<p>Now that we've seen who has been accepted EA or ED and we can't resist comparing the profiles of these kids to ours, is anyone else finding it hard to resist the temptation to mull over what our kid could have done better or more of? I'm not talking about getting As rather than Bs, or a better SAT score. For us, I'm talking about what he did or didn't do by way of extracurricular activities or stuff done during the summer. Our S has a rather lean ECA profile, and we tried to encourage him to do more, or take what he was doing to another level, but he just didn't feel like it. What do you do with a smart but unambitious kid? I think about parents who hire college consultants like the famed Ivywise, who come up with strategies that include what ECA's to get involved with. What if your kid doesn't want to do what's suggested?</p>
<p>I really want to go to Penn State next year and I haven't received a decision yet. I've seen most people get accepted with higher GPA's but smaller amounts of Honors and AP classes, I have taken 9 AP's and because of that my GPA is somewhat lower, so I kind of regret taking so many instead of getting my grades higher, but hopefully I'll be accepted, if so, no regrets.</p>
<p>I think about parents who hire college consultants like the famed Ivywise, who come up with strategies that include what ECA's to get involved with. What if your kid doesn't want to do what's suggested?</p>
<p>Then you would be well served to save your money and let them see that actions either expand or narrow our choices.
If junior wants to attend Benjamin Braddocks school of business, but despite clear messages that some work experience is preferred- junior isn't motivated to do so- someone else trying to make it easy for him isn't going to help him in the long run.</p>
<p>No one is inside our kids head but them.
Perhaps he isn't comfortable taking it up a notch just yet. I think we can encourage them & support them whatever they are doing- but much of the actual pushing at this point has to come from them.
I think we can help provide structure and help to use our persepective to make some sense out of what they are doing, but we can't tell them what to do.</p>
<p>I think a lot of kids take some time (often years) to feel comfortable in their own (rapidly changing) skins: They get compared to all the 'early developers' and look unambitious or disorganized or apathetic by comparison. But there are other possibilities. They may not be 'joiners' now (or ever). Some find high school to be an unsupportive, even toxic, environment socially and/or academically. They may not have found their passion yet-and it may be something that school doesn't offer. We only see our kids in one environment-the one we've created for them. That's why college is such a life-changing experience for so many people. So, my take on your son's aparent lack of ambition is that it's too soon to judge him, except that he's smart enough not to let someone else try to script his ECAs.</p>
<p>It is frustrating....It's hard not to want your child to be the whole package - excellling in every aspect. But that is not realistic. My d has great SATs - but her GPA is "only" a 3.x. Good ECs, but are they good enough ? The college app process is such a crucible - It is hard for anyone's life to be reduced to 4 pages of stats & info. </p>
<p>But I also think that the emphasis on self-esteem is partly to blame. Up through middle school, trying hard is enough. Being a nice person is enough. When a child refuses to participate in ECs, or to develop a potential talent, there are no consequences or judgements. In my effort to be accepting of my d, I think maybe I left out the tough talk about consequences. It makes for a hard transition to HS, and college apps - where they will be judged on the choices they made, and the opportunities they had available - but didn't take advantage of.</p>
<p>Yeah, I regret having wasted four years of my life in the unchallenging and narrow-minded "halls of arrogance" that was my high school. Oh wait a minute, you mean regrets about my KIDS high school experiences. Mea culpa, mea culpa. </p>
<p>Nope, not a one.</p>
<p>When my D was a freshman I worried that she wouldn't have ANY ECs come her senior year, and no amount of gentle suggestions/nagging seemd to help. Low and behold, in her sophomore year she joined her school's radio station, which became her major EC. When combined with her other big EC - scouting, with a Gold Award project centered on music - she morphed into a pretty unique individual on her college apps. (I'm guessing that whoever read her applications tagged her as the "punk Girl Scout.")</p>
<p>Any regrets? I wish she had done better in Spanish, and I wish she would have prepped a little more for her ACTs. Those are minor quibbles, however. I love the person she has become, and I'm sure her "true self" really came through on her applications. Whatever happens now, happens.</p>
<p>I hope I will not offend my one by saying a partial regret is coming to CC. Don't get me wrong; overall it has been very helpful, but prior to coming here I thought my kid, her school, and our community was pretty good. Now I sometimes wondering "what if?...: and comparing a perfectly good kid with pretty good values to kid's and people I don't even know. And all when it's really too late to do anything about it. Still, I don't regret coming here, if I keep my focus on how to make the most of what's already done.</p>
