<p>“Keep in mind that we all had 1 family car and there was no way to get to EC’s.”</p>
<p>The above is important when comparing ECs that parents had to ECs our kids have. The ideal sized family when I was growing up was 4 kids, 2 parents. Most of my friends had families of 3-4 kids. Families of 5-6 people were sharing just one car, and typically that one car was primarily used by the dad, who was the breadwinner.</p>
<p>There also was no Internet and computers of any type – including in schools – were rare. Students couldn’t do the kind of research that students can do now when with the click of a button, one can easily find out many things. Back in the old days, one had to go to the public library (which had no computers or Internet) and look up articles in person. In general, one couldn’t access the professional journals that students can access now through their libraries or home computers.</p>
<p>Flying was essentially a luxury. Only very well off people were flying to family vacations. Even for solidly middle class students if one had been several hundred miles away from home, that was a big deal. </p>
<p>I didn’t know anyone who had been to enrichment summer camps. If anyone went to summer camp, it was as part of being in a scout troop.</p>
<p>Students who did volunteer work did it in their own communities, not by going to distant states or companies and certainly not by paying money to volunteer.</p>
<p>Not a cakewalk for the smartest, top-scoring student in my all-female magnet urban public high school, and African American, and it was 1968 (the year MLK was murdered).</p>
<p>My AA friend from our honors track had the audacity to approach our Guidance Counselor, just like her white friends were doing, and ask for help applying to Radcliffe (Harvard’s pathway for women).</p>
<p>She was told to limit her applications to Morgan State Teachers College, a fine historically-black college within commuting range of our city. I call that “steering.” I always recall that junky treatment of a brilliant young lady when I consider why Affirmative Action was an essential correction to an unjust academic playing field. </p>
<p>She didn’t listen to our GC, but instead reached higher. She graduated Harvard/Radcliffe. She was not an overachiever…she was just (as NSM said above) “an achiever.”</p>
<p>Regardless of race, we all had to walk uphill both ways to and from school. ;)</p>
<p>It would be interesting if people would include home state in the posts because the region also makes a huge difference. Our HS guidance counselor, whose daughter was the val of my class because he was guidance counselor (she took music while the top student took physics and trig), was elitist and thought that only certain kids should go to college. It was a different time.</p>
<p>In Iowa if you graduated in the upper half of your class, you were guaranteed admission to Iowa or Iowa State; I guess that is an advantage in a low population state. No APs, no honors, but there was kind of a college track. The only people who even applied to anything other than the state schools were the few wealthy kids and the very religious kids. We had a few attend Bob Jones–don’t read much about that one on CC. And lucky us, we could walk to all of our extra-curricular activities.</p>
<p>Hubby attended West Point during Viet Nam and the admissions people a few years ago told those early 70s grads that they probably wouldn’t be accepted had they applied at that time. It’s probably a little easier today to get in to the academies too.</p>
<p>Guidance counselors … ugh. Our regional HS had just one, and IMHO he got the job because he wasn’t qualified to do any other job in the school system. I don’t know which was worse … his recommendation that I attend an all-black college because it had a good soccer team, or that I should major in Forestry because I enjoyed being outside. The most remarkable thing was that NO ONE ever suggested the guy was anything less than expert. As several posters have said, it was a completely different era.</p>
<p>Home State NY. High school: one of the best public high schools in Upstate NY. 88% of my high school class went to college, mostly 4-year colleges. The whole class had to take the PSAT. Classmates were accepted to and attended schools that included Harvard, Oberlin, Mt. Holyoke, NYU, Cornell, American U, Ithaca, Wesleyan, University of Chicago and U of Maryland. Most of the “average” students in my class went to NY public universities though I remember that a rare very smart student who wished to commute from home went to SUNY Albany, which at that time was regarded as the top in-state public with the exception of the parts of Cornell that were public.</p>
