How Do Your Kids Do It??

Parents Forum
21

<p>“It helps that there is another large state university that siphons off many of the less talented students in the state.”</p>

<p>OMG that you would even say something like that out loud. I almost fell off my chair, lol. </p>

<p>I have degrees from both U of M and MSU so I believe I am qualified to say that that is the most absurd statement I have heard in many a year. Haven’t lived in Michigan for 20 years but was just this week trying to explain to someone how arrogant Michigan grads usually are. Not being from Michigan, they didn’t get it.</p>

22

<p>I didnt read all the other posts but here is what i have to say,
first CC is not a good representation of people
second, you student has to be self motivated, they cant be forced into it.</p>

<p>For me personally, i actually like to learn and like particular subjects, and i dont like the kids at my school (which makes it a lot easier). The most important thing you can do as a parent is make sure they dont smoke of drink. I know many students brighter than me that are going to a CC because they smoke.</p>

23

<p>Some kids manage to get near-4.0 GPAs by studying intensely for each and every test. Some kids (like my son in math) never even bother to crack open a book beyond doing their homework assignments and still ace the tests. That can open up 12-15 hours a week of free time for other activities.</p>

24

<p>My oldest son became an expert at time management at an early age. Don’t know how he did it, but he always scheduled out his world. I can remember him saying to his kid brother, “Okay, we can go outside an play from 6 to 6:30, but I’ve gotta be in then, because I have to read for English.” He took 13 APs in HS, seven were online classes. Those onlines were a blessing. When he finished that work, he was free to do other course work. He also said it was a huge help that he was a math kid. While many of his friends struggled through their math homework, he always seemed to finish quickly, and that left time for other classes and activities. </p>

<p>I’m glad that your son is driven to succeed, but do tell him to have a lot of fun along the way. My son did. He was involved with school plays, played an instrument, was captain of the academic team, worked with student government and did stats for various athletic teams. Today, in college, he still juggles his schedule very well so he can do many different activities.</p>

25

<p>Well, my oldest “does it all” by not having much of a social life. I would like to see her do less and have more fun. I suppose, on some level, she enjoys all the activity and the highly structured life. But I’m really not convinced that this way of living is healthy for any kid.</p>

26

<p>Taymiss2, not saying there aren’t also talented students at MSU. But of the top 15 students in my high school class, 12 went to U of Mich, 1 went to MSU, the other 3 went elsewhere out of state. </p>

<p>Per the College Board:</p>

<p>Middle 50% SAT range U of Mich: CR 590-690, M 640-740, W 600-700
Middle 50% SAT range MSU: CR 470-610, M 540-660, W 480-610</p>

<p>So the U of Mich range is about 100 points higher in every category.</p>

27

<p>My son was also labeled gifted in elementary school, had a great HS GPA (took many AP classes) and SAT scores. He was in one varsity sport and one club sport. But that was it, no other EC’s, no leadership positions. He loved to spend his spare time playing video games and hanging with his friends. He wasn’t accepted at any ivy’s but is at a school where he is extremely happy and is a wonderful fit for his personality - and also gave him very generous merit aid. So I think there is a fit for everyone.</p>

28

<p>with your son just in 6th grade, watch yourself that you don’t get hooked on this site too early–you’ll spend your time gearing all up for the college application process and miss out on enjoying whatever he’s into over the next few years! </p>

<p>As others have said, encourage him to pursue his interests to their fullest extent–whether its math, sports, music, etc., with the objective to explore and see what he’s good at, not to put it in the application. If he loves it, it doesn’t feel like a burden.</p>

29

<p>For us the key was to encourage the kids to do the things they wanted to do, and then it was easy. Unlike other parents, I let the quit things they didn’t enjoy.</p>

<p>DD loved: ballet and all other forms of jazz, playing her flute, mock trial, the literary magazine and the school plays. She competed for All-State with her flute, was the Chair of her mock trial team for two years, and was the editor-in-chief of the literary magazine for four years. (No one else wanted it.) She did the Fall drama and the Spring Musical every year. Oh she was also in jazz band along with band, chorus and chamber chorus.</p>

<p>DS loved: Violin, piano, mock trial, Science Olympiad, Quiz Bowl, Latin Club, and plays as well. Was first violin, aka concertmaster, head of the chamber orchestra, competed in science olympiad, inherited mock trial from his sister for two year, co-chair of Quiz bowl which won our regionals. He did violin in weekends and summers as well as learned to compose music.</p>

<p>Neither kid did sports – hated them. Neither did mathlete – not confident in math. Neither did Siemens or Intel. </p>

<p>You get my drift. The school supported them in participating, and all their friends were. If they’d just relaxed and stayed home they would have had no friends to do it with.</p>

<p>They made their choices.</p>

<p>The only real casualty was family dinner hour.</p>

<p>It would have been impossible to know which activities would be important to colleges, and that’s not why we did it, though I <em>do</em> have some ideas.</p>

30

<p>

</p>

<p>Yeah, I know. But I also know that most large public schools like Michigan don’t consider ECs as much as the pure numbers. And at some high schools, it’s pretty easy to get mostly/all As… Michigan is a great school. But it’s not at the very highest level–which includes schools besides HYPS–i.e. Williams, Amherst, Swat, etc.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Anecdotal evidence. For one person. At a huge huge university. I’m sure there are really brilliant ppl at Michigan. The smartest people at a school like UMich are probably as smart as the smartest people at Harvard. However, when you’re looking at say the bottom half of the class, I’m sure there are some differences in quality.</p>

