<p>“Emily and BT, we did an overnight; I stayed elsewhere, but everyone was noticeably welcoming to me.”</p>
<p>I didn’t feel unwelcomed or ignored. In fact, my tour got back to the building where they were holding the group sessions and while waiting I had a lovely chat with the Assoc. Dir. of Admissions over coffee. But it was more along the lines of cocktail party chit chat - nothing about the college in particular or my student.</p>
<p>Same as EmilyBee - I didn’t feel unwelcome or ignored at all. Our tour guide had started the knitting club - I am an addicted knitter - so we chatted about that after our tour. When we went back for accepted students day, our tour guide recognized me which I thought was amazing and very nice. Of course maybe she doesn’t chat with crazy knitters all the time and I was sample size of one?</p>
<p>At any rate, I really liked the fact we split up and thought as you do - the parents who didn’t like it maybe were first timers and uncomfortable with the process? I’m convinced my son got to ask his “real” questions without mom and dad hovering.</p>
<p>I’ve always tried not to be the parent in the article posted by OP but I had an experience yesterday that made me kind of understand it …
S1 called me. He’d been offered a job. A real job. One you need the degree he is persuing to do. I doubt seriously he’ll take it. First of all, he doesn’t have a car (although we could get him one if it were absolutely necessary.) Second of all, he still has one semester of school to complete. He said they were willing to take him without the finished degree. I told him he was a 22-year-old man now and I couldn’t tell him what to do, but that I’d heard too many horror stories of people leaving school with 15 hours or less to go and never returning. Jobs come and go but once you have a degree, you’re done.
What killed me, though, was that I didn’t get to decide. I could offer an opininon but I couldn’t step in and keep him from making what I would think is a huge mistake. He could leave school and take that job and there was nothing I could do about it. And I could truly understand “snowplow parenting” - you just want to save them from themselves one last time.</p>
<p>EB and BT- I just meant it was part of an amazing vibe we got there, start to finish, from students, faculty and admin. More a comment about the school. We were so busy, we realized much later that we never took the official tour. Ironic. But her host student did show us around a bit.</p>
<p>Lookingforward, gotcha. I completely misunderstood your post.</p>
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<p>Not necessarily. </p>
<p>Knew far too many genius-level HS classmates who were able to pull off writing a 15-20+ page research paper/English senior thesis in a couple of hours or less…and ending up with A level grades for it. Some of them were doing it while chatting with me and some other friends during part of our lunch period and then rushing off to the library to type it up before the 40 minute period was over. </p>
<p>Granted, they are genuinely genius/G & T type kids who couldn’t hide that fact if they tried their utmost. </p>
<p>I’m certainly not one of them. However, my friends and I stood in great awe at their exhibited capabilities to get things like long research papers, long reading assignments, long complex problem sets/group tech projects, etc done in an exceedingly short time period without breaking any sweat…and sometimes wonder in genuine amazement at why the rest of us are “taking so long”. </p>
<p>Should also mention all those genuine genius/G & T type classmates were also from low-income families so it wasn’t as if they even had middle class…much less upper/upper-middle class parents/upbringings. </p>
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<p>In other words, you’re complaining the honors courses are being taught much more like a genuine college-level class rather than a standard high school class where students are in the words of several HS teachers “being spoon-fed”. </p>
<p>My HS teachers expected us to “be capable of a great deal of extrapolation from the basic concepts taught in class to the much more complex ones that will be needed to do well on the assignments and tests.” </p>
<p>That was what we’d signed up for when we applied and opted to enroll when admitted. I’d be surprised if that expectation wasn’t made clear to students before signing up for honors/AP/IB classes. </p>
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<p>Not necessarily. There are high school or even younger students who have the intellectual and academic preparation necessary above and beyond many undergraduates or sometimes even grad students. Plenty of such students at public magnet high schools like the one I attended and many more scattered all over the US. </p>
<p>I will grant you that such young advanced students are exceedingly rare compared with the majority of those in their age group and general population. </p>
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<p>A few Manhattan project research scientists were hired straight out of NYC’s original 3 specialized high schools without having attended college at the time.</p>
