<p>Most kids seem to be announcing their admissions on FB these days. It is just a question of whether your kids are friends with them to know the other kids’ status.</p>
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If it were me, I would not talk about the Olympics unless the friend was close enough that they knew I had gone, and thus specifically knew about it.</p>
<p>Also I don’t think it’s introverted vs. extroverted… Well, that plays a huge factor but I don’t think it is clear cut as to which side will be the “stealth achiever” as we’ve termed it. Some people may not share because they keep to themselves, others may not share because it can come as an unwanted surprise to other people’s egos that someone they thought they knew is highly skilled in one or more areas (especially if it’s an area that they pride themselves in, like academics for a several high schoolers).</p>
<p>Pizzagirl
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<p>Well, maybe this is why you can’t understand why people are interested in the lives of others. Is it “important” to me, not sure “important” is the right word, but we live in a community, these kids are our friends’ kids or classmates of our kids, we take an interest in what is going on around us and with our friends, our kids’ friends and classmates. We go high school sporting event, not because our kids are on the team but because we like to support those that are. When a girl from our community died unexpectantly, the community rallied around her family. When kids have success in school, sports, activities, it’s announced at school or in the local paper. I have a hard time comprehending a place where everyone is only wrapped up in themselves. It’s just a foreign concept to me.</p>
<p>In our area everyone would know someone had gone to the Olympics because they probably would have signs all over, would have had some kind of a sending off ceremony, the paper would have done stories about them, someone in town would have started a bank account to help fund this athlete, etc. This has happened in our community and it’s a lot of fun watching someone you know compete.</p>
<p>It’s mind boggling that people are just fine chatting about colleges, etc. here but don’t talk to their neighbors.</p>
<p>I’m more than happy to let other parents talk about their kids and have been known to attend events at the HS to watch my former rec sports team members compete or perform. But I don’t go around broadcasting what my kids are doing to the other folks at the HS and tend to deflect most such questions even when asked. YMMV.</p>
<p>Some of us are just curious about other people. I don’t claim that as a virtue, but it’s the truth.</p>
<p>I would agree with SteveMA about connection with community. When I shed tears at my son’s graduation, it was not just about him, but about seeing his friends, all grown up, remembering them as young kids, and now seeing the bittersweet transition of them going forward. I shed tears of joy and longing as I saw them, not just my own child, go off toward the future, and saw at least this small cohort of children move away from childhood.</p>
<p>SteveMA, in our area the same would be true (indeed, there was a US Olympic team hockey player from my kids’ school some years back). I didn’t say there wasn’t a community. I said that I have elected, in the 24 hours in my day, that it is not as much of a priority for me as my own children/family, my career, and other personal interests. And yes, if given 3 extra hours on a Saturday, attending the hs swim meet when my kid is not a swimmer would be far down on the list compared with other things I might do, which might include visiting my sister or taking a bike ride w my husband or just going to a bookstore and browsing and having a cup of coffee and enjoying my own company. I don’t think I need to feel ashamed of or apologize for that. </p>
<p>Have any of you ever attended Center for Creative Leadership or similar life coaching? Part of what you do is identify core focus areas and values and learn how to strip other stuff away so you feel less scattered and can be more accomplished. Every time I’ve taken stock of who I am and where I want to be, being social in my community / kids’ school has simply always fallen to the bottom. So be it. Others like knowing everything about everybody and being recognized as they walk down the street. So be it.</p>
<p>And SteveMA, I take an interest in my friends’ kids. But my friendships weren’t formed through my kids’ school. They were formed elsewhere. I am not close friends with any parents of my kids’ hs classmates. That doesn’t mean we aren’t friendly and cordial if we bump into one another, but they aren’t my true, closest RL friends. My true friends live elsewhere - most still in the Chicago area, one elsewhere.</p>
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<p>It may be different these days, but based on this article from back in my era, it looks as though a good portion of these braniacs could have spent at least a little more effort improving these substandard SAT scores -</p>
<p>[Yale</a> Daily News no. 49 November 9 1973 :: Yale Daily News Historical Archive](<a href=“CONTENTdm”>CONTENTdm)</p>
<p>:D</p>
<p>In the late 80’s, my spouse was dirt poor and took NO AP courses, but got into the Ivy near him - he is white by the way. I took three AP courses (probably average at the time) and felt I squeaked into the engineering school at the Ivy because I’m female.</p>
<p>It is more likely socioeconomic class matters more than race; poor wins over rich every time. There also seems to be an “anti-top ten” backlash - many valedictorians that I know were rejected from the Ivies they wanted to attend, and ended up at schools like Smith and Stanford. Not bad, but they thought they were ED shoo-ins, and they were rejected outright.</p>
<p>I was told not to apply to any Ivies, and I got into the two I applied for. But between the time that ED results came out (NONE of the ED applicants in the top ten got into their schools of choice, and only one was deferred) and the time RD results came out, I was crapping bricks that I would end up at the local state school.</p>