<p>

For what it’s worth I didn’t take any prep courses and I’m only submitting one sitting of SAT scores. So mine won’t get “rescored” either.</p>

31

<p>I too read some posts on these boards and am amazed. I saw a post a couple of weeks back by one of the “long timers” on these boards. Basically, the message was “don’t feed the beast”. </p>

<p>Fwiw, we have 2 kids currently at “CC top universities”, not Ivies. In both cases, they went to the local public high school. They didn’t go overboard on ECs. No tutors or special prep classes. Both played sports at a good, not great level (i.e., good enough to play regularly but not good enough to be recruited). Neither had a paying job during HS. D volunteered at local hospital for a couple of hours/week for a little while. Both did very well academically (top 10 in class). About 5 APs each, which I actually thought was excessive til I started reading these boards. :slight_smile: SAT scores were very good, but not crazy good. </p>

<p>I guess my message is you don’t HAVE to go overboard. I’m sure there’s some luck and good timing in our story. And it’s just one story. Take it for what its worth. </p>

<p>One last point, let me echo what others have already said. Enjoy the years ahead. They will pass before you know it.</p>

32

<p>As a new poster here, I think that College Confidential participants are a self-selective group of mostly high-achiever students and their parents. Posts seem to skew towards high-achievers striving for a top-40 college or university spot. (There’s even a boarding school section, which addresses less than .5% of HS student population.) I’ve been reading posts with that perspective in mind, high-achievers here, not “normal average teens and their parents”.</p>

<p>All this emphasis on Ivies and “top schools” creates impression that college choice is paramount to future “big success” careerwise. But go read NYT/WSJ business pages, and check resume history of top executives as well as up-and-comer young execs; plenty went to obscure colleges and state universities. Likewise, I graduated from HYP professional school, and track my fellow grads - no more significant pattern of “high-fliers” than students from my far more blue-collar undergraduate university. Career success gets a significant boost from professional connections through family and parent social ties. Upper middle-class and rich kids have a significant leg-up on career success because of their social and demographic background, more so than school choices.</p>

<p>Harvard’s alumni magazine article addressed the “oversubscribed student syndrome” of multiple extra-curriculars, extra-full academic schedules, and business of achiever students, and noted that these students often are just surfing surface of their ECs, focussed on gaming their classes for grades rather than intellectually processing material, burning-out from lack of sleep, etc. Note large uptick in ADD medication abuse. Article is worth goggling, because it’s very cautionary.</p>

33

<p>^^^I guess that’s the part that I don’t really agree with - assuming high achieving kids lack sleep, no social life, and just overall stressed out. That’s a big generalization. In our kids case, it’s more of time management. They do not procrastinate when they are doing homework, or surf the net, and messaging on FB (maybe that’s a big generalization on my part too). In high school both of our kids had an EC which took up 15 to 20 hours of their time, they learned to manage their time a lot more efficiently than other students. The rigor of their course work in high school has greatly helped D1 in college, so no surfing surface there.</p>

34

<p>The kids who do all of these ECs for the most part do them because they love them. That’s where the term “passion” comes in. Various activities are a source of their social lives as well, and there’s a certain synergy between activities. It’s no great surprise that you see the same kids in certain different activities. It becomes much harder when kids try to combine very different activities (like certain varsity sports, orchestra, theater and math team in the same season). I’m sure that you’ve seen, even in middle school, that kids either play sports seriously or do music seriously, but usually not both, though kids can usually dabble in the area where they’re less serious.</p>

35

<p>At our school they did both (but not my kids, as I’ve indicated.) Although it’s a suburban public high school, through historical oddities I won’t go into here, we have a high school with 80 - 100 kids in the graduating class. The kids were drafted to wear all hats. We fielded an orchestra and a football team, and the kids had to overlap.</p>

<p>This had the advantage of breaking down the traditional barriers of jocks and geeks, and everyone befriended everyone else.</p>

36

<p>Some kids just thrive on the process of working really hard and doing a lot of activities. It is not only that they like the good grades, they like the hard work. I know it sounds wierd, but have you ever heard of the athlete that is the first to show up on the practice field and the last to leave. He or she always wants to run extra wind sprints or do more push-ups than the coach requires. Some kids just love the pride they feel when they know they are working hard. There are academic kids and drama/arts kids just like that. These are the kids that do all this stuff. You cannot teach it. It comes from within. (That’s not to say that these are the only kids that get into HYPSM, that is not the case. Those schools like to build diverse classes.)</p>

37

<p>want to add: “Gifted” and “highly motivated” do not always coexist. That teachers and administrators often do not recognize this has bothered me for a long time.</p>

<p>You have time to discover what kind of student you have on the couch!</p>

38

<p>My kids were never labeled as “gifted.”:slight_smile: We were told by the school that every kid was gifted at their school.</p>

39

<p>I like that - I personally hate labels. It makes me feel that since my son is “gifted” that if he fails to meet his potential - it’s on me.</p>

40

<p>Higgins, I’d add one more, the CC creates the impression that college is " really hard" to get into. By and large it’s not. If 70% of hs grads go on (that stat is from the US Dept of Labor Statistics, by the way), they’re obviously getting in somewhere, and they obviously can’t all be top 10% students. Nope, there’s a whole lotta ground between the names dropped here and the local community college, lots of 4 year schools that provide solid educations to kids without multiple APs, hoards of ECs and volunteer hours, and less than stellar test scores.</p>