@mathyone, daughter back from school, checked e-mail - GC says it was a “typo” she was placed in Algebra II, and she is actually in Algebra II with Trig (the more challenging one for kids who took Geo as 8 graders). I suggested to my daughter it was a good thing we checked, because if it wasn’t a typo on the placement form, but an error in their scheduling, might have been harder to switch in the fall. She srugged. Ah, the joy of parenting teenagers 
@mathyone, to be clear - she was the one who said “I got assigned to Algebra II, my friends were, too” and I was the one who suggested she e-mails GC to find out if this is the rigorous enough class. CC classes are actually very popular at her HS and teachers strongly encourage kids to take those, so I hope at least some of her friends, maybe friends she makes in that Algebra II with Trig class, would be taking those, too. If she wants to get a job, or volunteer, or paint for her own enjoyment, or do something else that’s productive (not necessarily for college, but for herself), I won’t mind. For example, she wants to use this summer to get more fit - without any plans to get on a sports team or anything else the college would care about. But doing nothing but socializing is not an option in our family, and she knows it.
Lol! We actually talk about college a lot, and I went to Yale, and I’m running an anti-Ivy campaign (even though HYP level financial aid would be awesome!). The Yalies I know are pretty great, down-to-earth, non-crazy non-uptight people, so no issue there. But a) it’s far more of a lottery now than when I attended and b) I honestly think that there are schools that would be a better fit.
College conversations we have had:
- You can get a good education anywhere.
- Both of your parents have taken classes at the local community college; I’ve also taken classes at the local 4-year directional public. You can get a good education anywhere.
- If the world comes to an end (all grandparents dead, both parents disabled and in need of caretaking), you will get a good education at the local community college and public directional, and you will be able to live in our house and pay tuition from working, just like we did when we did it.
- Your parents will give you a very long list of schools when the time comes, broken down into “we can pay for this no matter what, without you paying anything” “you will need to take subsidized loans and work,” “you will need to get a competitive merit scholarship from the school on top of subsidized loans and work;” there will be no schools on the list which we can’t afford under any circumstances or which we would be unwilling to pay for.
- Our goal is that you will have many options to choose from once you know where you got in.
- We have money and time set aside for school tours, and are willing to be as involved or uninvolved as you want us to be in planning tours.
- Lots of people stay in the area they went to college for work once they graduate, so if you want to live in a particular part of the country, you might want to look there for college. (She has a personal interest in a particular part of the country, and has said consistently for years that she wants to live there as an adult.)
- The big difference between schools is the people who go there; you learn more from your classmates than from your teachers. (Not just academic stuff!) You’ll be able to find your people almost anywhere, but there will be more of them some places than others.
- Most people go to college not knowing what they want to study or what work they want to do, so don’t worry about that. If you think you know when the time comes, you can take that into account, but we don’t expect you to have any idea at all.
I try to keep my thoughts about specific colleges to myself, because there’s no telling what kind of butterfly is going to come out of that tweenie chrysalis. I personally would be happy to see her at a women’s college, or one of the upper-Midwest LACs, because that’s my best guess about where she’ll fit. But she might go with her BFFs to our flagship, which is fine, too. We are frugal, so can afford our EFC even at the less-generous meets-need schools, and our EFC is high enough that a lot of schools will meet the affordability test.
@allyphoe, thanks for your perspective. My husband’s friends who went to Ivies are all Indian, and their perceptions of discrimination may be just that - perceptions, maybe due to homesicknes, culture shock, etc. My daughter is white, thoroughly American, and might never have the same problems (including homesickness). But I really love your approach!
@typiCAmom Don’t worry - you’re question doesn’t hurt my feelings! I was only allowed to apply to one college, because my parents didn’t want to pay the application fees back in 1987. It was our state flagship, which they knew I would be accepted to and they could afford. I often wonder what could have been under different circumstances, and occasionally I throw that out to my Mom.
@Leafyseadragon, glad I haven’t offended you Long ago we made a common mistake of telling our daughter we’ll pay for whatever school she wants to go. We were frugal and invested quite a lot in a 529 back when she was 3 and an only child. At that time we were assured that 529 would cover any 4-year college. At today’s rates, it’s only 2.5 years. For my husband, the fact that he made a promise is a reason in itself to keep that promise, even though it may no longer be reasonable. Not to mention we come from a culture where top education is “the most important thing to invest in - you can never lose it”. I say it somewhat sarcastically because I know so many who achieved better financial success with “average” college education and a STEM career.
