>
<p>Have to say that Compmom and Skyhook are right on target, imo. My fantasy the past few months has been to move daughter to a charter high school for the arts where she could probably max the academics with relative ease and then pursue her interests in real depth. And also meet some interesting people. I think I’ll look into this. It’s really true that we can start to feel locked into a certain pathway and forget that there are choices. I think the obstacle in making such a move is that daughter would fight to stay where she is, even though it’s frankly pretty miserable to be there. It’s her school. Tough to disrupt that. But I appreciate those posts and will investigate a radical change. No question my older one worked far harder than was healthy - physically or psychologically - during high school. </p>
<p>Regarding wjb’s concern over privacy and sharing of gpa and course selection - I don’t know any of this information with certainty - and have to say I don’t really want to know it. I really would have preferred they weren’t talking over AP Chem this summer. Then my daughter could have just been oblivious to the whole issue and proceeded with general chem. The classes are small and the kids are very familiar with each other, many have been in the school since preschool. They talk. It would be better if they wouldn’t. Agree with wjb on that. But I don’t think it’s a matter of kids grilling other kids. It’s just an environment where they are all pretty frank and open about that information. When my daughter is asked these questions, she just answers. No big deal. To me it is, to her it is not.</p>
<p>Going to look into that charter school option now . . .</p>
<p>That is great to hear! Even looking at another school environment can be helpful, I think, because then the student’s school universe is seen with a different perspective, as one option among many, and one culture that can be followed or not.</p>
<p>If your daughter still prefers to stay where she is, just a couple of thoughts:</p>
<p>My kids have enjoyed taking classes that are not AP or sometimes not honors, and keeping in touch with a variety of kids, rather than being with the same driven few in every class (although, in our school, as I said, there aren’t many who are driven!). In a funny way, just being in class with kids with a variety of learning styles and goals can help counter the rat race mentality. </p>
<p>For instance, my youngest daughter, who used to take all honors, parted ways in some classes with some of her friends in jr. year, when AP classes started. The result is a new batch of friends (in addition to the old), hanging out in the art room, and reevaluating her goals (she is a dancer and is considering dancing versus college after next year, which is cool with the art kids, but confusing to the AP kids). My older daughter, the one who dropped back two levels in math to take a music class, really enjoyed the year with classmates she did not get to see anymore, and also her enjoyment of math soared, because she completely mastered it, and also because she ended up as a sort of informal tutor for others. It was a great experience! She is tutoring math in a GED program this summer. So, you never know what will bring growth.</p>
<p>The other thing is that between your other daughter/her sister and her school environment, not to mention her grades and accomplishments, it is easy to see why your daughter is fantasizing about going to Harvard. Maybe exposing her to info on other schools, having some of those books around like “Beyond the Ivies,” “Kool Colleges,” “Colleges that Change Lives,” “Creative Colleges” (my favorite) or the Peterson’s books on the Performing Arts schools might be nice to have around. A school like Oberlin is sometimes chosen over Harvard. You could foster a sort of reverse snobbery (!)that could open up her vistas. She might like Harvard, or she might not, but relieving that pressure will then make her eventual choices more authentic, and not just from her sister or school.
Normally this is a little early, but since she is already getting a little fixed on a school, maybe that would help, in a gentle and subtle way.</p>
<p>You seem like a really good parent. She is lucky to have you!</p>
<p>Sometimes it is hard to find your authentic path if you are following a “perfect” older sibling, or even a “perfect” parent. Some kids mistakenly think they have to follow (live up to) the “perfect path”, or alternatively, they reject everything the perfect person did. Makes it hard to listen for your own muse. I have seen this in my own family, and it can be hard to get past. Not saying that is what is happening here, but an older sib at Harvard casts a long shadow.</p>