“Welcome to Lake Wobegon, where all the women are beautiful and all the kids are above average.”
I’m wondering if these forums are the right place for me to be. All I tend to see are posts like "I got a 35.999 on the ACT and my GPA is 7.3 and I swam and ran the 1500 in the same Olympics and I have been Prime Minister of Canada since I was four and I’m not even Canadian. Can I get into my safety school (Yale) with this horrible record?
I feel like I’ve stumbled into a formal party wearing a stained Cubs jersey and no pants. My daughter has a 24 on the ACT and a weighted 3.7 GPA. Should I send her to auto mechanics school or just make her a cardboard sign that says “Will Draw Pokémon for Food?”
There are plenty of people on here who have all kinds of kids. I don’t think I’d describe either of mine as ordinary (because they’re special to me), but the last time I checked they weren’t curing cancer.
Like most things in life, your attitude matters a lot when you first show up at a party. Try not to poop in the punch bowl and you might learn something.
Welcome to CC! Yes, there are many high achievers and parents of high achievers here. As competition for the top schools has grown, so has the interest in maneuvering through the admissions process.
However, there is still a lot of information here for all levels of colleges, and all level of students. You will soon find info which aligns with your target schools. We adults (some of us anyway) know great futures can happen from any school.
(Although auto mechanics do make huge money so that could be a better option than many degrees.
There’s a thread here called “Colleges for the Jewish “B” Student” that I think (I haven’t looked at it in a while) is pretty useful even if you are not Jewish.
I think 3.7 GPA is good. The super achiever rubbish is annoying. I “walk” around it like a person walks around people of a type one does not want to associate with in a big city. I try to help students here who are not super achievers. The super achievers are able to help themselves.
I have three kids. The firstborn was an excellent athlete and student as well as being an Eagle Scout. My middle child barely got out of high school. My youngest is pretty middle-of-the road (but very photogenic, ha!). So even the same PARENT on CC can have different types of kids. I’ve found CC to be helpful for all my kids.
If you ignore a little of that and just look for the info you are particularly interested in you can learn a lot. You can start your own thread even.
Is there a particular question you had?
“Also stay off of the chances threads. They’re almost uniformly garbage.”
Ah, that’s probably my mistake. I’m sure I’ll find plenty of good information here; This is not the first time, nor will it be the last, that my sense of humor rubs people the wrong way.
This site is definitely skewed toward the high achieving kids. My younger child will probably have stats similar to your D’s when he’s ready to apply. The biggest problem I see here is that there isn’t much information on the schools that are matches for these average kids. I’ve already had some good intentioned folks suggest schools for my S that will be way above his ability to get in. It seems that many here just aren’t familiar with the less selective schools. Also, when the schools are mentioned, they are often dismissed with less than complementary descriptions such as “that’s a school for rich kids who don’t try hard”.
There are also several posters who think that anyone can get good grades in high school and good test scores, and all you need to do is study more. It’s all I can do to bite my tongue sometimes.
Neither one of my kids was super high end. And both had amazing and happy 4 year college experiences (one at a Jesuit college and one at a LAC) and both are doing very well in life.
You might want to go with the Pokemon sign because auto mechanics is no walk in the park. Maybe if you put glitter on the sign it will help attract sympathy. I am kidding, of course. Yes, there are parents of normal kids here. My youngest son’s stats are like your D’s stats but neither one of us is worried about it at all.
He is going to an excellent community college and when he is done he’ll transfer to a public U. He works, has lots of friends, is very social, has a plan for his life, is funny, etc., etc. I wouldn’t trade any of that for a higher ACT score.
College is just one path to success. He’ll get a good, well rounded education but as @MotherOfDragons said of her children he will not be curing cancer or solving any of the world’s problems. That is fine with me. He also won’t be hurting anyone or screwing anyone else over either. He’ll find his way in life, with my help, as long as I’m breathing, and I’ll be proud of him every step of the way.
I don’t begrudge the big talker parents being proud or bragging on their kids here or elsewhere. I get it. But, I also realize people measure success in different ways. Some people think of success as getting a corporate 9 to 5 job that they will end up hating and doing anything to get away from. Those same people, as often as not, are the ones who need 8 different pills so that they can sleep at night. Some people measure success in making millions of dollars and others measure success as living near the water or finding someone you love or both. I’m not sure what either of my son’s will do but I am fairly certain they will be happy, comfortable and well taken care of in life and that makes me pretty happy.
If your daughter is HS class of 2017, I would strongly suggest bookmarking the “Parents of HS Class of 2017” thread. Lots of nice folks in there helping each other out.
It’s a bit of a safe haven where there is no such thing as a dumb question. Very supportive group.
I’ve got 2 “regular smart” kids. Today they slept until 9:45 am, played around on their phones for a bit. did some summer course work without me bugging them( amazing!! ), ate some sandwiches and cookies and now they are going to soccer practice. When they get home they will probably goof around and maybe play some video games and read a bit before going to bed. Totally normal stuff going on over here. Nobody is studying space particles or performing surgery on animals or running an election campaign. Just hanging out doing normal teenage boy stuff.
Welcome, good luck to your daughter, she will do fine in her college search. Everything will work out!!
Most of the average students are going to average colleges they didn’t need a lot of help getting into. They also didn’t get full tuition scholarships or receive full need based financial age. The path for most students is to go to a local college or maybe to the flagship and while it can be fun to look at schools in Maine or Arizona, most average students end up close to home. Not much to post about if your kids take the clear path so you don’t see a lot of posts about the average students.
CC can be helpful if the average student wants something else. Where can I find a liberal arts college near Lake Wobegon that doesn’t cost too much but offers courses in Greek urns? Does anyone know of a school near the ocean that offers a program in desert warfare? Does anyone know of a college for a student who likes dance and astrophysics?
I’ve found the financial aid forum and a few of the specific interest forums (Theater, Engineering) very helpful. It’s nice to know what to expect even if it is not the answer you were hoping for. “YES, it rains money at ABC College” isn’t often posted, but you might find an option you hadn’t considered, like a college with a co-op option to pay for school, a marching band participation scholarship, even a deal on a plane ticket to cut costs a little.
Sometimes the advice seems harsh, but if you post that Yale is your daughter’s dream school and even though her ACT is 24, she has taken 5 years of dance and came in second in several state events so you are sure Yale will consider her, you are going to hear from a few that you are being unrealistic and should pick a safety school. If you post that you are going to borrow $30k per year for her education but you aren’t worried because she’s going to be a doctor and have no trouble paying it back, you are going to hear that you are insane (and the posters won’t be nice about it). If you want to post about a terrific deal you got at Costco or complain about your child’s smelly feet, there are even threads for that.
