<p>My son’s first choice was the nearby Ivy League school so we kept pressure on him during the process so he had a decent shot. But we helped when asked, and let him decide which school to go to. </p>
<p>Later on I got a thank you card from my son which read “If it weren’t for your help I’d probably be attending community college.” </p>
<p>Every kid is different and the process is a lot harder than when I went to college.</p>
<p>D’s goal was getting into Med. School. Med. Schools do not care what college applicant attended, they want to see high college GPA, decent MCAT score and reasonable number of medical ECs. It was not reason for D. to go to Ivy, she attended state public on full tuitio Merit award and since she chose her UG so wisely and we did not have to pay tuition, we offerred to pay for her Med. School. I do not see any reason to attend a top UG when the most important education for these kids will be at Grad. School. </p>
<p>We live in an affluent town in New England where the pressure is palpable in the air. My job, at one level, was to take off some of the pressure. However, I attended 3 of HYPMS and taught at one, so the implicit message about the importance of a good education was always there. With my son, I counseled him to go to a prestigious non-Ivy over Ivies. He’s now attending one of my schools for graduate school. We explicitly talked about prestige in both cases but the steer wasn’t toward maximum prestige. We did talk about tradeoffs.</p>
<p>I don’t agree fully with MiamiDAP that there is no reason to attend a top UG if they are also shooting for grad school. I believe this is likely largely true for med school and law school, where the chief criteria are grades and MCATs or LSATs. This would seem less true in other areas where reputation of school gets looked at more (e.g., business school, Rhodes or Gates, possibly grad schools where fame of advisors count, etc.). But that’s a side issue here.</p>
<p>With my daughter, her private HS was so pressured that kids in their senior years were taking anti-depressants. Some of that was from the culture; some from the parents. She was very anxious and I suggested that she look at Canadian universities where they would tell her, based upon her grades/SAT scores, whether or not she will get in. I steered her away from the highest prestige places. [She later transferred to an excellent program in the US but that is separate]. So no steer for her toward prestige. </p>
<p>Exactly the opposite. With my son, other people pressured him, but my husband and I didn’t.</p>
<p>My son was a legacy at a university with a top program in his intended major. But he felt that his credentials weren’t good enough for that school, and he did not apply – even though his friends pressured him to do so. My husband and I thought that this was a good decision. He ended up at a flagship state university that also had a good program in his major, and it worked out very well.</p>
<p>My kids were a double legacy at Harvard and there were certainly family expectations that our kids would go to good colleges, but there was no pressure to attend Harvard in particular. I very much wanted my older son to go somewhere where there would be other kids around him who were smarter than he was. He was far too used to being the top of the heap and skated through much of high school. I made him apply to Harvard, because I thought it would still be better for him than his safety schools, but I had no problem with him choosing Carnegie Mellon for computer science instead. He never regretted the decision to go there. Younger son ended up at Tufts and it was a pretty good fit for him.</p>
<p>Op,
Yes, I pressured my kids to attend elite colleges and provided much resources by having them attend elite private HS. Once D had SCEA acceptance in hand, I said “great! Now let’s consider other good fits as well.” Unfortunately, school faculty and peers continued the pressure and D would not listen to what I had to say and would not consider other places. D Got to college and felt that the prestige thing was overrated.</p>
<p>At D’s college, there are kids who attend who received pressure and/or support and probably the rarer kid who does it all by themself (first gen college student).</p>
<p>Tried to pressure DS but he has ADHD - inattentive, so his stats are not in the ballpark and frankly he wouldn’t be able to handle the workload. It took a year for me to reconcile this, but now I am at peace and we are trying to find affordable fits.</p>
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<p>CS at CM is tougher to get into than Harvard or Stanford, but you know that. He knew what he was doing if his focus is CS.</p>
<p>Our kids did their own research and came up with the list of schools they applied to. We provided support by taking them on school visits, etc.
That said, S attended a magnet school well known for sending students to top colleges. The pressure there was very high.</p>
<p>Like many here, we helped our s’s identify schools that seemed like good personal and academic fits. And then we visited. Many top schools for DS#1 got scratched off the list for a variety of reasons (mostly seemed like a bad “fit”) - then he visited one particular top 20 school that felt perfect and that was that. For DS#2 the school that felt like the best fit for him was actually not as “top” as some of the other schools on his list, but he loved it and the rest is history.</p>
<p>I dunno. H talks to the kids about how employers do care if you come from a top college if you want to move into management. But then he also talks to them about entrepreneurship and being your own boss.