<p>Oh, GC’s were useless. Mine told all the smart kids to apply to WashU and that was about the end of the counseling.</p>
<p>And one didn’t have to have state-level or national-level achievements to get into top schools. </p>
<p>I think the process today favors extroverted kids more, to be honest. The focus was just much more on scholarship / academics and less on EC’s and leadership capabilities.</p>
<p>Have you seen a famous poster of Golda Meir (among the world’s first female Heads of State) with this caption,
“Yes, but can she type?”</p>
<p>The thing about that comment, is that a generation earlier, typing was a ticket into the workforce at higher pay for women. My immigrant grandmother insisted my brainy mom learn to type and take the commercial/vocational (not academic) track at high school. Then my mom worked her way through college typing papers for professors, making more per hour than her girlfriends who worked at the college library. </p>
<p>So through that lens, telling girls to learn to type might have been like telling them to go for high marks in math/science today…so they might find well-paying work.</p>
<p>Graduated from HS in 1973. Went to a private all-girls school, where everyone had to do Community Service. The difference is that no one used that or talked about that in their college application. </p>
<p>Sports were all-present, but recruited athletes were not mentioned. Facilities were horrible; now there’s a huge spatial gymnasium.</p>
<p>Math and science levels were hardly explored at this expensive school; they now have an amazing Science Wing at the school.</p>
<p>No APs available. GC (if you call her that) just showed you a map of where some schools were located, but didn’t do anything else. Met with her once.</p>
<p>Everyone took the SATs, once. We never talked about our scores.</p>
<p>My parents were not at all involved; went on one college visit with a friend, but since it was Sunday, we just drove around the campus and went home.</p>
<p>I would have had no problem with the typing advice except that it was given to every girl (and no guys). It was assumed that even girls at the very top of the class would not finish college.</p>
<p>^ we cross posted there! I went to an all-girls urban public school (Baltimore), so I believe you that the typing advice was ill-distributed within mixed gender high schools. </p>
<p>Now everyone learns to type. Also, boys take Home Economics (renamed), girls take “Shop” which was ill-distributed by gender in my co-ed Middle School. </p>
<p>On Sports, my brothers and I were always urged to play unsupervised outside in the neighborhood until nearly dark. Nothing from that slice of our lives counted as sports EC. It was unquantifiable. But the best athletes joined teams at their high schools.</p>
<p>Rural/outlying suburban HS in Virginia, 1972. There was at least one AP–Calculus, but I don’t recall others. I know there wasn’t AP English, b/c we took “Advanced” English and they told us it was the “same thing.” It may have been because I got out of freshman English in college somehow. Or maybe my SAT score did that. Only took the SAT once. Why would anyone take it again? :D</p>
<p>Ditto on the 1 car, fewer ECs scenario. </p>
<p>I found my college by word-of-mouth…my piano teacher went there, and it was out of state and an excellent school. Lucky me! I did not visit before I applied. And I remember calling or writing schools to get brochures.</p>
<p>We had two GCs…one elderly woman who was really from another era, and a younger woman about whom I remember nothing.</p>
<p>I did get to go to a summer Governor’s camp for the arts. And had lots of “enrichment” and travel by being in band. We went to several Bowl games, marched in Macy’s parade, etc.</p>
<p>And girls took Home Ed & guys took Shop. No exceptions. Those were the days!</p>
<p>“And girls took Home Ed & guys took Shop. No exceptions.”</p>
<p>Yes, and although our high school was a rare one that had its own computer – one as big as a room – only guys took the computer course.</p>
<p>It also was super hard for girls to get onto the fast track science and math courses because they were girls. Boy with lower test scores would get in, but girls would not.</p>
<p>The word “sexism” didn’t exist and it was perfectly fine if male teachers or students commented on girls’ attractiveness or made jokes about girls not being able to do math, science or drive.</p>
