<p>of course this is all about homeschooling, the article is dedicated to that</p>
<p>and it just seems disingenous to go, look at this amazing girl (which she is) and to not point out the money that was needed to get her there</p>
<p>ten years of private french tutoring? Give that to any number of kids and you would get some amazing french speakers</p>
<p>The financial status is of importance- of course it is</p>
<p>The "negativity" comes from the idea of "oh look, she was homeschooled and is really smart" and you see she had private tutors, etc, Yes she is bright and sccomplished, but many kids would be able to excel if their families had the $$ to do what this family appears to have done</p>
<p>The article talks about homeschooling enmeshed with private lessons, extensive travel, etc, </p>
<p>And to brag about that, eh, just rubs me the wrong way</p>
<p>And I bet I am not the only one who read that piece and said, well, if I could have afforded tutors, and private lessons, and all that,my kid could have excelled as well</p>
<blockquote>
<p>To make that coup even more impressive, Link received the good news via phone in late February, even though the official letter did not arrive for another month. Only 10 non-athletes nationwide received one of these "heads-up" calls.
<<</p>
</blockquote>
<br>
<p>The article was talking about Harvard. Interesting to know that H gives "likely" phone calls for non-athletic prowess...a whole 10 of them!!!</p>
<p>cgm, yes, it's obvious this family has a lot of advantages, but I know plenty of rich people who are raising losers. I still think the family has a lot to be proud of and should be congratulated.</p>
<p>As to my own reaction, I do not resent the family for their privilege, although I will agree with cgm that the private advantages were exceptional & obvious. But that's never what grabs me in a story like this. After all, I have taught homeschoolers who are middle class, some even lower middle class. The middle class (non- "wealthy" students) excel about 3 x what they do in their local publics, as long as the parents have a basic education & functional literacy (& much more so with highly educated parents guiding the education). What strikes me is how students often have to <em>leave</em> the educational establishment in order to achieve academically. So to me, the moral of the story cited is that the girl undoubtedly could not have achieved to this level by going to the best possible public school. (A point that was also illustrated with the kindergarten anecdote.) It tells me that the public school system (wherever) is unnecessarily inefficient pretty much throughout the country -- more in some places than in others. (LOL, perhaps for purposes of college admission, that's a "good" thing --a relief.) We think that the Ivies have it tough selecting now. Can you imagine an entire applicant pool of Chelseas (& male equivalents)? </p>
<p>So a more "complete" story could have also featured homeschooled families with less money winning things like Spelling Bees & Geography Bees (which they also do). Still the same point, for all economic levels, i.m.o.</p>
<p>sorry folks, the student in question has enough resources to book a private hotel room for harp(s) alone...it is wonderful when resources and genetics combine to create an exceptional human being but the struggling single parent who manages to keep child away from drugs and encourages them to become a good caring asset to society deserves just as many accolades, if not more. As to the very American fashion of homeschooling, fine...but realize (if you are homeschooling only because you think it is 'best for your child' and not because the child has serious needs which can't be met in school) that as you extract those nice role models out of classrooms the students left behind are deprived of having a variety of classmates to imitate....leaving the teachers with only the most difficult students in the classroom. Which is okay, America is where the needs of the individual are paramount after all, but do not expect applause from those who try hard to support public schools.</p>
<p>Congratulating this girl on her achievements doesn't take away from the accomplishments of the children of the struggling single parents, you know - it's not zero-sum. Yes, they gave her lots of advantages. Nonetheless, she also excelled with what she was given. </p>
<p>BTW, I am somewhat aware of the parents in a professional capacity, and I don't believe them to be "loaded," just upper-middle class. There are certainly far more loaded people in Evanston or elsewhere on Chicago's North Shore, who don't have their kids get into the caliber of schools this young lady did.</p>
<p>Well, as a professional within the public school system for many years, & one who continues to support them in my current job functions, plural, I'm a little resentful of post #27, which implies that you have to love one, hate the other. I hardly think that families who depart to a homeschool model have some kind of social responsibility to be a role model in the classroom, sacrificing their own academic & personal needs. The schools had a responsibility to challenge them enough to keep them; they failed in that because they accepted, unrealistically, competing responsibilities, some of them not even related to education. This thread, or at least the underlying motivations for the family profiled, relates incidentally to the homogeneous/ heterogeneous thread, & the various existing (mostly failing) strategies, or lack thereof, with regard to heterogeneous classes.</p>
<p>by the way DSC, statistically homeschoolers have about the same rate of acceptance to top schools as the population at large (about 8% or so at Harvard).</p>
<p>"America is where the needs of the individual are paramount after all, but do not expect applause from those who try hard to support public schools."
