<p>Lots of pressure amongst my D’s group of friends, but she and her friends are the school brainiacs, so maybe that has something to do,with it. We live an hour north of NYC, and it doesn’t help that the supposedly helpful juniors college night was hosted by an egomaniacal rep from BU. All he did was talk about how kids should be taking all AP and Honors. I felt badly for,the many kids who don’t take those classes. This rep made them all feel like they were doomed to end up at Loser State University. Definitely a fair bit of pressure around here.</p>
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<p>@Tperry1982: Checking decisions in school is a Very Bad Idea. To take one school I know a little bit about, Duke is going to release its decisions at 7:00 PM Eastern on Thursday, and every year Christoph Guttentag sends everyone an email advising them to check his or her decision privately in a quiet place. Some kids interpret that as a bad sign, but it’s just prudent advice when you know that, inevitably, most of the kids looking at the results are going to be disappointed. </p>
<p>If there are any kids lurking in this thread, I’d advise you to heed that advice no matter where you applied. If the news is good, there will be plenty of time for celebration. If it’s not, you’ll probably want a few moments for yourself and with your family before comparing notes with friends. </p>
<p>And, back to the question, I think our suburban privilege farm is probably more of a pressure cooker than most, but if my kid is feeling the heat, he’s not letting it show. He says everyone at school assumes he applied early to School X (which he did not), but he decided to lay low and not correct that impression.</p>
<p>The pressure cooker here fluctuates…with EA decisions coming before/on December 15th for 4 schools (one already came and one is not due until the end of December) talk has become more and more anxious. One school contacted us today looking for 2013 tax forms and a few hours later the admission counselor emailed D to answer some questions left unanswered during her interview in Boston a couple months ago. We assume that is good news. D has 12 schools on the RD list and informed me today that all the supplements are completed and with various teachers for review. Although they all have Jan 1st deadlines, I set the deadline for the 15th in hopes that she can relax a bit during the holiday break. Its not just the college pressure cooker, she also has her IB extended essay due and her GSA Gold Award project to complete, both due mid-winter and then there are IB exams in May. I think we’re just getting heated up here ugg.</p>
<p>Not a lot of pressure overall-- a lot of kids going to the local JC, state directionals, and flagship schools. Not too many applying out of state, let alone super-selective or Ivy.
The other part to that though is that amongst S’s social group, he’s allegedly “the smart one”. (Not really, but he’s more motivated and competitive academically.) So everyone assumes he’s going to apply to Harvard and will of course get in with vestal virgins throwing hundreds of thousands of dollars at him every step of the way. Ha! I wish (well, possibly just the money-- you can keep the vestal virgins).</p>
<p>I think at D’s school it is about 9 out of 10 There are around 40 National Merit Semifinalists out of a class of about 500, and they are ALL applying to top schools. Everyone knows where these kids ED/SCEA’d. And that is definitely their best chance–for RD they will all be competing against each other!</p>
<p>At home, the pressure is mostly felt by the people who aspire to go to undergrad in specific fields (usually law school or a healthcare profession not named nursing) but there is no “Ivy or bust” kind of thing for anyone that want nothing to do with law or healthcare professions.</p>
<p>If there is anyone that behaves in “Ivy or bust” fashion, they usually wait until grad school is around the corner to do so.</p>
<p>9 out of 10 at DS’s private school. We had a talk with DS about the fact that it was likely best not to reveal to his friends where he was applying-- but he ultimately ignored us. I think his entire group of friends is over-confident, translating hopefulness into possibility, and possibility into probability. Princeton, Pomona, Harvard, Duke, MIT, Williams, Stanford. We went through this process a few years ago with DS’s older brother, most of whose friends were terribly disappointed by their ED rounds. Older DS was one of the lucky ones, now blissfully happy as a junior at his ED school. But there was a prolonged, bitter disappointment for the students who were let down. They felt they had failed, and it wasn’t easy to let go of those feelings and move on.</p>
