CTY kids

Parent Cafe
1

<p>I'd like to hear from those of you who have CTY (or equivalent) kids about a phenomenon I observed. This is the observation through my D.'s facebook - Of course I can't see completely what's going on there so this is all transferred to me through my D. and occasionally I do have chance to look. </p>

<p>My daughter has been doing CTY for a couple of years. She has some CTY friends on facebook. They are clearly divided into two categories, and they are all friends with each other. </p>

<p>The first category includes those who matches my assumed image of CTYers - They don't get on facebook often. When they do, they joke around, and they occasionally post their achievements, like awards they got, etc. Even though they may not say how hard they work, but it's clearly implied. They sometimes changes ideas about serious issues, like their opinions on current affairs, or even philosophical stuff.</p>

<p>The second category includes those who live on facebook. Several of them constantly post things even during school time. When they exchange "ideas", they talk about their personal emotions (their "ex"boyfriend/girlfriend, etc.) and how they hate their teachers and their school. Sometimes they talk about how lonely they're in their school environment and all the CTYers in this group express sympathy. I think I can even say they flirt around. These CTYers have parties on facebook, tumblir, and all kinds of ways of internet party. My D. joined a couple of those, then lost interest. This group of kids spends so much time on facebook and the like, it's even hard for outsiders to imagine!</p>

<p>What is interesting to me is, if someone in the second group post something saying how they want to "F.. school!" "I never study for the finals", "Who cares about school!" then instantly there will be many people love and comment on their post. If someone complains about how their teacher or parent (esp. asian parents) push them work, they can get instant skype invitations for comfort. They clearly love each other and support each other in their hatred to school and the idea of someone has to work hard to achieve something. </p>

<p>Of course there are those who don't even go on facebook - either they don't have interest, or, most likely, they don't have permission from their parents. </p>

<p>You can probably tell the second group does not fit my previous image of CTYers. But I don't mean at all to criticize them. I actually know a couple of them. They are lovely kids. They are growing and struggling, clearly.Yet this obvious difference between the groups is quite interesting, sometimes it can be disturbing. </p>

<p>If you have CTY kids, do you see what I see?
What should we make out of it?</p>

2

<p>Three comments come quickly to mind. 1. You don’t have to be all that smart to get into CTY. Review the admission criteria – the state standardized test score requirements are met by lots of people. 2. Truly gifted kids are not always happy in school or with life. There is an old saying in gifted ed – “the bright kid gets As and loves school. The gifted kid gets Bs and stares out the window.” 3. People of all ages present themselves on Facebook as they wish to appear, not necessarily how they are. There was an interesting interview on NPR about this phenomenon this week. A psychologist said that they are finding that some people come away from FB feeling very badly about their own lives, by comparison, and yet what they are comparing themselves to are very studied depictions of other peoples’ lives.</p>

3

<p>My DS was a CTY’er, but he’s a few years out from it now. He is incredibly close with his CTY friends still, and it formed his strongest social circle through most of highschool. They’d meetup online and in person frequently. From what I recall though, they were still pretty hard working kids, just not entirely “mainstream.” They often got into pretty extensive intellectual conversations and I was actually pretty relieved and happy when I’d see what they were discussing, and how they came out on issues etc.
In my son’s case, while they may not have been “mainstream” in many ways, they’ve all moved on to places like HYP, CMU, MIT, U Chicago, Harvey Mudd, Oberlin etc. These aren’t slacker kids.</p>

<p>It may be different with the group that’s of cty-age now, I don’t know.</p>

4

<p>I think what you’re seeing is that some kids are really far out of the social mainstream in their home schools–but not at CTY. If they have more kids like them at their schools, they are less likely to spend time on FB with CTY friends. As far as what they actually say on FB, I suggest that you ignore it–it doesn’t reflect reality.</p>

5

<p>Fieldsports: The CTY summer program scores are based on SAT. Kids have to get a certain score on state tests to be eligible to take the SAT for CTY. But placement in the program require a certain SAT score.</p>

<p>That being said, I agree that CTY kids have a wide range of personalities. Contrary to your statement, many gifted kids get As and still manage to stare out the window. Others do not do well in school.</p>