Whoa, hold on there. As a parent of a gifted child, who also started to read and write at age 3, and a taxpayer who has lived next to and has and cointinues to support the public school located accross the street for 30+ years, where do you get the idea that we should not what's best for gifted students who are bored to death in a typical classroom ? We were fortunate that there exists a school for gifted students in our area, otherwise I too would have homeschooled my son.
I had to pay my hard earned money so that my son would continue to love to learn, because the "gate" program in this district is a joke. I'm not looking for applause, but it would be nice if cynical posters who don't have gifted kids of their own would at least try to understand that people don't homeschool their GIFTED kids because we feel we are better than others, which your remarks "if you are homeschooling only because you think it is 'best for your child" seem to suggest.
Gifted kids are often homeschooled because parents have no other choice, if they don't want their 'eager to learn about everything' child stop wanting to go to school , because the school fails them in their needs.</p>
<p>In many countries, home schooling is quite limited because it is not readily accepted. So all those poor English, French, Italian etc. 'gifted' children are forced to just...well 'deal' with public schooling and somehow their countries seem to produce some pretty talented and creative people despite the system having cramped their style. Also although I wouldn't have mentioned it my 'gifted' child also read at age 3, got 36 ACT etc, major merit scholarship(s), speaks several languages, plays several instruments, has won writing awards etc and along the road has learned to work with a lot of different people with different skill sets. I don't call her gifted though, just darn lucky to be bright....what is 'gifted' anyway? So group projects in school were sometimes annoying but that prepares you pretty well for the work world doesn't it?</p>
<p>For the record, I know of homeschoolers in Poland, Bosnia, Estonia, Romania, Germany, UK, Croatia, Brazil, Guatamala, Mexico, South Africa, Kenya, Japan, China (mainly expats here, but a few locals), Korea, Australia, and Indonesia.</p>
<p>" the system having cramped their style""what is 'gifted' anyway?"
The fact that you asked this question, and think that gifted students should just adjust the "style" of of how their brain works shows how little you know about the gifted and how they learn. I'm done with this thread.</p>
<p>Hey... we're a middle income homeschooling family. ;)</p>
<p>I mean, actually middle income (mid 50K), not CC middle income (~100K). And, I'm not even going to go there with the "gifted" thing, because it makes my skin crawl.</p>
<p>However, my kids were homeschooled with very little money, but with LOTS of time from my husband and myself. I do agree with CGM that homeschooling your kids with abundant resources is a very different journey. Not a less honorable one, but certainly very different. I have had homeschooling friends "of means" -- as they say ;) -- and the opportunities available to their kids surely makes a difference in the passions and talents they could pursue, as well as the heights to which they could pursue them. Homeschooling in my family looked nothing like homeschooling in theirs. In fact, homeschooling in my family --and many others-- actually means a <em>more</em> frugal lifestyle since often one parent either doesn't work or works part-time.</p>
<p>Not to take anything away from exceptional students however they are educated.</p>
<p>My son didn't get accepted to Harvard. He didn't apply. He decided very early that his school of choice was Amherst, applied ED, and was accepted. My daughter is only 15, but she's starting college full-time next fall, too. Because of her age she's starting at the nearby public U, with plans to transfer. They are both great students by conventional measures (grades, scores), and they have been lucky to have a lot of freedom in their lives to learn the things they wanted to learn (and the things they needed to learn) in their own way and in their own time. Mostly it's been the freedom to chart our own course that's been the great benefit. That wouldn't be any different if they were going on to community college, or just going straight to work.</p>
<p>But they have never had $$ to support their homeschooling. It's been a do-it-ourself, on-a-shoestring venture... or maybe I should say ADventure. :)</p>
<p>I often appreciate citygirlsmom's posts and general spunk.