<p>My school was surprisingly uncompetitive for a northeastern school that ranked high for publics in the state. Naturally students asked where eachother were applying, but out of friendliness rather than competition. Rarely did others ask me about grades or SAT scores and most seemed to be satisfied with my answer of “alright.” If they inquired further, I would oblige, but most like me were pretty modest about it. Heck, our valedictorian, an extremely smart dude that is going off to study nuclear physics and a lifesaver in trivia competitions, was one of the most laid back people in our school (and a huge procrastinator, as I soon learned from working with him on multiple projects, yet we had fun). For the longest time, he was so nonchalant about colleges, even his best friends had no idea where he applied. Our salutatorian knew where he wanted to go since age 5, got in, but was more well known for his beatboxing</p>
<p>I really enjoyed this type of environment. Everyone was really smart and hardworking. We had a Brown, Penn, Cornell, Colombia, CMU, among others in our grade, but everyone was very chillaxed, with few exceptions. The former salutatorian was a pain and everyone knew it. I sometimes wonder what would happen if I went to a more competitive school, but decided I wouldn’t be happy there. Life’s too short to making unnecessary stress in your life.</p>
<p>It depends on where you look…</p>
<p>Within our very highly regarded public school district, there are a dozen high schools. Depending in which high school she attends, a child with a 3.9 UW, 4.5 W GPA could be ranked anywhere from top 20% to valedictorian of her class. At one of our high schools, she could be the valedictorian, and the only student applying to one particular Ivy. At our high school, that student (who is in the top 5%, has a 2400 SAT, is a legacy, and has good but not spectacular EC’s) is competing with three other top students who also applied EA to thT same Ivy. Her parents are worried because one of the other EA applicants is a double legacy, is a URM and is ranked #1 in the class. The Ivies often accept students from our high school, but generally only one per year per university. If this girl was a student at one of our other district high schools she wouldn’t even be in the top 5%, because she took two years of chorus, which doesn’t give honor points, and does not have a 4.0 UW GPA. And there would be 10 other students who applied EA to that particular Ivy, not just three. </p>
<p>So some of our students (and parents) are sweating it out, and comparing themselves to the competition waaaaayyyy too much. Within my own senior’s group of friends at our high school, the tension is much, much less. </p>
<p>My daughter has another group of friends who are all in the top 5% at an uber-competitive high school at the other end of our neighborhood, and those kids have all applied EA to one of a couple of the “Better Ivies”, plus Stanford or Duke. They are complete basket cases right now, waiting for the EA results. And they are in open competition with their best friends for the EA spots. It is crazy. </p>
<p>(The mere fact that I am even aware of situations like the one above, gives you a window into how hyper-competitive some subgroups of students and parents are around here. The student’s parent told me all about it the other day. At an unrelated sporting event. Even now, my eyes are glazing over.)</p>
<p>Sorry!!! I wrote EA (early action), when I meant ED (early decision). Too late to edit.</p>
<p>My son is in STEM charter school, challenging curriculum, small class, under 200 kids, lots of them apply to same places: MIT, Stanford, Duke, Vanderbilt, UPenn, Cornell, Princeton. GaTech is considered safety for many, but several kids did not make it there last year, so everybody is very careful about announcing their acceptances, trying to downplay it a little bit. They do not have rating system. Counsellors are amazing and encourage kids to aim high, but help them with Plan B and Plan C too. Last year 28 student applied to MIT, 5 were accepted. They always talk college, since 9th grade, probably. So many people do really well with their dream schools and many kids go to their local safeties, and doing great there. Interesting to see what will happen this year. </p>
<p>Not much pressure but some confusion.
The top kids and their parents are prepared and know what to do. The confusion is caused by the the school counselors unloading a lot of information about Naviance, transcripts, recommendations, financial aids, requirements of different college systems,… on parents and kids starting the process during October of the senior year.</p>
<p>Highly rated public school near Boston with lots of high achieving graduates of “elite” schools as parents. Very high level of anxiety and stress. I feel badly for the kids.</p>
<p>My school is infamous for it’s heat in that area. In fact, I remember that for a while before I started attending, I heard that it was a “pressure-cooker.” Most students apply to top colleges like Stanford; almost everyone applies to the UC system. We have ~40 people go to Berkeley a year in a class of 530, and we had ~30 go to Ivies + MIT last year.</p>
<p>And everyone’s vying for those spots.</p>
<p>Some stuff I’ve heard about our school from people who don’t actually go there:
“Doesn’t everybody at your school, like, do too many extracurriculars?”
