I want to be the best advisor I can be for my teenagers. Putting too much pressure on them is unhealthy. But the flip side is not putting enough healthy pressure on them…
And that’s where my question comes in… What is really at stake, in terms of picking a college?
I know that going to a top-tier school can open a lot of doors… But does not going to a top-tier school necessarily mean that doors are going to be closed to my teenagers??? If so – what doors will be closed? What specifically?
That’s what I want to understand more fully. What are the doors and opportunities that will be unavailable to my teenagers if they do not get accepted to a top-100 school?
I really want to hear people’s replies because I don’t know what to think about this.
First, breathe. Then consider the millions of kids who graduate every year from “ordinary” schools. They go on to good jobs and good grad schools, so it’s not like opportunities are only available to the select few.
Lists of top 100 schools include many state flagships. And in many states, even if you child doesn’t get into the state flagship he/she can transfer from a community college. Plenty selective grad programs accept high achievers from no-name schools. On this forum, a father questioned whether it was smart for his daughter to turn down Amherst and Yale in favor of a free ride at a little known LAC in the south. (Daughter did it anyway. Ended up at Yale med school.)
There are a few careers that open doors to the tippy-top grads from tippy-top schools. Some Wall Street firms want Ivy League’ers. Today’s Supreme Court is dominated by Ivy grads. Some elite law firms only hire from Ivy law schools. It helps to get jobs in top IT companies if you go, for example, to Stanford. On the East Coast, MIT will open doors likely closed to, say, someone from a mid-west state college.
But looking at where CEOs of major companies went to school, for example, will show you a whole different set of schools. Look where the top politicians in your state went to school. Or the doctors at the biggest hospital in your area/state: you will find plenty Top 100 schools - but also your locals which may not have made that list.
There are more than 3,000 colleges and universities in the U.S. The belief that only the 100 or so can lead to successful careers can be quickly dispelled anecdotally and otherwise.
Oh good grief. Drive down the street in any nice suburb. The vast majority of people there did NOT go to an elite school. Plenty of people go to “lesser” schools and go on to have nice jobs and nice lives. This isn’t that hard.
OK, know that the opinions you’re likely to get on CC may not be representative of the general population. There’s an overwhelming emphasis on this site on kids at the very top of their classes… lots and lots of AP classes, not a whole lot of summer school/ remedial kids.
My own perspective is a bit different. Of course I realize the incredible prestige those schools offer-- I get it.
Here’s the thing about the Ivies: competition to get in is amazingly fierce. Of those thousands of straight A, valedictorian, AP students, only a tiny little percentage get in.
And, of course, some of those straight A, valedictorian, AP students who ARE lucky/talented/whatever enough to get in wash out. They’re not the right fit, regardless of reason.
And in that incredibly talented pool of applicants, somewhere is the very last kid who got admitted. The kid who will be at the very bottom of his class at Harvard or Princeton, the kid who will be at the bottom of the bell curve.
So, even for those kids who are “Ivy material” I would emphasize a balanced approach to college applications. I can’t imagine any kid applying only to those schools, or thinking that any other school is second best.
In a country with hundreds of thousands of those “doors” you spoke of, there are plenty to go around. Lots and lots of doors will open to each of your students; I wouldn’t worry about the ones that only an Ivy education can open.
What is an ordinary school? Is a school where the average ACT is 25 ordinary? That happens to be the 80th percentile. A 28 is the 90th.
go to a super rich neighborhood…knock on all the doors ask everyone where they went to college .(sarcasm…do not really do it)
but if you did… you would come across some ivy grads or others who graduated from as you call it a"top 100"
but I bet most graduated from schools not in the “top 100” and some did not even go to college.
what you should do is find the best all around school for your child…whether it is number 16 or 178 or 875 or 2222 on the arbitrary list!
I think it can be a huge boost. But see it for what it is, just a boost. If you don’t get it, a little extra hard work will get you as much success without the boost.
