<p>Interesting 2boysima, I would not have guessed that given the fact that most of our children are above average, the odds are the parents, we, were also “above average” and I agree with Bovertine, there really isn’t any other context to answer the question other than that which we knew. I’m not so sure that the “regional” context has changed all that much, though. In my small midwest town many stayed in state or in neighboring states as I suppose they do now, but the others scattered west and east, not so many south unless they were committed athletically to a school, and heading south was, indeed, considered exotic “back then” and might not be considered exotic so much anymore.</p>
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I have known a veritable army of people more high achieving than myself. Just not in high school. (We all have to hit our personal peak at some point or other…)</p>
<p>And as bovertine and momofthreeboys have pointed out, we all know our own stories best. I don’t think I even knew the SAT scores of anybody but my closest friend in senior year. Nobody talked about it much, because people who were happy about their scores didn’t want to brag and people who were unhappy would rather avoid the subject. And not that many people from my HS went to college anyway, so it was only a live issue for a fairly small social subgroup.</p>
<p>I didn’t know anybody that was incredible.</p>
<p>OP asked about "SAT score, ec’s, awards, etc… "</p>
<p>As with others on this thread, I don’t think I knew other people’s SAT scores. Didn’t occur to me to be one of the most qualifing criteria for “high achiever” in the OP’s request.</p>
<p>In the 60’s and 70’, in urban upstate NY where I grew up, high achievers were identified by EC’s, awards, school test and report card grades (which we did seem to share) and the “etc” .</p>
<p>2boysima, I did know people more high-achieving than myself in high school, and spoke about it in my post. Mostly, they went to Harvard! If you want me to name names, I’ll be happy to.</p>
<p>And if you don’t consider the high school achievements of parents who posted here to constitute “high achievement,” well, I respectfully disagree with you. And it really isn’t up to you to decide whether people have properly addressed the OP’s question.</p>
<p>I agree that the regional differences were greater then than they are now. It seems that the experience of parents who went to private high schools in the New York City area was different only in degree, not in kind, from what kids who want to go to Ivy League schools or the equivalent go through today. Of course, when I was a freshman in college, I had classmates from every state in the country, and a number of foreign countries (although there weren’t nearly as many international students back then). So, somebody in all those places must have been interested in the Ivy League, even if, as has been mentioned here, there were a lot of kids in other parts of the country who’d never even heard of most of the Ivy League schools. (I do remember visiting Switzerland and southern Germany with my family the summer before I started college, and meeting up with some of my mother’s relatives who lived in France, and being absolutely shocked and horrified when one of her uncles said to me, “Jale? Yale? What? What’s that?”)</p>
<p>“I’m sure we are all above average…just thought we’d have known people more high achieving than ourselves!”</p>
<p>30-40 years after graduating from high school, most of us are doing well to remember our own achievements, so aren’t likely to remember the achievements of our classmates.</p>
<p>But, for what it’s worth, I just asked H about his high school achievements. H had skipped a year and a half and was a first gen high school grad from a blue collar family in inner city Chicago, who went to a competitive public high school that required high test scores to attend. He had an hour and a half one-way commute by public transportation to school. </p>
<p>He was valedictorian, vice president of his class, coach of the men’s JV basketball team (! H does point out that his team lost every game), statistician of the varsity men’s basketball team, chess team member and officer, officer with citywide Youth for Christ, started a school chapter of Youth for Christ including its quiz team, on the YFC citywide chorale group that sang on the radio each week, school NHS president, member of school honor club, was sports editor and features editor of the school newspaper, member of Letterman’s club due to having been on the JV basketball team, and National Achievement scholar.</p>
<p>He did all of those things because that’s what he enjoyed, not to get into college. If he had applied to an Ivy, he probably would have gotten in since the valedictorian, and school VP who graduated a year ahead of H went to Harvard, but as an unsophisticated first gen high school grad, H applied to only 2 colleges – Howard, and Calvin (which was affiliated with his church), and went to Calvin.</p>
<p>“I would not have guessed that given the fact that most of our children are above average, the odds are the parents, we, were also “above average” and I agree with Bovertine”</p>
<p>Probably most of the parents here are intellectually gifted – even if they never have been officially identified that way. Typically, only very bright people are going to spend so much time and energy doing the kind of research that parents here are doing about college.</p>
<p>Most of the parents here also have high achieving kids and/or kids who have been identified as gifted.</p>
<p>Research has indicated that siblings usually are within 10 IQ points of each other and often gifted kids have gifted parents even if the parents never have been officially identified as gifted.