<p>I do feel that many kids feel entitled, so my son will have multiple choices all of which are acceptable. He has his target school, but if he does well enough at another college, he could transfer in, or he could go to graduate school there (much easier to get into graduate school at an Ivy).</p>
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<p>OK. So let’s go back to the concept of being aware that kids in your school are first in state in swimming, won the XYZ prize, and so on and so forth. Fine. Totally willing to grant and accept that many people are a lot more interested in their kids’ classmates than I am. Totally get that.</p>
<p>So now, back to the point of the thread. The Monday morning QBing that “how come Joey didn’t get into Stanford, because his SAT’s were so high and he was first in the state in swimming, but Susie did, and sure, she was the newspaper editor but she’s not as good of a student.” The question still remains – does being aware of the general accomplishments of other students in the community either entitle or predispose you to try to Monday morning QB their acceptances? Because even if I <em>knew</em> that Joey is valedictorian and he’s first in the state in swimming, isn’t that awfully entitled of me to think that Stanford should think so highly of that set of things that they ought to have accepted Joey? I mean, every school has a valedictorian, and every state has kids who win state championships in sports/debate/etc. How the heck would I know whether being first in the state in swimming is “enough” for Stanford’s purposes, such that I could decree that it was terribly surprising that Joey didn’t get in? To do this Monday morning QB requires both the knowledge of other students AND a belief that one knows what these schools should deem “worthy” of admissions. For all I know, Stanford doesn’t care if you are a state champion in swimming; they only care if you’re a national champion in swimming. Point is, unless I have some special knowledge of the swimming world and Stanford’s swim team, who would I be to decree whether someone’s swimming accomplishments are “good enough” to be considered or “good enough” to be automatic admits? That’s what odd about the whole thing to me.</p>
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<p>And honestly, this is where I think some of this is fake. (Not saying that you are fake, of course.) Have you ever seen people who oogle and google over strangers’ babies, and you just want to say, oh, give me a break, you don’t <em>really</em> care, you just want to put on an act that you do? Well, I think some of the same holds for all this I-care-about-the-EC’s-for-every-kid-my-kid-happens-to-go-to-hs-with. I’ll buy it for your kids’ friends, or kids where you are friends with the parents, but I won’t buy it just for every random kid in your community.</p>
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Well, I’d just say there are people at the other end of the “taking interest” spectrum. Heck, I’m interested in total strangers who use anonymous code names here on CC!</p>
<p>"Heck, I’m interested in total strangers who use anonymous code names here on CC! "</p>
<p>Good one! :D</p>
<p>It was an amusing comment, but to some extent I think you’re absolutely right, Hunt. I am actually more interested in total strangers who use anonymous code names here on CC than I am in some people in my community. Because there is still a thread of anonymity and I can “come and go” in that relationship anytime I like.</p>
<p>Pizzagirl–there is where your disconnect comes in–we know these kids, have known then for years. There are no surprises that kid 1 got into Yale and kid 3 did not. Kid 3 knew it was a long shot but wanted to try. We were all pulling for Kid 3 because we knew he wanted it, but in the end, loves his school choice. We would see Kid 3 at church and let him know we were sending positive vibes his way to Yale or where ever. No different then people asking our S about his lottery school and that they are pulling for him to get in. It’s a long shot because of the 6% acceptance rate, we know that, we share that with people that ask. I just don’t see that it’s this big life intrusion that others seem to.</p>
<p>I don’t need to spend time going to seminars to learn how to say no to things that are not important. I can do that without paying someone to tell me that, but we already have plans to go to the basketball game on Friday because we want to watch a kid play, a kid from another school that we don’t know personally but is an amazing player and fun, FUN to watch. </p>
<p>I don’t think it’s fake, its called being polite or just making conversation. I oogle over babies because they are so dang cute. What is wrong with that. We just lead very different lives. Your life seems to be centered around you and your’s, our life we can mix family and community quite easily.</p>
<p>Beliavsky: Congratulations for stating the obvious that overall whites out test blacks? But that is for the entire SAT population. For the top students any such difference would be negligible. BTW what is your end game posting all your dreck? Here’s some basic math for you: at least 100,000 black kids will graduate from High School. 10,000 of which are fine cadidates for any University. 1000 will be rock stars that belong anywhere including the elite Universities. If and when you see a back kid in college, he/she deserves to be there. It’s a numbers thing not preference thing.</p>
<p>I’d hate to go through life thinking everyone who is nice to me and seems interested in what my kids are up to is just faking it.</p>
<p>“Most kids seem to be announcing their admissions on FB these days. It is just a question of whether your kids are friends with them to know the other kids’ status.”</p>
<p>Nah, your kids know what they CLAIM their admissions are. Once they commit to a school, you know that they got into that one school. Otherwise, you don’t know. People put up fronts on this topic all the time.</p>
<p>One thing I love about CC is that you can find people on either end of any spectrum of human opinion and behavior you can think of–and who are prepared to defend their point of view forcefully!</p>
<p>Personally, I’m just a nosy busybody–I even like to look at the Facebook pages of my kids’ friends to see what they are up to.</p>