I talk mainly about cost vs financial aid vs merit aid.
D15 seems to pressure herself - she said she wants to get into the reachiest school she can.
D19 says she’s counting on the zombie apocalypse coming before she needs to apply to colleges.</p>
<p>Just the opposite. I worried that I talked my top student daughter out of wanting to apply to elite schools because we couldn’t afford them. The feeling faded, though, after realizing the vibe she prefers in a school. The very elite schools are way too intense for her. She loves lots of super expensive school that are a step or two down (BC, Wake Forest, et al), but realizes that a dearth of merit money at those schools may have her going down quite a few rungs on the old prestige ladder. The good news for us is that she prefers the St. Joe’s of the world to the Ivy League.</p>
<p>shawbridge,
It is funny that at D’s very rigorous time private HS the same was true (minus antidepressants, I did not hear about single case): "With my daughter, her private HS was so pressured that kids in their senior years were taking anti-depressants. " Particularly for the student who ranked #1 in a class (HS did not rank, but colleges do anyway). As my D. was the only one with the HS GPA=4.0uw and she also received parents awards at graduation, it was not secret that in fact she was #1 despite of non-ranking system. D. never respond in any way to any kind of out-side pressure (the same happened later when she was applying to Med. Schools and pre-med advisor tried to add some schools to her list. She never care what others are saying, irrelevant. She choose to attend public state and was very happy there.<br>
I agree that while some majors are OK, others may require the top place. I would never pressure a kid going for pre-med, CS or engineering, none of these require any top college for a future. Knowing my D. I am not sure if I could pressure her at all. However, I made sure that she choose her HS CORRECTLY. That process took 2 years and she thanked me later thousands times for doing so. </p>
<p>OP, with a name like “IWantStanford” as your screen name, it begs the question.</p>
<p>Did YOU (or do you) feel pressured into getting into a top college? How does that feel for you? Is that a source of stress?</p>
<p>My D’s first choice was always Yale - but as a legacy, that is the only school she had regular contact with over the years as I took her to reunions and was a very active alumni in different organizations. However, since my name is not on any of the buildings there, her chances of being admitted were basically the same as other applicants. We did the college tour in her junior year with the thought of finding other viable options. We saw Wesleyan (which would have been her second choice), Bowdoin, Bates, Haverford, Vassar, Amherst, Tufts - all who fit her non negotiable criteria of being liberal arts schools in New England. After the tours, Wesleyan and Amherst were her first and second choices if she had not gotten into Yale.</p>
<p>I tried my best to keep the pressure off of her. However, I was able to provide her with a stellar education at one of the city’s best independent schools. She was smart, athletic, an elected officer in a national organization, etc. So she put in the work and deserves her spot in the Yale Class of 2018 ( and this is not to say that those that did not get in did not deserve it too). I agree with one of the earlier posters in that children kind of gravitate toward what they know and what they see around them.</p>
<p>So sorry MiamiDAP that Florida public schools are not up to par. I’m not sure paying a lot of money was necessary for your D to go to a good college for premed and to do well there. Place your votes for improving local education this fall. In Wisconsin one typically only needed to rely on good public schools although now the current governor is trying to change that (arrgh). We retired to FL and see vast differences in public education.</p>
<p>Son is gifted, strong willed and did not gun for grades. He applied only to schools he chose and would not apply to one H suggested. He wouldn’t even look at Harvard when he saw MIT! We did not get to see his essays et al. There is no way any pressure we tried to apply had an effect.</p>
<p>I think it makes a huge difference based on where you live. In the east the elite Ivies are close to home and everyone is much more aware of them, including knowing people who went there. In the upper Midwest the strongest students typically choose a flagship. Also, having many more small private schools close by it is easier to push them. </p>
<p>@MiamiDAP, maybe @wis75 is right. Our setting is not too far from Harvard, MIT, Tufts, Williams, Amherst, Brown, etc. that puts the elite thing in the air. At my D’s private HS, many many of the parents had some Ivy affiliation and my joke was that if the kid didn’t get into an Ivy, either the parents would kill the kid or themselves. So, that may be the source of the difference. The pressure was there at the public HS that my son attended, where kids every year to top schools, but we’re talking about the top 20%.</p>
<p>Or, maybe the pressure is below the surface at your D’s HS. I wouldn’t have known about the antidepressants and my D wouldn’t have told me but ShawWife is awesome socially and we had known a number of ShawD’s classmates for years and she actually got the info from them. Maybe the antidepressant use was there at your D’s school but you were not hearing about it. Who knows?</p>