Oh, I would not for a moment doubt your husband’s friends’ experiences. My not-particularly-educated guess is that international students got (and get) more of that than USAian non-white kids did, but there was plenty of racism and classism for everyone. And honestly, as a white person who came from a predominately white area, when I was a college student, I think I was probably on the more-racist end of that continuum. But Yale was a big pond, and there were plenty of excellent people, too, and a group of them took me in and made me a better person.
I’m white, but my daughter isn’t. IMHO, Yale gets a point in its favor over, say, Grinnell, for “there will be a lot of people who look like you and have somewhat similar cultural backgrounds.” But it’s not like sweetening the pot increases your odds of winning the lottery!
@allyphoe, LOL, I haven’t even heard of Grinnell before you mentioned it More familiar with STEM schools than LACs - comes with Silicon Valley territory, I guess - but so far our daughter hasn’t shown much interest in STEM. The night is young and she is not in HS yet.
@allyphoe and @typiCAmom, i have an eighth grader right now that is younger than the norm and am facing some of the same issues. The schools suggests that lower level classes (non honors) might be a good choice to preserve their GPA in high school. Sounds kind of crass to me. To other posters that are philosophical about middle school kids and believe they can be shielded from the college craze, the answer is that they can’t. Once you have moved to a home in the good school district, there are teachers, principals, and other kids already talking about “good colleges” in middle school. To say that we recommend this or that math class solely for the reason that it is a good class for our kid might be true, but those other voices are out there and kid is already wondering about college. So we find we have to talk about it, even though our own values are to preserve childhood a little longer for our kid.
My friend ( a math teacher) wanted her daughter in honors science in middle school. The school resisted, saying, “What if she gets a low grade and it hurts her self esteem?” My friend was not swayed by this argument and insisted. Daughter indeed did poorly on the first test, but is now in the B/A range and likes science more than she did before. If you count the boys/girls in honors level science and math, the number of girls declines each year. I am not sure how much is the school’s recommendation (protecting those feelings) and how much is the kids themselves. Kids of math/science moms are the exception. Boy or girl, if they can handle it, they are going into honors. Because science and math are more interesting the harder they get. Why can’t people (and schools) understand that?
Well, we were in Germany at the time…so she took SL English, SL Business and German Ab initio with those other courses.
If a kid can’t handle the most advanced high school classes, there’s probably not much point in “protecting” GPA. The tippy-top schools want kids who could get As in the hardest classes without having to make those trade-offs, and the rest of the schools don’t have such ridiculous GPA standards that protection would be required.
We defined a “good” school as one that was a good fit for the kid we have. There are a couple of pressure cooker districts near us, where parents report hours of homework every night, elementary kids worried about getting into the “right” middle school, middle schoolers already focused on picking colleges, kids routinely using summer school to accelerate, parents checking every homework problem every night to protect grades, etc.
Our kid is smart but not particularly fast, hates competition, does not want her parents micromanaging her school experience, and has excellent executive functioning for a 12yo but kind of high average executive functioning for a 14yo. Our “less homework” low-pressure district is a good fit for her. It’s a big school with a handful of NMFs every year, so we don’t really feel like we’re getting lesser academics, just less frenzy.
@thingamajig, our high school is pretty much what @allyphoe describes, that is, somewhat low-pressure (at least compared to some nearby high-schools that make top something USA list - sorry, don’t remember the number, even though one mom at a party talked my ears off about it), but still offering excellent opportunities to those who want to pursue them. Middle school is a different story, though. In the past 3 years, I found only one teacher who truly challenged kids - an advanced English 6th grade teacher. My daughter admits that all the other classes (including advanced classes) have been a waste. Teachers are not talking about college or excelling/challenging oneself, and many kids talk about top colleges as if all that matters is that your parents can afford it. Maybe that’s why our high school offers no AP or honors classes in 9th grade (with the exception of advanced English option, but I’m not sure it’s considered Honors and gives a grade boost) so that the kids could “adjust” to the demands of high school. But I totally agree with you, the harder the subject, the more pleasure (and self-esteem) one gets from mastering it. My daughter squealed for the first few months in the aforementioned teacher’s class, but in the end it solidified her love of English. I wish she had the same kind of teacher in sciences to steer her more towards STEM, well, maybe high school.