<p>Knew a 13 year old who was conducting such research in some Biology subfield with a senior Prof. at UH-Manoa because his parents were family friends of my Hawaii relatives. Trust me, he was a genuine G & T who was sharper than most and would have fit in well among the genuine G & T classmates at my high school. </p>
<p>A HS classmate ended up being admitted straight into a STEM PhD program. </p>
<p>One college classmate 2 years ahead of me GRADUATED from my LAC with honors at 17. Turns out he skipped high school because his academic/intellectual were such he was more ready for a traditional 4-year college experience at a much younger age than most 17-18 year old college freshmen. </p>
<p>In short, it’s possible. Admittedly rare, but definitely possible.</p>
<p>I hope we don’t start an argument about knowing some kids who could do it versus what it usually takes most kids. We can’t always learn from exceptions.</p>
<p>This work in research isn’t always so vaulted, nor require expensive, specialized equipment. No lives are in their hands. It’s not what you’d expect from a seasoned research pro or a grad student. Shift perspective and I think it becomes more understandable.</p>
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<p>I just wanted to counter a perception common in some quarters that anyone who had such achievements “must have had parental help” or “such achievements are impossible”. </p>
<p>A reason why I said, “Admittedly rare, but definitely possible”.</p>
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<p>Not necessarily. Research into some areas of biology or moreso, the Manhattan Project during WWII does require specialized equipment and lives in the latter were certainly at stake.</p>
<p>Okay, I see that. What I also get to see is how many lower SES kids have the talent and the drive. </p>
<p>I don’t think hs kids worked on the Manhattan Project- we’re talking about what some normal-ish hs kid can do. We did see a pattern last year of kids who worked in, eg, genetic research. Real responsibilities, but just the piece they can manage.</p>
<p>Let me first explain that science most definitely is not my offspring’s “thing.” Nevertheless, I’ve known a few top 5 Intels. True story of one, now more than a decade old:</p>
<p>At the age of 12, he researched the names of profs doing work in bio at Us located in NYC. He contacted them saying he was interested in science and would volunteer to do any menial work just to get exposure to a real lab. One prof agreed. I think he started off washing test tubes. He stuck with it, asked lots of questions, and gradually became known to the various researchers who would let him do menial tasks because he WANTED to understand the “big picture.”</p>
<p>When he was about 15, he worked “staining” slides with slices of DNA in connection with a prof’s project on possible genetic links for a certain kind of cancer. While doing this, he noticed that one slide had a different mutation than the one the prof was studying. He made a note of the notation and the patient ID. Months later, still staining slides, he noticed the same mutation. He showed his findings to the prof and asked the prof for permission to contact the treating physicians to find out if the 2 patients had any illness or physical deformity other than cancer. She gave him the info. It turned out that both patients suffered from a rare form of mental illness. He was excited. The prof was excited too–she knew he might really have stumbled onto something major. She was there to help guide his research, but it was HIS project. </p>
<p>With the prof’s imprimatur, he contacted psychiatrists in NYC and asked if they had any patients with that mental illness and, if so, whether he could get a DNA sample from them as part of research at X U on a possible genetic link. Some of the psychiatrists were intrigued by the possibility and told other shrinks with patients suffering from the illness about it. He ended up with DNA from about 20 people. All had the mutation. (BTW, all of this took a couple of years.)</p>
<p>Up to this point, the illness had been believed to be caused by environmental factors. It’s a very rare form of mental illness and not much research had been done. Because a 15 year old kid noticed that 2 cancer patients ALSO shared a different mutation–it became evident that this illness has a genetic component. </p>
<p>He used his research to do an Intel project and came in in the top 5. His work may lead to a cure for this form of rare mental illness some day because, once the mutation that causes this gene and its location in DNA was known, it’s much more likely that someone will eventually figure out a fix. It has already made diagnosis a heck of a lot easier. </p>
<p>Now, it’s true that if he wasn’t working in a university lab, it’s extremely unlikely that he would have discovered this. However, it’s also true that lots of college students, grad students, post docs, and a prof looked at the same slides he did and nobody else ever noticed the other mutation. There were literally thousands of slides of DNA slices and apparently only 2 of them came from people with this mental illness. It was just a total fluke that 2 people who had this mutation also developed the same kind of cancer.</p>