<p>And to top it all off, I am "addicted" to this place. Fortunately, my D is not, & could care less.</p>
<p>Amen to shrinkrap! </p>
<p>I have the same queasy love/hate relationship with CC. For a while, after first finding the site, I thought that my D with the 3.7 GPA and the 30 ACT was ... well, not an idiot, maybe, but definitely dumber than I had thought before. Luckily I recovered my composure and perspective - I now appreciate the advice here and ignore the other stuff.</p>
<p>No regrets for DD. I asked her this question the other day and she said we(mom and her) planned her high school schedule very well. To her, high school is somewhat stressed but not impossible. She did find her true passion eventually that will continue in college. She also did enough of her EC to know she does not want to go into that kind of work. In addition, she is going to all the events at her school so when she graduates, she will have good memories of her high school years.</p>
<p>A few ups and downs, but in all, it was fun :D.</p>
<p>I thought CC was a great resource. When I first began reading the posts, I thought I entered into another world where everyone had 2400 on their SATs and had 4.0 averages.However, the amount of information I was able to obtain after I learned how to ignore the many garbage posts was helpful.</p>
<p>slugger255</p>
<p>I believe the issue with PSU (main campus) is that they have so many apps/yr (I heard around 60,000) that they initially use a graph of Test Scores to Grades. If you are above a line you get in, if not you don't. The problem is that the bar apparently shifts up as the year goes on (around Nov 30 I think). So your best chance is earlier rather than later. Heard this from some PSU'ers.</p>
<p>No, no real regrets from me. And I know none from him. I would have liked to see him more involved in school activities. Actually, I would have liked to see him involved at all in school activities, but that wasn't what he wanted to do. He found a non-school related volunteer activity that pretty much took over his life, and that was his decision to make. </p>
<p>I admit that on occasion we would both stare somewhat mournfully at the part of the applications where you are supposed to fill in school activities, with little checkboxes for your years of participation, and another line where you could fill in if you were an officer, etc. That part of the application was always completely blank -- we came to see the humor in it. As we stared at that portion of the umpteenth application I said in exasperation "isn't there ANYTHING you can claim without being completely untruthful?", and he just shook his head and said "I got nothin". </p>
<p>But he rocked on the "volunteer activities" section! </p>
<p>I agree with M's mom -- High School, particularly large schools, can be a tough place for late bloomers and those who are more introspective, shy, or just not interested in joining a bunch of clubs. Let the process come to him, I think he sounds like he's got a good handle on things.</p>
<p>Well, as a friend of mine would say, it's all water over the bridge. While reading the CC posts has been fun AND therapeutic, I recently made the mistake of reading a post asking for stats for EA admissions to MIT. I was floored by what I saw. In addition to great GPAs and scores, there were leadership slots in important activities, placement in major science contests, plus the all-important (it seems) community service activities. WHEN DO THESE KIDS SLEEP??? I think that kind of drive has to come from the kid him/herself - I don't think any parent can compel a child to keep that kind of schedule. Another question is would a parent want to?</p>
<p>It also gets very hard to maintain that schedule with more than 1 kid. I have 3 teens, and when none of them were driving, they all had to make choices based on logistical considerations - which sometimes meant limiting activities. My d college apps might have been stronger if she had more volunteer work, but I remember when we were considering it in 10th grade - I simply could not add any more driving to my schedule.</p>
<p>Even with only ONE kid, it is hard to maintain the schedule if both of you work. We had several car accidents in his freshman or sophermor year, most of them caused by rushing to pick him up or drop him off for activities. After that he tried to arrange his after school activities around the school by walking distance. Fortunately, his HS is in a small town he was able to do that. </p>
<p>He dose not have many ECs, he only chose what he is really interested in. With the course load he was taking and internet time he MUST spend, he was already sleeping deprived. </p>
<p>I have no regrets whatever, he had saved us at least $100k over 4 years HS. Despite we live in a very good school district, almost half of his middle school classmates went to private schools near by. I was leaning to send him there too. But he(and my H) wouldn't take it "save the money for my college education." Now looking back, they made right choice, he turned out to be better than we've expected.</p>