[Hoagies</a>’ Gifted: 10 most commonly asked questions about highly gifted children](<a href=“http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/10_highly_gifted.htm]Hoagies”>Hoagies' Gifted: 10 most commonly asked questions about highly gifted children | Hoagies' Gifted)</p>
<p>Having been on this site for a while, I should have known my post about HYPMS and personal stories would strike such a sensitive chord. </p>
<p>My comment about all of us being above average was in jest. I’m sure some of us are. And I’m sure some of us are a lot closer to average. And maybe a few below average. I did not intend to divert away from the OP’s initial question. </p>
<p>Post #85: “And it really isn’t up to you to decide whether people have properly addressed the OP’s question.” </p>
<p>It has nothing to do with properly addressing and that wasn’t my “decision.” I was making an observation related to how I had viewed high achievement when I was in high school.</p>
<p>“Most of the parents here also have high achieving kids and/or kids who have been identified as gifted.”</p>
<p>I should let this one go, but I can’t. The B, B+, 3.0 and other “non-gifted” threads have high post counts…so…I’m not sure about “most.”</p>
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<p>I think that’s the whole point – many of us <em>were</em> the overachievers of 20, 30 years ago, but overachiever was defined differently. A straight A average, really good SAT’s, and some interesting (not award winning) EC’s and maybe a part time job was as good as it got.</p>
<p>Haha, don’t worry. </p>
<p>These stories are just what I was hoping to get. Very interesting! I had not even though about how gender-oriented some schools/areas could be!</p>
<p>" A straight A average, really good SAT’s, and some interesting (not award winning) EC’s and maybe a part time job was as good as it got."</p>
<p>There were people who had award-winning ECs back then, too.</p>
<p>Also, I think that more of us probably worked part time and summer jobs than high achieving high school students do now. Working a part time or summer job is a very strong EC: was then, still is now. More high achieving students now participate in expensive summer enrichment programs. Those activities are less highly regarded by adcoms and require less responsibility and initiative than does working a job.</p>
<p>"I should let this one go, but I can’t. The B, B+, 3.0 and other “non-gifted” threads have high post counts…so…I’m not sure about “most.”</p>
<p>You can’t identify giftedness by grades. My sons graduated with unweighted gpas of 2.9 and 2.7 and both are intellectually gifted.</p>
<p>I fully agree that giftedness can be identified by, and is probably usually identified by, criteria other than grades.</p>
<p>Perhaps you’re right and most of the posters on those threads have children identified, or unidentified as intellectually gifted. I have posted on those threads and have 1 child who is very bright…never tested for being gifted. I have another child with those grades (closer to B than B+) and above average IQ. Not intellectually gifted, though.</p>
<p>2boysima, before parents can discuss “overachievers I knew in HS” we need to be able to agree on what “achievement” means. I can assure you that it means something very different to HS students than it does to seasoned and successful parents. That should be clear by reading a few other threads in the Parents Forum. The Val in my class scored a perfect 1600 SAT … and that was before re-centering. He was a very good HS student for sure, and he did attend an Ivy … but didn’t graduate. Was he an overachiever for having been Val … or an underachiever for not graduating Cornell? Perhaps the best assessment is that he was perfectly suited for our HS, but poorly suited for later adult environments.</p>
<p>I’m not even sure what the whole “gifted” thing means in the end, honestly. My son was so identified. I went to an elementary school for gifted children in New York City, where you had to have a 150+ IQ even to be admitted at the time, and I certainly thought of myself as being one of the smartest kids there. My father had the second highest overall test scores in all of New York State when he was a high school senior back in 1936 (his name can even be found in the New York Times archives, preserved forever for that achievement!) and was on law review at Columbia Law School. My mother was the best student in her class in the best school for Jewish children in Berlin, after she was no longer permitted to go to school with Aryan children, and was one of only three women in her class at Columbia Law School back when it wasn’t so easy for women to be admitted. </p>
<p>My son’s other grandfather won some kind of prize as the best student in Newark, NJ back around 1930, and breezed through Harvard and Harvard Medical School.</p>