<p>Ironically, the young man who did this abandoned science for other interests. Still, I offer his story for the skeptics among you. He didn’t walk into a lab one day and say “I want to do an Intel project.” He spent 3 years in a lab and then one day, he noticed something unusual and followed up on it. </p>
<p>Are some of the projects phony baloney? Probably. But I honestly don’t think you can fake your way into the top 10 in Intel.</p>
<p>BTW, the young man was from a wealthy family. He attended one of NYC’s best private schools. To the best of my knowledge, nobody from it had ever done an Intel project before. And, in addition to his Intel project, the young man had his own part-time business and participated in a time sucking EC.</p>
<p>(If by some fluke someone recognizes the id of this person, please do not post the name.)</p>
<p>As the chair of her department, my mom does get a decent amount of calls and emails from parents. They want to know why their son/daughter has to take a language placement test, why they can’t be exempt from requirements because of such-and-such reason, and other random things that aren’t really meant for her to deal with. </p>
<p>However, she said there were a few times when it did seem appropriate for the parent to get involved. A while ago, a student studying abroad for a year didn’t get her money from financial aid for the spring semester because the fin aid office wasn’t cooperating with her delayed grade reports, so she was stranded in Europe without that check to pay her tuition and her host family. The girl’s dad called my mom after being shuffled around by financial aid, and he was extremely alarmed and worried since she was already there and needed to get her money. </p>
<p>Yes the student could have called herself, but still, that was a big deal with bigger consequences than an A-. My mom didn’t mind, especially since she was angry and worried about it, too.</p>
<p>I am for helicopter parenting.</p>
<p>College costs sooo much. I can’t understand paying quarter a million and “no questions asked”. As long as parents are paying for education substantial amount of money, they (parents) are clients of the colleges. So college admins shall answer to parents requests, first.</p>
<p>Hi LookingForward - I understand now. I knew you’d liked it there.</p>
<p>Californiaaa, sometimes I think you just seek to fan the flames.</p>
<p>lookingforward ,</p>
<p>Thanks. I take it as a compliment.</p>
<p>I was shocked, a few years ago, to learn that a college basketball coach I know gets calls from parents about (lack of) playing time. </p>
<p>After a couple of years on CC it doesn’t surprise me at all, I’ve heard far worse.</p>
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<p>And if you payed for medical care for your 21 year old, you demand the doctors “answer to parent requests first”? Good luck with that. Unless your child has signed a release, you can play your money card all you want and it will still get you nothing.</p>
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<p>A friend of mine had a daughter who played soccer for a D1 program. She said she and her DH received a letter that stated the coach does not take phone calls from parents, he does not take advice from parents, and he doesn’t explain his decisions regarding playing time with parents, period. He explained that as all players were adults, the conversations would be with them, no exceptions. We laughed and talked about how many HS coaches would probably love to write a letter like that; but of course, that’s not happening.</p>
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<p>^ D’s high school volleyball coach said almost exactly that…except that parents could email with concerns and he would respond.</p>
<p>But no phone calls, no explanation of playing time, no advice. There was actually more to it, like an entire page of stuff including “no social media posts about the team”. I was impressed because our previous coach was often buffeted by the parental breeze , if you know what I mean :)</p>
<p>This post made me think of two things: FDR and the episode of “Everybody Loves Raymond” where the brother interviews for the FBI.</p>
<p>Regarding the former president, FDR’s mom apparently moved to Boston to keep an eye on him at college. Then when he got married, she bought FDR and Eleanor a brownstone in Boston, bought herself the brownstone next door, and arranged for there to be doors with no locks in between them at every level.</p>
<p>“Any major research university will have summer programs in place for hs students to do research and quite possibly get college credit for the research…some are very competitive…”</p>
<p>I think the point being made here is that that’s all very well and good, but it requires a kid to a) live near said major research university and b) have transportation (own car or public transportation).</p>