<p>Yeah when my grandma was a kid (my family traditionally has kids late) she was part of the only family in town that had a car. Amazing how things change.</p>
<p>I think I understand your point about taking advantage of opportunities, BusterDad.
I feel lucky that I have parents as supportive and visionary as my parents. My parents are not professionals compared to other applicants’ parents, but they always try their best to provide me with the best learning opportunities, acquaint me with their friends who are college professors and give me access to facilities. I would never have had the opportunities that I enjoy today, I would never have even been interested in the idea of boarding schools had I been born to other parents, so I safely infer that parents do play a amazingly large role in kid’s achievement.
This flexibility in judging admission to prep schools makes me feel more optimistic now. I think that I have tried my best to take advantage of the not so ample opportunities in my country. As I have become a medium-sized fish in a small pond here, I feel necessary that I should reach out for more opportunities, one of them being US boarding schools.</p>
<p>My father rode in a Stanley Steamer as a kid, and remembered when they’d rush out of the house if a plane flew over to see it.</p>
<p>Things have changed even more dramatically in developing countries than in highly industrialized Western countries. My grandma who is 68 now didn’t have the chance to only witness the television until when she was 40.</p>
<p>I feel so proud living in the time when computers, Internet and nuclear power(haha I don’t know…) were invented and widely used.
But we’ll very probably be blamed for ruining the Earth. And that’s why we need to find a new way to live!!!</p>
<p>I would never have been able to speak this great language(English) and…Spanish(I’ll learn it this summer) if the Internet hadn’t been made into full play. </p>
<p>I’m so proud!!!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Indeed it is, Busterdad. And those of us born before 1980 will see the most astounding changes. I was telling my daughter the other day about what a double edged sword the internet was and after she ranted for about twenty minutes on what a stupid expression that was because a double edged sword would be either equally bad or equally good since it would cut both ways and not in opposite ways as the expression intends to mean - I think she saw my point! God help us all if she finds herself at a Harkness table.</p>
<p>But my kids are constantly amazed at what “primitive” circumstances I had growing up, and I’m not even that old!! I mentioned falling asleep in typing class from the click click click when I was in high school to my daughter and she said, “TYPING!!! You mean, with TYPEwriters???” Well, at least they were electric! (Kindly disregard how odd it is that that sound would put me to sleep.)</p>
<p>I was moaning about touch typing the other day and my mother said she could never do it either in typing class. I looked at her mystified because I knew they didn’t have computers then and suddenly I realised she meant a type-writer. The thought was so alien to me lol</p>
<p>Agree things change so much in a lifetime. But neato, you were lucky compared to my mom. She was born in the late 1960s and she didn’t even have a typewriter. No phone. She cooked with wood and used leaves to shampoo. No kidding.</p>
<p>Heh. And the biggest PITA about this whole application thing is that many of the schools are still paper based forms.</p>
<p>We threw out our typewriter years ago. I was reduced to scanning the paper in (or converting PDF’s in arcane ways) just to produce the applications. All of us in our family have horrible hand-writing that would have been completely illegible…</p>
<p>Luckily Deerfield was the only school that required my submission by paper. I rewrote my application 5 times (literally!) trying to make it look vaguely neat before I gave up… Neatness in any form just isn’t my thing.</p>
<p>I am extremely lucky Assign, in many many ways. I had a school to go to, which is more than what many girls across the world can say at present.</p>
<p>Andover allows online submission of the candidate profile but the rest of the applications must be submitted by mail. I think my handwriting is pretty neat, a little flowery but totally readable. Haha.</p>
<p>Come to China and you’ll find even more. </p>
<p>My great-grandma used to bind her feet. My great-grandfather used to be a commander or something and he had 3 wives(?). He moved to Taiwan in the early 60s(idk). </p>
<p>And my mom is not getting much attention from her parents only becase she’s a girl. (they still do it now!!!)</p>
<p>Changes in China just happened in a decade. The most influential change was the one took place in people’s minds. Chinese now see things very differently. Our concepts and values have changed.</p>
<p>@Busterdad - Mimeographs. <em>inhales deeply</em> ;)</p>
<p>Yes, you are exactly correct: the rate of change in the developing world is yet again much higher than here.</p>
<p>That’s really horrific Gonnastop! Right now I’m reading this book about a girl in yemen who won a divorce from her aranged marriage with an old guy at 10. What’s really scary is it happened only a year or two a go. I’m so lucky to be born in the west (well theoritically I wasn’t but you know what I mean), it puts BS into perspective. I’ve already won the lottery in so many ways.</p>
<p>We would have accepted “vaguely legible”. Fine motor problems are in my family, and so one way or the other, it had to be keyboarded. But what an amazing pain…</p>
<p>If it’s that unlegible what do your kids do for school out of curiousity?</p>
<p>
Great post, neato. Even though I don’t know you in real life, I truly hold a high respect for you. I’m sure you have taken advantage of being able to go to school and benefit the community around you.
There’s this anecdote about my mom of which I feel extremely proud. Many of you may not believe, but when mom was a kid, her family suffered from poverty and famine, it was not unusual that sometimes she had one meal for a whole day. Even under that circumstance, my grandparents were persistent that all of their kids must go to college. My mom eventually hold an advanced degree. Most of her friends in high school and her old neighbors are now factory workers at best.</p>
<p>I felt a little sad the first time I met my best friend(who has a incredibly rich dad and goes to an American BS). Then I was like, that is so unfair!!! Some girls now don’t even get education and they might not be able to survive. Why are these people having so much money!!!
But I have to understand that this is life. And people CAN change their “destinies”. </p>
<p>I just finished reading Daughter Of The East by Bunazir Bhutto(misspelled, yes) for the second time. You can say she’s lucky. She went to Harvard at the age of 16 and then to Oxford while most girls in Pakistan couldn’t read. She became the first woman president(prime minister) in the Islam world. But she is so unlucky. She spent decades in prison and couldn’t even stand upright. She was assassinated when at the age of 54.<br>
When I think about these, whether or not going to BS doesn’t seem to br that important(sorry but this is how I truly feel).</p>