I went 30 years ago, but to nowheresville state u. I now make a very very nice living bc I worked hard, got a ton of education, made sure I paid it off, started at the bottom and now I’m here kind of thing…it can be done if kids want to do it, and are bright enough and have the motivation.
Not all kids are bright enough or have the motivation. And that’s ok too. They will go to school, get good jobs and make a nice living. Or they will learn a trade and make a very nice living:)
There are lots of finish lines, lots of paths to the finish lines, and often, the finish line keeps moving. It’s ok.
I have one mini me S, and one slacker S. The truth is they’ll both be fine. In fact, it is possible the slacker will do better bc he is more creative! I’m not sure what his finish line is. And that’s ok!
My experience, learned almost too late, is that parents’ interest in being good advisors is really not very helpful to our teens. What we , as parents, ought to aspire to is being really good LISTENERS. Being a reliable, non-reactive, open minded sounding board is a blessing to most teens – perhaps not just your own, but someone else’s too.
I’m a believer in what the top name schools can provide, but am also realistic to know that they are no guarantee of anything. There are very few careers that only look at students from a certain small set of schools. Most of my Harvard friends are living pretty ordinary lives. A handful of them are doing some pretty spectacular stuff. Some studies have shown that students with Ivy league potential (drive and stats) will do just as well at their state universities. I don’t know of any studies that show slacker kids will suddenly turn it around and become extraordinary. Some do. Some don’t. In my experience it’s pretty hard to get a kid to work harder than they want to. One thing I do urge parents to do is not let their kids close too many doors in high school. That means taking math every year - even if they don’t want to. (And the rest of a standard college prep curriculum.) I see too many kids stopping with pre-calc and then taking some weird electives senior year so they can relax.
I think the main thing for any kid is not to live with admissions to college on his or her mind much during high school. Others may disagree but in my experience, the irony is, that following one’s own drummer, so to speak, using high school to explore genuine interests as well as deepening friendships and generally maturing, will land the kid at the right school much more effectively than focusing on college choices too early.
“And that’s where my question comes in… What is really at stake, in terms of picking a college?”
- Nothing. Picking the right attitude while at college is everything.
“What are the doors and opportunities that will be unavailable to my teenagers if they do not get accepted to a top-100 school?”
-None. the sky is the limit for a hard working kid, no matter what school she attends.
Get a Fiske Guide to colleges or similar (look through them in a bookstore.) Find the schools where his stats make sense. Find where he can be empowered. Fine tune for his major interests, how good the profs are, the classes offered- and activities he’d like to be involved in. It’s not the college name on the diploma as much as who the kid is, whose name sits under that.
Work on the life lessons.
^ This. It’s really not about the type of job you will get, or the quality of life you will have after graduation. Plenty of people have done well for themselves (myself included) without degrees from elite schools. Success is ultimately predicated upon the individual, and companies know that talented individuals are all over the place.
Not every smart kid wants to go to Harvard.
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One nuance. Some students from “third-tier-schools” are hired to high profile positions because they have family connections. Witnessed first-hand.
If you don’t have an opportunity to help your children with their first job, it is better for them to graduate from the first-tier college.
^^ Oh please. That’s what internships and the college job center are for.
Or… and hear me out here… the students can seek out their own opportunities and internships regardless of where they go and who they’re related to.
Somehow, thousands upon thousands of students do it every year.
We live in a very nice neighborhood, and every parent on the street is a college grad. NONE went to “elite” schools, and in fact, most went to public universities in their home state. And our kids didn’t go to elite colleges either, although two went to schools in the top 100…Boston University and Northeastern. Everyone else…attended one of those “lesser schools” you describe.
On our road we have engineers, occupational and physical therapists, business owners, pilots, health care administrators, nurses. Not too shabby for “ordinary college” grads.
Which “doors” do you mean? To the highest paying job or a rewarding career they enjoy?
I’ll bet my socks the OP is a kid, not a parent.