<p>Good for your D not responding to outside pressure. ShawD was highly influenced by what others thought. That has moderated somewhat, but not completely even now.</p>
<p>I believe @MiamiDAP lives in Ohio, not Florida.</p>
<p>OK. There’s probably less East Coast influence in Ohio than Florida, in which case @wis75’s comment might be even more on target.</p>
<p>@shawbridge - you are on point. It also depends on the school. My D’s high school sounds very much like yours D’s A lot of racial and cultural diversity, not a lot of socio-economic diversity. All parents were college educated, most in the Ivies or other top schools (hence the ability to pay the outrageous tuition). The kids’ biggest fear is applying to college in a year that there are a lot of other legacies from your particular school of choice applying. Some years it can be upwards of 4-6 legacies from HYPS - that’s from each of them. That is from a graduating class of approximately 125 each year. So again, kids go for what they know.</p>
<p>One of my D’s classmates moved to the west coast when her dad got a job out there as a law school dean. She stayed sophomore and junior year. During that time, she said most of the students were focused on applying to schools on the west coast and east coast schools just weren’t on their radar. Not even for the super stars. Being east coasters at heart, they moved back in her senior year and she came back to my D’s school to graduate. She is now at a top tier school in New England. I think it’s just a mindset, but the East Coast thinks about a lot of stuff different from the rest of the country most of the time - and not always in a good way.</p>
<p>We, um, evolved over time. Our kids were certainly aware that both of their parents had gone to one of HYPS and done well there, and had gone to similar name-brand law schools. And that their extended family included a lot of graduates of several others of HYPS. They went to the occasional reunion with us, and strolled though a campus or two long before it was part of a formal college search. They were aware, too, that we valued having gone to a research university rather than a liberal arts college, but they knew lots of smart, successful people who had taken the LAC route. They also certainly knew we expected them to do well in school, although we did very little directly to put pressure on them about it – no checking homework, or quizzing them, or consequences/rewards for deviating from/meeting our expectations. </p>
<p>When our older child started the college search process, she did a pretty good job of educating us on how much the world had changed, not only since our youth, but since five or six years before – the effect of the demographic bubble and rising international wealth. In the process, she introduced me to CC, although it took me some years to register. We realized that we had to back off – and back off hard – the expectation that she would go to our alma mater, even though we were really rooting for that. We recognized that she wasn’t a flawless candidate in any event. We had – and still have – a very broad list of colleges we considered first-rate (even if the one we had chosen was the bestest of all), and encouraged her to consider any number of them. We also recognized that it was possible to get a first-rate education at a college that wasn’t top-20 of anything. (My wife did, however, formally ban two colleges she thought had not been good for her sisters, one of which our child had no interest in, and the other of which she visited anyway, confident that if she liked it she would change her mother’s mind.) She came up with her own, excellent application strategy, which included an ED/EA pair (neither of which was our favorite) and a couple of interesting safeties. She made her decisions pretty much independently of any of her classmates, and actually ran a little college counseling service on the side, mainly promoting quality LACs as an alternative to Ivy-or-bust.</p>
<p>At the final decision among the schools that had accepted her, we had a definite preference, and we expressed it – and it was for what we considered the highest-prestige school among her choices. We didn’t tell her she had to go there, and we certainly didn’t browbeat her about it, but we made the sort of arguments I think she was making to herself. In the end, what carried the day was (a) she was our child, and when push came to shove her value-system and ours were pretty congruent, and (b) teachers and older students she respected told her the school she chose was a perfect fit for her.</p>
<p>Child #2 had more consistent (great) grades and test scores, and a more traditional “leader” resume. He also lived more inside a sort of “top student” bubble where everyone wanted a top college. He (a) was raised in the same family as his sib, with the same influences, (b) had the benefit of his older sib’s experience and excellent strategic advice and © responded a lot more to social pressure and expectations from his classmates and from his teachers. His college list was much more top-heavy. All of the colleges to which he applied were in our top group, if not necessarily USNWR’s, and we wouldn’t have had a question about anywhere he applied. </p>