6

<p>As a parent, I don’t like the fact that they cheer each other up when one says F… school and it seems to be that one important part of their friendship is based on how they hate schools and their teachers and they complain about work all the time. (They don’t complain about their peers though, in their school.) But I guess kids are kids. Kids are different. CTYers are different. They also change every year.</p>

7

<p>As a CTY alum, I can attest to the two camps of CTYers. Much of the time in high school I fell into the more miserable category. High school was horrible for me, not socially entirely but academically. I hated nearly all the classes - they were all based on rote memorization and standardized test prep. The teachers seemed to see my disinterest in school and didn’t much care for me as a result. I wasn’t a huge fan of the other kids but was actually friends with the more popular group in school. I lived on Facebook talking to my CTY friends. I didn’t feel so alone knowing there were other people struggling through high school. I got to talk politics, philosophy, religion, etc. It was a nice break albeit somewhat unhealthy. Online friendships can never replace real friendships. They breed reclusivity imo. </p>

<p>That said, I am now at Swarthmore and have largely fallen out of touch with my CTY friends. But, I couldn’t be happier. The population is very similar to that of CTY though more diverse. The courses are fascinating. The professors are wonderful. There are very few requirements.</p>

8

<p>@swattiechick, I’m so glad you found your niche. It’s true that if they’re happy in real life, they probably won’t be so obsessed with cyber-life. </p>

<p>From what I heard from D. and her friends, and occasionally peek at her fb, I’m really glad that as parents, we do monitor her online activities somewhat. Some other kids (CTY kids, exactly!) are really making clowns out of themselves in fb, and the amount of time they spend there is sickening. Their parents apparently trust them and set them loose. Well they will grow out of it, hopefully. But these years (for CTYers, for example, they’re 12 - 16 years old) are important in their academic future.</p>

9

<p>I don’t monitor my kids on-line activities so I can’t talk about what their CTY vs. Non-CTY friends posts look like. </p>

<p>I have 2 CTY kids and for the older, her CTY friends are by far her closest circle of friends. They skype regularly and do in person meetups as well. </p>

<p>For the younger, I have no clue, I know they are facebook friends but it is not as intense. </p>

<p>I suspect it has to do with a combination of individual personalities and the mix of kids at a given site and time.</p>

10

<p>I’m not a CTY alum, but I’ve noticed this myself…</p>

<p>The most interesting people I know are sparsely on Facebook. The kids who are in school (well, college, in my case) to genuinely learn and not to get the grade and get out usually don’t have Facebook either. They’re more productive as a result, and get work done early, so they have active social lives, too.</p>

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<p>It is sickening.</p>

<p>The second group is composed the kids who are in an honors program/other CTY-like group whose LIVES are on Facebook. They’re the f-my-professor/life-sucks/etc category of posters and spend inordinate amounts of time on Tumblr, Twitter, etc. Some of the things they post on there are nothing short of psychological cries for help. They may be in the honors program and smart on paper, but talk to them in real life (if they can get off their iPhone internet for that long), and they’re absolute duds. Interests outside of Harry Potter, obscure British TV shows, or age inappropriate hobbies are the norm.</p>

<p>I prefer the former group.</p>

11

<p>Hoo boy. My experience is that kids on Facebook are very much like they are in real life–you just happen to be able to “eavesdrop” on their conversations if they friend you on Facebook. Also, my experience is that any kid today who doesn’t have a Facebook page is probably under the thumb of tiger parents (or, I suppose, they might be Amish). Pretty much all the others use it, at the very least, as a social tool for organizing activities and for staying in touch with friends they’ve met at out-of-town activities (like CTY).</p>

12

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<p>Actually, you’d be surprised! I know a few people, myself included, who abstain for various reasons.</p>

13

<p>Like what, for example? You might be temperamentally Amish, even if you’re not actually Amish. I think people with a very addictive personality might need to abstain, just as they should abstain from video games.</p>

14

<p>I don’t think not being Facebook means that you’re either Amish or tigerish. My daughter just isn’t interested in Facebook even though she’s online all the time with Tumbler, Pinterest, and Polyvore. Based on what she sees from her friends on Facebook, she thinks too much of the discussion there consists of the stupid “wow, we got wasted last night” boasting and typical mean girl dissing and frenemy feuding.</p>