However, I don't get her sour grapes here. My home schooled son was a Pell Grant recipient all 4 years at Dartmouth while his sister home schooled her adolescence. She is a first year at Princeton, and I'll betcha citygirlsmom's family beats us in the bucks department.
We found that money makes little difference. The biggest expense has been overdue fines at the Chicago Public Library. There were no "lessons at home" either. I think learning is something you do to yourself, not something someone else does to you.
Chelsea is a remarkable young woman. The narrative in the article suggests that this was not a college "tactic" at all. On the other hand, it is impossible to believe she could have had such opportunities had she been confined to school. I admire her and her parents' courage in taking "the road less taken". I'm sure she will always look back, as I do, on those years of free development as their own reward.</p>
<p>
[quote]
And to brag about that, eh, just rubs me the wrong way
[/quote]
And to be condescending rubs a lot of readers the wrong way, CGM. </p>
<p>The newspaper article highlights this young ladies accomplishments. She was fortunate to have the resources she did, and she made the best of them. Itis impressive, and clearly impresive enough to warrant the attention of a newspaper reporter and editor. Chelsea isn't bragging-- someone else is writing about her incredible accomplishments. Most people are happy for her and her hard work.</p>
<p>unregistered - I was primarily speaking of studies saying that with regards to test scores: Homeschool > Private > Public</p>
<p>Add on to that that I know 3 home schooled Ivy kids, out of a rather limited rolodex of Ivy kids(Ivy parents, a different matter), so I certainly am not thinking of the disadvantage of being homeschooled.</p>
<p>Is it very difficult to be in a position where you have very little/no support system in place regarding counseling and guidance information? I'm sure. And confining the tensions of the college admissions process inside one household would obviously be tough. But I think that making it to an Ivy from a public, specifically those that do not have experience with top schools, especially when adding in low income/first gen/etc. is clearly the more impressive feat.</p>
<p>This girl deserves a newspaper article about her, she sounds unbelievable. The schools she got into are by far the least amazing part. Even(perhaps because of?) growing up in a rural-becoming suburban noncompetitive town going through some very rough times economically home schooling is not considered inferior, but rather an alternative to expensive private schooling for smart kids. Only a few do it, and there is a stereotype of 'antisocial', but no stigma at all regarding colleges, brilliance, or success. So I feel that she should be an example to be celebrated, not a form of validation. The supposed purpose - that homeschooling work for people too - seems to be completely opposed by the sheer incredible-ness of Chelsea and the opportunities afforded to her. Her acceptances are no more surprising than the valedictorian of Andover's, off the charts is off the charts.</p>
<p>@merepoule
So, I am assuming that your children all attend/ will attend public universities, as well, yes? Because the European students you cited as doing so well with their systems don't have many options beside their state-run public universities. You know there aren't many private LACs over there.
I am also curious why you think homeschooled students don't have opportunities to "work with a lot of different people with different skill sets" ? You must not know very many homeschoolers. Many are involved with all kinds of activities: academic, service-related, extracurricular, athletic, arts etc. that involve doing just that. They are probably exposed to many more kinds of people with much more varied skill sets than the average institutionally-educated student who mainly interacts with his peers.</p>
<p>Lots of generalizations are being made, that if directed at other groups in society, would be considered offensive, I believe.</p>
<p>Posts 35 amd 36 merely validate my earlier reference to "middle-class and lower-middle-class" successfully homeschooled families, a situation with which I am well acquainted & served as their consultant & planner (with public money, not private; one of those has now become my private student by the family's choice since my role has changed.)</p>
<p>But what I don't get is the 'I-won't-go-there-it-makes-my-skin-crawl' reference to giftedness, which is a pretty offensive remark to make about the intellectually gifted (as opposed to the high achieving but not 'gifted' per se). If I misunderstood this poster as to the meaning of the remark, I apologize in advance.</p>
<p>The ambitious student as a category, and the gifted student as a category, are too often not well served even by relatively 'wealthy' public school systems. I reiterate that this is the big story. If anything, the featured story says, 'Even one's private wealth cannot purchase an <em>institutional</em> superior education.' But again, I just felt that unfortunately the slant of the article made it appear is if the privilege was being glamorized, not the schooling. Rich or poor, parents who homeschool do sacrifice TIME: that's the common leveler.</p>