“You go to _____? You must be a genius!” (note: my school is public, meaning no admissions requirements, although most people who go there are very wealthy, as they have to be able to pay for a house)</p>
<p>We had the most National Merit Semifinalists out of any school in California this year (although I’m not sure about the nation, I’m pretty sure we’re somewhere in the top 10 at least)–107 in a class of 530. Getting a 2100 on your SAT is considered “average” (my cousin was disappointed over a 2290); there are (numerous) people who take the SAT sophomore year, and several get 2400s.</p>
<p>Junior and senior years are a race of seeing who’s taking the hardest courses (and who’s doing the best in them, naturally). If you’re only taking the “easy” APs, people sneer at you condescendingly. You’ve got a C? Bye-bye college. </p>
<p>Indeed, even I can count myself guilty in this; I’ve grown up in this culture, and I’ve always known that I’m expected to do well in school, and expected to go to a good college. I’ve looked down upon others’ schedules. I’ve secretly thought, “this person must not be very smart to have a B-.” And I hate it–I hate the culture of my school, the pressure-cooker that is my school. If everybody in my school went to an average American high school, at least a quarter would probably get into a very good college with their stats. Yet they don’t.</p>
<p>It’s not good. And most definitely a 10/10.</p>
<p>Wow. Count me glad we didn’t go back to CA. Topaz’s experience sounds brutal…</p>
<p>Topaz. What I am going to write may not be at all true for you but probably is true about many. It isn’t the level of achievement in your school that is the problem. It’s not that the number of high achieving students that breeds your high school’s toxic environment. It is the values of the parents of the students who send their children to that same school-also adopted by the students. Here’s hoping that the colleges in highest demand by those students accept far fewer of them and, instead, select students who have a more intellectual (exploratory, passionate, scholarly, inquisitive, enthusiastic, engaged) and less gaming approach to learning. If that happened, universities would be much better learning environments. By the way, there are still many top schools who cull the pool-to eliminate the expert grubber (student whose high school career was all about getting the top grades over anything else and who had private SAT tutoring from 7th grade onward)-which is why you will still hear students at certain high schools claiming that another student admitted to Top U with lower objectives didn’t deserve it (URM, etc). It wasn’t the hook. it was the greater potential for a steeper intellectual trajectory. Often those with the tutors and carefully selected classes (to avoid learning not rewarded with extra weightings) have already maxed in the potential arena-had it been there, there would be more to show already. In contrast, those who have had less resources thrown at them to help them game school often still have a lot of untapped potential. Very exciting to see what those with untapped potential are capable of. </p>
<p>@lostaccount That is most definitely true; and even at my school, the kids with richer parents have more to show off with than those who are on the lowest end of the spectrum (earning around 100k; for example, my family earns just under 100k a year, and our house is worth 1.4 mil (although we bought it for much less); it makes it hard for my parents to send me to the 6k summer programs that other kids go to or to let me participate in stuff like dance, which costs 2k a year, since we don’t meet the criterion for financial aid of any sort). There are certainly a lot of intellectuals at my school, but the culture overshadows them all. We have people who don’t care about their grades; we have people who only take classes they’re interested in. That’s why we have people who go to the top colleges at all (for example, one girl I know got into Stanford, Harvard, and MIT; she never had a tutor or took any classes outside of school, but got a 2400 on her SAT, had a 4.0 GPA, and was just all-around extraordinary and absurdly humble).</p>
<p>I definitely think that those who have had less opportunities deserve to go to top schools. Indeed, they deserve to have more money thrown at them by the state–not rich schools. They need to be able to tap their potential.</p>
<p>@Topaz: Based on your post, a LAC may be your road less traveled. Oberlin, Rhodes, and Kenyon are great choices for a high-achieving, I-want-more-than-the-pressure-cooker applicant. Take a look at ctcl.org as a starting point and best of luck in finding a great college that fits YOU. </p>
<p>@Knoxpatch Actually, Harvey Mudd (which no one from my school went to last year, for example, and I’m pretty sure this trend is similar; but it’s obviously a reach) is probably one of my top choices (since I’m debating between physics and engineering, and a lot of LACs don’t offer engineering). I really want to stay in California, however, which seriously decreases the number of colleges that I’m going to apply. But I do feel like a LAC would be a good environment for me, since I also love the humanities alongside the sciences.</p>
<p>But this post isn’t exactly the place for this, either xD</p>
<p>As a current senior, I can say the temperature at my school is very low. Kids will ask where people are attending and what the first choice is, but there is never any judgement (at least not out loud). When a kid says they are applying to an ivy, it is received with a wish of good luck. Maybe it’s just that my school isn’t very competitive, but people aren’t very cut throat and genuinely wish the best for one and other. </p>