<p>Graduated in 1982. Took the SAT once, like everyone else with no prep. I had a friend take the ACT, which I hadn’t even heard of until she mentioned it. Applied to one school, state flagship got in and graduated 3 1/2 years later. I don’t remember having any guidance regarding colleges or careers. My mom wanted me to go to law school, my dad figured I would just get married, which I ended up doing, but it was after graduating (one week after) Anyway, I don’t remember the competition, worrying about grades or SATs like kids do now. We had clubs at our school and I was involved, but I don’t recall anyone trying to “pad” a resume by joining everything. We also didn’t have AP classes. We had lower level, regular level and advanced level classes. Basically, you stayed with the same group of kids throughout all four years of school. Even so, my class did produce quite a few brain and heart surgeons, engineers and marketing gurus.</p>
<p>In “junior high” girls took home ec and boys took shop … except me. My mother would not allow me to take home ec and instead insisted on two languages – Spanish and Russian and gee … no room for Home Ec!</p>
<p>I remember my parents remarking that I could major in music even if it wasn’t “practical,” because I was a girl. Hmmm…I’m surprised they paid for my education at all! But I did meet DH at college, so I guess their gamble paid off. ;)</p>
<p>The year I graduated from high school, Harvard accepted 25% of their applicants. Compare that to today’s acceptance rate and the difference becomes clear.</p>
<p>The kids at my Catholic high school who went Ivy were on the Honors track (no AP, no college courses), took the SAT once with no prep, and did the same amount of ECs as the rest of us. They were in leadership positions in the EC’s but so were a lot of kids who never considered the Ivy League or other top schools. The way we knew a peer was really bright was if they participated in some kind of academic olympics, Model UN or some other event where the teachers nominated the students. </p>
<p>We were all required to apply to three colleges (reach, match, safety) and we picked those three based on family preference or brochures in the GC’s office. I cannot remember anyone visiting a college prior to applying. We all applied to colleges in the Northeast (I was in NJ) A friend of mine applied to a college in NC and I applied to one in VA, which was considered odd.</p>
<p>Graduated 1979 from medium sized HS outside Augusta, GA. Ranked 10/300, SAT 670 V/630 M (now rescaled to 740/630) and a perfect score on the TSWE. Second highest score in my class. (I studied for it – still have the 1978 Barron’s SAT prep book, and man, the vocab sections were WICKED.) ACH tests – 650 Lit, 670 USH, 500 Math Level I. Did not get to take pre-calc til college due to scheduling conflicts, so HS math ended at Alg II junior year. No calc or APs offered at the school. </p>
<p>EIC of yearbook, photographer for same, co-captain of flag line, senior class secretary, Beta Club, student gov’t, model UN, one of two state winners for Century III Leaders, Presidential Classroom, Governor’s Honors Program, all-state chorus. Lots of writing/social studies awards. Self-studied two AP courses, but noone told me I could take the exams. Our regular courseload was five classes – I took 7-8, usually adding on independent study social science correspondence courses, including AP USH and Brit Lit. 30% of senior class went to college, almost at the local school. Ten kids from my class went to UGA or Ga Tech, one to Auburn, one to a nursing school in MS, and one went to West Point after a year of post-grad.</p>
<p>Applied to Duke (but didn’t tell anyone, including my parents, until years later), Texas A&M (in-state due to military) and UGA (in-state). Accepted to all, realized I didn’t want to go to Texas, could only afford with difficulty to put myself through UGA.</p>
<p>DH worked in admissions while at Penn and said I probably would have gotten in had I applied. Of course, I had no idea Penn was even an Ivy League school – and I wanted to attend Princeton for law school.</p>
<p>This echoes my family experience, too. From Baltimore, when my parents opened my big brother’s search by adventuring “way out West” to visit Ohio colleges (ok, California, stop laughing!)…nobody in their friendship circle knew what to make of them. </p>
<p>My brave parents didn’t have GPS, just an old map from Daniel Boone called “Crossing the Appalachians for Idiots.”</p>
Anyway, I don’t remember the competition, worrying about grades or SATs like kids do now. We had clubs at our school and I was involved, but I don’t recall anyone trying to “pad” a resume by joining everything. We also didn’t have AP classes. We had lower level, regular level and advanced level classes. Basically, you stayed with the same group of kids throughout all four years of school. Even so, my class did produce quite a few brain and heart surgeons, engineers and marketing gurus.</p>