So, some of her Ivy classmates at an unstated med school regretted their choices. That’s your anecdote. And plenty of grads from strong schools are satisfied they chose those colleges and they accomplished much. And plenty of kids regret going to a second or third tier school, for various reasons.
Many roads lead to Rome. So, though this med school discussion is off track, the point is: being goal oriented, able to choose the right level of challenges and manage that path successfully, balancing independence with the ability to take guidance, and the resilience to overcome hurdles, are all good things. Nothing says that has to be a tippy top or second tier.
Nothing says the easier path is always the most rewarding.
It seems awfully convenient for the college administrators, that those who are paying the tuition, i.e. the parents, shouldn’t be involved and therefore don’t know what they are buying….or not buying. College administrators, and other self-appointed unsolicited advice givers, aren’t going to suffer the consequence when the inexperienced 17 year old is unable to navigate academic incompetence, bureaucracy and general BS, the parent and student do. Lousy advisement? Won’t graduate in four years? Who pays? And how about that class on Beyonce? That three credit course at $1200 per credit costs $3600. “Helicopter parenting “ is another name for self-preservation, of parents’ bank accounts, time and sanity.
" from SUNY Buffalo to Berkeley who needed to apply 4-5 times in a row before they were accepted to several AMA med schools I"
-Some people do not understand the simple fact that no matter how good your stats, you still should apply widely. In regard to Berkeley specifically, those who applied smartly got somewhere, for sure. While they had trouble driving in the snow, D’s Medical school class was predominantly from Berkeley, which was #1 represented beating Med. School own university UG class in numbers. The class had many from Harvard and other Ivy’s, it had Masters in Science from places like JHU, lawyers and one PhD from Harvard. None had advantages except for Masters in Anatomy, who were very helpful in Anatomy class.
Everybody was on the same footing. My kid, one of youngest in the class from in-state public had a huge advantage of graduating debt free, because she was smart enough to attend UG on full tuition Merit award freeing our resources to pay her med. school tuition. Many had close to $300k in debt after graduating from the private Med. School. And then residency matching, which is the goal of the whole process. Graduating from Harvard college had absolutely nothing to do with this most important event in the med. school student life.
I have nothing against Ivy / Elite. Whoever wants to attend there, go ahead. However, our family is not at the Trump level in financial terms. We did the best, no, I have to say that D. made very wise choices at every step of the process.
I am not sure what it has to do with the topic of this thread. Maybe, a bit of showing that kids who are constantly making life changing decisions…maybe they are more or less capable of pushing the correct button on the washer and drier. I certainly think so. Oh, yes, boiling that pasta should not be an obstacle in fighting the hunger in college either.
I call or text my son once a week just to see how things are. We also make him show us his grades. We do not want to pay for any bad grades so if he chooses to get lower than a 2.0 then he will have to get loans and a job. But, I also think that this process is so difficult now that I think it is extremely short-sighted to believe a student can navigate this without some help. Some students that are really on the ball and mature beyond their years may find this process to be easy but I am old with several degrees and I think it is hard. Choosing a college is not just a student’s choice…it is the choice of the family if they have to pay for it. Maybe the guy from Stanford can write a check for it but when you are thinking about it from a regular person’s viewpoint it is daunting. Stanford charges more than 60k a year and I have not heard anyone be warm and fuzzy about the guidance they get there. It is an awesome university but these students are young.
@woodlandsmom I think your involvement is completely fine. Yes, choosing a college should be something worked out between student and parent, but that’s not the real problem. The problem is the parent choosing Stanford for the student, and then the student not having any real connection to such a decision. Helicopter parents are living second lives and not giving their children the chance to live for themselves.
Don’t you think posters would prefer to receive advice from parents who have had a few kids already go through the process? Well, those of us with the high post counts are the ones with a couple of offspring who have gone through high school, college applications, and graduation. Otherwise, where’s the perspective?
I must say, I am astounded by this myopic view espoused by a Stanford dean. Every generation takes great joy in criticizing the next generation as it comes of age with predictions that “the sky is falling” when the new generation takes charge. The baby boomers were hippie druggies. Then the Gen Xers – aka the “me generation” – were so incredibly selfish compared with those idealist 1960s boomers. The Millenials, on the other hand, can’t tie their own shoes. Shouldn’t a dean at Stanford recognize this practice and refrain from partaking? They are kids – they aren’t even allowed to consume alcohol. They wouldn’t be attending college if they didn’t have something to learn. Each time there are dire predictions of a generation in disarray, that generation turns out just fine.
As far as parenting paradigms go, stop for just a moment. Generally, parents try to improve on their own parents’ performance. People certainly have no problem complaining about the way other people raise their kids. Oh, those poor latch-key children, how very sad that their mother is never home. Oh, I would hate to be her kids. She controls everything they do. Which do you want? The “never theres” or the “always theres.” Personally, I don’t think it makes any difference at all. People have been parents for a pretty long time and they have been making mistakes for a pretty long time. The kids turn out just fine.
Finally, I think the colleges (particularly Stanford) should take some ownership of this trend (if indeed it is a trend). Stanford apparently is proud of its uber low admit rate. It sends out promotional materials to huge numbers of kids who have no prayer of getting in to keep low and decrease its admit rate. So, what is the rational response? Do what you can to increase your chances of your kid getting admitted. Voila, the helicopter parent.
Parents of the world, chill. Don’t worry about this sort of nonsense. The kids are just fine.
My son’s girlfriend likes to cook for us when she’s visiting on weekends. She’s a pretty terrible cook, but I figure the only way she is going to get better is to practice. I did some cooking with my kids in elementary school, and my youngest even took a cooking class after school when he was 8 or 9. One summer his friends in high school got together every weekend and cooked a meal. My son became the dessert man, so he’s pretty good around a kitchen. He continued the practice of making pies when he was in college.
Oh and my oldest, four years out of college never cooks at all. He gets a hot lunch at work and eats cereal or sandwiches for dinner. He’s gainfully employed does his laundry. We won’t talk about the cleaning though!
The rational response is to prepare your student to take on the world best as they can on their own which includes guiding them to an appropriate college at which they can succeed, not flounder.
I’m working my way through the book in question. Many of the topics have been covered on this forum. It reads like a collection of Modern Parent Worries, not a serious work.
To me, I think if selective colleges are seeing students with wonderful records unprepared to deal with Real Life, it would behoove them to look seriously at their standards for admission. I don’t care how bright you are, there are some combinations of serious academic work and extracurricular involvement which are incompatible with long-term success.
If deans are seeing increasing numbers of very bright students who cannot deal with Real Life, it is their moral duty to engage with their own administrations, not complain about “parents these days.” As long as selective colleges are perceived to reward over-competitive parents, the madness (if it exists) will continue.
Do I think these Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan analysts attended highly selective colleges? Why, yes I do. Maybe even Stanford. Do I think this is not the first place they strategically cut corners? I would bet on it. The only question is whether they began in middle school.
If your assumption is that admission standards are unattainably high, and that kids can’t get there without helicoptering, I would tell you that we don’t know that because helicopter parents swoop in before anyone has a chance to stumble or otherwise learn from a situation.
I would also point out that there are students who attain those peaks without helicoptering.