Btw, parents of 12-year old 8th graders, when do you think your kids start preparing for the PSAT? Since NMF can get a good scholarship, it could be a lot more useful than just a talent search award certificate. I am wondering if it’s better to start early and do little bits of prep over 1.5 years than try to cram it all up in two months before. What do you think?
I took the 11th grade PSAT at the same time I took the SAT, and only ever studied for the SAT. (And was NMF, eventually, so lack of PSAT-specific studying was not an issue.)
I assume mine will start studying when and if she wants to. She certainly would not be receptive to me doing more than very mildly explaining that NMF status could give her more low-cost options. I can’t imagine that being any earlier than the summer before junior year, though.
I found testing to be fun, and studying for testing to be fun, but I don’t think my kid is like me in that way. I wouldn’t be surprised if she were NMSF, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she weren’t, if that makes sense. I also would be very, very surprised if she ended up at a school where NM scholarships came into play, other than at our flagship. OTOH, one of her grade-mates already has a dream school and is already aware than NMF is the only way it will be affordable.
@allyphoe, my daughter caught me looking through cc threads on SAT prep and asked me isn’t it too early to think about it. I told her I honestly don’t know if there is “too early” for information gathering on anything. For example, I’ve stumbled on Caroline Bradley scholarship info just now and so wish I’d have learned about it two years ago so I could encourage my daughter to take CJY SAT in 7th grade (at that time i thought, oh, it’s too early, she can always take it in 8th grade) and then apply for CDB. I think I am with you that I wouldn’t be surprised if my D was a NMSF, and equally not surprised if she wasn’t. I think she has a lot of potential and blessed with a lot of talents, but needs to find that inner drive to reach for the stars. In a way, it makes her life easier. She wasn’t stressing out on the swim team and was there for the love of swimming, not the ribbons. I loved the fact that her first thought on making good swim time was “this qualifies for Junior Olympics, I’ve never been to that town” rather than “I won the swim meet, I am better than all other girls on our local teams”. But she also wasn’t pushing herself harder to do her best, just content that her good was good enough. I can’t be sure, but I sort of expect the same from the SAT.
I am a senior, and I do sometimes wish my parents had pushed just a tad bit more. I still did great in school, ended up getting accepted into Georgetown my dream school and others, but I know I could have gotten into a better college had my grades been better (I had mostly B’s my junior year). However, I have seen the extreme - I have friends whose parents are SO strict about grades, and I feel like having parents like that would have put me at a disadvantage. My parents basically let me choose what classes I took and which extracurriculars I participated in - which ended up in me overburdening myself my junior year. Overall though, I am pretty satisfied with the outcome.
"I’m white, but my daughter isn’t. IMHO, Yale gets a point in its favor over, say, Grinnell, for “there will be a lot of people who look like you and have similar cultural backgrounds”
I just want to point out that Grinnell is known for diversity. Don’t be fooled by its location in rural Iowa. Their newest president is an openly gay black man. Do not think an interracial or otherwise diverse student there would be some shock to the system. It wouldn’t raise an eyebrow.
I didn’t say she’d elicit raised eyebrows; that’s a straw man. I said there would be more kids who look like her and have similar backgrounds.
Grinnell has ~115 non-international Asian undergrads. Yale has ~750. One of those numbers is larger than the other. Yale also has twice the percentage of non-international Asian kids, so a larger group even after controlling for campus size.
In any case, it’s not like Mom-points count, and we’re talking about 8th graders here, so there aren’t even any kid-points.
Also, you might have missed my earlier comment that, as far as Mom-points go, I anticipate she might find a better fit at a Midwestern LAC than she would at Yale. I picked Grinnell as an example because it’s on my Mom-list of schools that might work. Even if there aren’t as many Asian kids as I’d like there to be.
I agree with those who pointed out that every kid is different. You can help, advise and guide your kid judiciously, but you can’t program or manage her. Keep your focus on the lifelong loving and supportive relationship you want to have with this ultimately autonomous human being. Whether or not she goes to elite schools, becomes an academic star, or has a brilliant career, you hope she has in interesting and constructive life and still wants to talk to you as often as possible. Even if she ever does say “I wish you’d pushed me more”, who knows what the outcome would have been if you had?
My mother pushed us all the time, not always academically but in keeping with the ancient “Jewish Mothers’ Oral Tradition” and we responded with avoidance or annoyance.
When my parents finally figured out that they needed to let me fail, it tipped the initial dominoes that led to all my success.
There’s no way to know the perfect technique for each kid. Make your best guess, be willing to adjust mid-course, and don’t beat yourself up about it.