15

<p>a lot of teenagers are unhappy in high school—sometimes it’s the level of academics offered at the high school, sometimes it’s the academic or not-so-academic environment in the high school, sometimes it’s the lack of social success/happiness in the high school environment, sometimes it is within the angsty teenager his or herself, who isn’t capable of being happy at that time in life.</p>

<p>Facebook for some is a release where they can vent to those who “understand” them freely.</p>

<p>What bothers me, actually, is how many parents seem to be so closely familiar with the contents of their teens facebook lives. Back when my boys were in high school I would once in a long while check their pages to make sure they were keeping it clean, ( it wouldn’t bother me if they ever needed to vent about me, or school, or certain people in their lives) but I didn’t pay any attention at all to what others were posting.</p>

16

<p>While I don’t think parents should be intimately involved in their child’s facebook community, I do think they need to be aware of their friends, and what is being posted on their wall. When outsiders check out their page (potential employers, for instance), they WILL read what others are posting, and will make assumptions based on association.</p>

<p>That said, as long as both sets of friends are posting, I don’t see it as a problem. My oldest attended 3 summers at CTY, on 2 different campuses, and is at JHU in another summer program this year. She has many facebook friends from CTY, and a small group with whom she is close. </p>

<p>Middle sister has no interest in CTY, though she could have taken summer courses if she chose to take the SAT seriously. She has her own set of friends on facebook, mostly higher achievers from school. But she also has some “slacker” friends as well.</p>

<p>herandhisMom, I don’t think when they “like” these kids posts that they are necessarily agreeing with their attitude, but showing support that someone hears them. We don’t know what their schools are like, at it could truly be that bad. Different kids have different learning styles, and their school may be a very poor fit for them. CTY is intensive, regular high schools are not - even if they take the most rigorous schedule, they are still learning the material over the course of many months, and may feel held back. In many cases, they have learned how to earn an A in any class in their school - but I feel sorry for them, because they probably have NOT learned how to learn. In many cases they are as much an outcast as the kids who end up at the center of school violence - I would rather they get support from their CTY aquaintances (because that’s what they really are, not friends in the sense we adults are used to), rather than act out - facebook is their way of acting out, and is a whole lot safer for the rest of us.</p>

<p>Would it bother you if these same “friends” were just other kids from school, and not part of CTY? Would you simply write them off as slackers, who won’t get anywhere with their life? There are many profoundly gifted people who did not do will in regular schools, who slid by through high school, but went on to greater things. I don’t think there is any danger in our kids being friends with them.</p>

17

<p>Do I have a CTY kid? No. Is it viewed positively by college admission folks (not saying I care what they think)?</p>

18

<p>^Johns Hopkins asks on their supplement if you have participated in any CTY programs. Otherwise, I doubt that CTY is any more helpful than any other paid summer program in terms of admissions. The personal growth and intellectual satisfaction that comes from CTY is huge and I would argue is far greater than most paid summer programs. That transformative learning can alter the trajectories of many students which can have residual effects that affect college admissions. That said, I didn’t even put CTY on my applications. It made a huge difference in my life, but I didn’t see what including it on an application would really do. Perhaps that was a mistake, but I still got exactly where I wanted to go.</p>

19

<p>Count your blessings, folks. Many years ago, in the pre-internet age, our next-door neighbors’ daughter was a CTYer. (That was the first time I ever heard of CTY.) She was a great kid, smart, computer-savvy (her father was a CS prof), concertmistress in an elite youth orchestra. As high school progressed, however, she started acting weird and depressed. It turned out that she had been inducted into an actual Satanic cult while at CTY, and had been engaging in bizarre rituals involving animal sacrifice and sex with adult men. The fallout from this included years of therapy for everyone, and a divorce for her parents.</p>

<p>Life would have been sooooo much better if she and her CTY friends could simply have overused Facebook. (And, by the way, she turned out fine after the years of therapy.)</p>

20

<p>Wow, JHS. CTY still has lots of rituals, but the ones I heard about were pretty benign.</p>