<p>Falling</a> In Love With My Safety School</p>
<p>Just happened to fall upon this article . . and it was written by a kid I remotely know. What a great article. In this day and age, it is the most important take away for students, unless they come from wealth.</p>
<p>Great article, thanks for sharing!</p>
<p>Thanks redpoint, this article should be required reading for every college-bound high school senior AND their parents.</p>
<p>I feel like most people, in the grand scheme of things, want to go to a school that they can definitely get into and afford. It’s only on this website that everyone’s obsessed with expensive brand-name schools.</p>
<p>This is a fantastic article! Am giving to S to read.</p>
<p>Nice article. Thanks for posting.</p>
<p>Oops posted on wrong thread.</p>
<p>I wish that there were more threads here to post on for students interested in public directionals and less exclusive schools. I know there are plenty of students here that will have to make that choice.</p>
<p>The author writes: “For me, the college process was all about feeling like I wasn’t good enough.”</p>
<p>I think that’s true for many kids, and this is just sad. And ridiculous–for one, this kid is a high-achiever at an internationally known top high school, and she still felt bad about herself. How terrible is that. And kids not in those circumstances shouldn’t feel bad about themselves either. Sadly, the process isn’t about forging one’s own path, but about pressure and competition.</p>
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<p>I know several families that have never heard of CC let alone read or post here.</p>
<p>The “obsession” over college selection and admission is pretty universal regardless of which Internet fora they might or might not read.</p>
<p>Yes, where I live it is positively expected, if your kid is not at Smith or Vassar they are at least at Connecticut College or Skidmore. When they ask me what schools my kid is interested in, they get a baffled look on their face. “Oh, uh, where is that?” If I say we are looking at SUNYs they feel sorry for us, as they say “oh, I hear it is so hard to get into Binghamton these days.”</p>
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I think there is less of a need for a discussion forum in that context. Most choices will be regional/financial and admissions criteria are typically straightforward.</p>
<p>On the other hand, the financial aid subforum has good advice for students at any school.</p>
<p>The article does not match my experiences at all. Perhaps the CC stereotype really is the norm in some places???</p>
<p>Love it!! Thanks for sharing.</p>
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<p>I didn’t mean necessarily only on this website, but I think the obsession is only prominent in more affluent areas and/or among severely above-average students. In my AP English Literature class, the teacher asked the 30 seniors where they were going to college, and literally no one was going anywhere other than a non-selective state school or community college. And those are the best students in the school.</p>
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<p>This girl gets it.</p>
<p>The ‘elitism’ is definitely regional/area dependent.</p>
<p>I live in a VERY rural area of Indiana and although most of those at my son’s HS are college bound (>80%) - a few attend state flagships, most attend directional campuses or lower tiered state schools (Indiana State or the University of Southern Indiana are popular choices), and a few attend a residential junior college.</p>
<p>In my S’s albeit small (73 students) graduating class, I can think of only <em>1</em> student that went to a private school (Butler, which is less than 100 miles away) and I am certain that only <em>1</em> (my son) chose to attend college out of state (and that’s because after receiving a full tution scholarship it was half the cost for him to go out of state than to stay in state and attend a flagship. </p>
<p>But statistics do show that’s the norm - note that even with an ACT over 33 the median distance they went was only 170 miles from home. </p>
<p>[Newsroom</a> | How Far from Home Do US Students Travel to Attend College? | ACT](<a href=“http://www.act.org/newsroom/releases/view.php?lang=english&p=2973]Newsroom”>http://www.act.org/newsroom/releases/view.php?lang=english&p=2973)</p>
<p>I don’t think we are saying this is the norm everywhere. But where it is the norm – it IS the norm, and that’s the audience for the article. It’s not your reality but it is the reality for many. Hey, there’s the whole Race to Nowhere movement, saying that kids are under so much crazy pressure these days, and they are! Except where they are not, and the kids are not being challenged enough.</p>
<p>Great advice for college bound students. Thanks for posting.</p>
<p>If only more people who needed to read this article could see it. The arrogance the writer describes has ramifications for far more than the individual students simmering in the pressure cooker of competitive college applications. It can have negative effects on entire families, classes and student bodies.</p>
<p>Yes, and negative effects on the finances of the families and students for their lifetimes. Plus perpetuating a sick culture based on status.</p>
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<p>OK, yes. I’ll, for the most part, agree with that.
But it also makes the most logical sense.</p>
<p>If we were talking about football players, for example, the above-average players would be the ones most obsessed about where they wind up. Not the third-stringers.</p>