<p>And I think if there’s one thing we all learned, it’s that a lot of other people catch up eventually, and that just because you think you’re the most precocious little kid in the entire world doesn’t mean that there’s that much of a noticeable difference anymore once you’re a grownup, and that there’s no correlation whatsoever (that I’ve ever seen) between being labeled as a gifted child and career success – or, more importantly, happiness – as an adult. At least in terms of career success, I’ve had very little, at least compared to most of my classmates in high school, college, and law school. (Of course, there are some medical reasons for that, not to mention that I never was the least bit ambitious with respect to my career. And I had some very distracting issues in my life to resolve, as some of you know! In other words, my life hasn’t been any more “successful” or happier just because I went to Hunter Elementary School, a certain private high school in Riverdale, Yale, and Harvard Law School. The thing I’m by far the most proud of is being a parent, and you don’t have to be gifted or a high achiever for that.)</p>
<p>OK, little rant over. All of this is just another reason why the only thing I really want for my son is that he try to do something with his life that makes him happy (see the humanities grad school thread).</p>
<p>“… the only thing I really want for my son is that he try to do something with his life that makes him happy …”</p>
<p>That’s the mantra in our home also … “Just be happy and successful.” That and “Put yourself in positions where success is more likely than failure.” and “Don’t put yourself in positions where one unfortunate hiccup can result in catastrophe.”</p>
<p>NH33, Post #96 … you’re right.</p>
<p>So…here are some of the “high achievers” I remember from the late 60’s/early 70’s. It shows one kind of evaluation of “high achiever” from that time period. Never knew any of their SAT scores! But…high school grades/rank, success in competitions, and the colleges they went to seem to be my major criteria from that time period. There was also a “je ne sai quois” about each of these people. Must have come through in their essays and interviews (I think a lot more of the top schools required or suggested interviews back then.) </p>
<p>Friend A was a national science fair winner (not Westinghouse…don’t know who was the science fair “sponsor” back then…or if there even was one!) . HS salutatorian. Attended H undergrad, and a top NYC Medical School. Now a nationally recognized expert in his clinical field. Never had to have a summer job. No sports…but not a nerd. Don’t know if he was ever classified as gifted…but…was then, and is now, one of the most gifted people I know.</p>
<p>Friend B was also salutatorian (different year.) Gifted musician played an under-represented instrument. Student government leader. Selected as AFS exchange student (as noted earlier…this was very competitive at our school at that time) Worked part time as a HS student. Also attended H. Heads investment bank that did not need bail out. </p>
<p>Friend C was in top 5 of class (top 20 sat on the stage then…and their rank was listed in the graduation program!) Gifted musician and mathematician. State science fair winner. Worked part time in HS. Went to MIT. Now a college music professor at a school that is not a top 50 LAC or Uni. He’s very happy!</p>
<p>I don’t recall any of the people that I considered to be high achievers burning out in college, but a few did afterwords. Not these 3, though!</p>
<p>“And I think if there’s one thing we all learned, it’s that a lot of other people catch up eventually, and that just because you think you’re the most precocious little kid in the entire world doesn’t mean that there’s that much of a noticeable difference anymore once you’re a grownup, and that there’s no correlation whatsoever (that I’ve ever seen) between being labeled as a gifted child and career success – or, more importantly, happiness – as an adult”</p>
<p>I agree that “giftedness” doesn’t mean that one will be happy or successful in one’s career.</p>
<p>Lots of times, career success (meaning promotions, am’t of money that one gets) may be related more to social skills, luck, and where one lives than to intellectual giftedness.</p>
<p>I believe, however, that gifted people have more career possibilities open to them, and therefore have more of a chance than do nongifted people of working jobs that they find to be fulfilling.</p>
<p>PA public HS 1971. Our top kids went to private LACs in PA, think Bucknell and F&M, with an occasional Duke thrown in. Most kids went to Penn State. We had no AP classes, but did have Honors classes. But honors math was pre-calc senior year. I went to Douglass College (before Rutgers college went co-ed) and everyone from NJ had had calculus, so I had to scramble a bit. Very few girls did sports, the ECs were drama club or band. I was determined not to be a secretary, so refused to take typing. Who could know that almost 40 years later, as a lawyer I would be typing all my own stuff, with my two finger method of typing.</p>
<p>Bob Sternberg postulates that there are three types of intelligence, analytical, practical, and creative. He has some evidence over the past couple of decades to back up his claim including some randomized control studies performed at Yale. Most of the tests that identify gifted students, and almost all the so called college entrance tests focus primarily on analytical intelligence. AI is pretty good predictor of the first couple years of undergraduate work. Later creative and practical become more highly valued and one begins to see many with superior analytic intelligence being left behind. Probably a good above average mix of the three is what sets the really successful life achievers apart from their peers who may test substantially higher on any one type of intelligence.</p>