"How To Survive The College Admissions Madness"

Parents Forum
1

The NYTimes published an article today (3/13/15) with that headline and artwork that said, “It’s OK.”

Here’s how the first graph goes…“HERE we go again. At Harvard, Emory, Bucknell and other schools around the country, there have been record numbers of applicants yearning for an elite degree. They’ll get word in the next few weeks. Most will be turned down.”

If the stress is getting to you, or if your HS student is showing signs of panic (even if only a freshman!), I urge you to read this great article. I will re-read it again and again as my HS senior finishes the process and I prepare for my sophomore to do the same…

http://preview.tinyurl.com/q3uop9y

2

the link does not bring one to the article

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@chd2013 sorry. It should bring you to a landing page preview where you can click “proceed to this site.” Try this: How to Survive the College Admissions Madness http://nyti.ms/1Dez9WQ

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This really is a great article. I’m surprised it hasn’t generated more conversation. It makes a point that I’ve always believed - in fairness, it’s a point that does get some airtime around here, but that is often drowned out by elite school mania. There are many paths to success and, counterintuitively, one of the best paths to success is failure and learning how to deal with it and rebound from it. The letter from two parents to their son quoted at the end of the story is also must reading.

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@cosar I agree on all your points. In September 2011 a NYTimes Sunday Magazine cover article was “What If The Secret to Success is Failure?” I’ve pull out that article from time to time as my kids have had to pick themselves back up after being knocked down. It was also a theme of a college essay for my HS Senior who started HS with a 2.8 GPA his freshman year and used that as motivation to improve his grades. (and, no, I don’t work for the Times!)

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Very timely!

7

I pre-ordered the book. Great timing.

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Hint: Read AFTER admission decisions are out- when nothing can be done about them.

9

He has no children either. But he’s very wise.

10

@singleparent1 I guess it is ironic, but the message resonates with me. Yeah, I care – deeply – where my kids go. But I also must recognize that where they go does not and should not define them. And nor should that school’s decal on my car define me. The Kids Are All Right (good movie!). I didn’t go to a prestigious school, but I learned a lot, matured, had fun and have had a reasonably successful career (plug for Utica College). Yet I can get caught up with the ‘name brand’ colleges. My HS senior does not have Ivy or very prestigious school grades and yet he will do well in life (and plans to go to a pretty darn good ‘name brand’ school notches below the Ivies: Penn State). So for the parents of kids who have awesome grades, the article says (I think), IT’S OK if they don’t go to Yale or Stanford. There are TONS of schools that will also prepare those brilliant kids for a brilliant career. And life. No, it’s not easy to ‘not sweat’ where our kids go, but at some point I think we have to – I know I have to – truly believe that IT’S OK. Wherever they go. BTW: Penn State was not my son’s first choice. But IT’S OK.

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I think the comments section is just as good as the article itself. Very interesting feedback. And even though the Times reporters have these degrees “on file,” it doesn’t mean the next generation of reporters will have degrees from similar institutions.

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This was the part that really resonated with me, because I had a similar experience. I went to a top 100 liberal arts college - not the Ivy League or the NEASAC, but a good college. In my graduate program, I was attending alongside graduates of the top universities and colleges of the world - but also alongside classmates who went to colleges I had never heard of before. What was important was the experience in college - what we did there, and how we developed, not so much where we went.

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A blog site I enjoy, Grown&Flown, has published their view on Frank Bruni’s article and book, along with a Q&A with the author. (Grown&Flown is geared towards moms – but that’s ok for this dad). Here’s a line that seems, regrettably, somewhat too true: “College admissions is viewed in many circles as the ultimate report card on parenting, a single, permanent letter grade given at the end of 18 long years of loving effort.” Link to post is http://grownandflown.com/where-you-go-to-college/.

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@brucemag what a great site! Thanks for sharing it.

15

Just finished listening to NPR’s Diane Rehm interview the author on Inside Edition. I recommend it.

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No, we don’t, actually. It’s a wonderful opportunity, but the student has to take advantage of it, and many don’t. A student who takes full advantage of the resources at your average state flagship will outperform many/most Harvard grads. Success is far more about the student than the school.

That’s not to say I think Harvard is a fraud, or anything like that. Harvard is an amazing institution, and it does a pretty good job of picking can’t-miss students. So, of course they are successful. But they aren’t measurably more successful than students who, for whatever reason, turn Harvard down to go someplace significantly less prestigious, or even than students who have similar grades and test scores but lack that certain sparkle that makes the difference in Harvard admissions.

Meanwhile, there’s a question about what constitutes success, too. At my (Harvard-equivalent) 35th re-union, class stars included, yes, a Senator, an Arab Spring front-line ambassador, a couple of hedge-fund CEOs, and some medical researchers, but also a sixth-grade teacher, a church music director, the author of the best-ever advice book for girls in their early teens, and someone who had quit his job, sold his house, spent 7 years sailing around the world in a very small boat with his wife and two young daughters, and begun a new career as a teacher in a girls’ school. All of them had done really interesting things with their educations, and had a lot of job- and life-satisfaction, but not necessarily a lot of money or fame.

Also, to singleparent1’s comment on there being no “Tailgate State” among the NY Times columnists. Actually, there were a number of them. Grambling, Catholic, Marquette, BU – those are not highly selective institutions, not even close.

17

Speaking of David Brooks–he was the featured speaker at Pitzer’s parents weekend (his daughter is a junior). Some of his remarks came from this TED talk, which gives another lovely spin on surviving college admissions madness and how parents grade themselves (and on life in general, for that matter): https://www.ted.com/talks/david_brooks_should_you_live_for_your_resume_or_your_eulogy/transcript?language=en

He also talked about some of the things he sees in his part-time role as a lecturer at Yale. He has had students whose parents did not attend their children’s graduations because the parents were displeased with their children’s post-college plans. There was an audible gasp in the room at this. He didn’t give specifics, but the implication was that these young people had nothing to be ashamed at–just that their vision of their lives was different than what their parents wanted or expected of them.

18

Did she have to finagle a way to get her interview?

This is the same oversimplified argument we’ve seen made over and over. Going to an elite school is not all that important, unless you’re going into one of the fields where it is.

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"Meanwhile, there’s a question about what constitutes success, too. At my (Harvard-equivalent) 35th re-union, class stars included, yes, a Senator, an Arab Spring front-line ambassador, a couple of hedge-fund CEOs, and some medical researchers, but also a sixth-grade teacher, a church music director, the author of the best-ever advice book for girls in their early teens, and someone who had quit his job, sold his house, spent 7 years sailing around the world in a very small boat with his wife and two young daughters, and begun a new career as a teacher in a girls’ school. "

I think it’s immature high schoolers and new strivers who would then say that the latter folks (sixth grade teacher on down) weren’t “successful.” People with maturity and wisdom know that success really has very little to do with money made.

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“This is the same oversimplified argument we’ve seen made over and over. Going to an elite school is not all that important, unless you’re going into one of the fields where it is.”

Well put!