<p>NSM- Good point about students being more likely to be working in our day. Perhaps my biggest EC was my after school/summer job although I never considered it an EC. I knew exactly 2 students in HS who did not have a job (they were sisters and their Dad wouldn’t let them work). Some of the HS students I know now work, but not nearly as many.</p>
<p>@DonnaL: So you went to Hunter, huh? </p>
<p>I’m sure you’ve heard about the long-term success study of Hunter grads, specifically that their career success didn’t correlate to their IQ’s. (For those that haven’t read it, it was common that they became successful professionals but no one became a Nobel Laureate or household name.) In the study they speculated that Hunter grads had concluded at some point in their life that it was illogical to make the kind of sacrifices it takes to become enormously successful. Do you agree with this?</p>
<p>“In the study they speculated that Hunter grads had concluded at some point in their life that it was illogical to make the kind of sacrifices it takes to become enormously successful. Do you agree with this?”</p>
<p>Is there an article of this? Any reason why they think graduates of this particular college seemed to have this particular outlook?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>It seems to me like these guys are always inventing types of intelligence. First Gardner, now this guy.</p>
<p>I can see how creativity could impact analytical classes. Anyone that is capable of coming up with formulas on their own will always be better when tested on it. These things aren’t always easily separated.</p>
<p>And another thing. People usually belittle the SAT as a predictor since it only correlates well with the first year. There seems to be an assumption here that people take harder and more advanced courses in later years. However, has anyone looked at whether the difference in coursework between the first and later years could be a confounding variable? A lot of people take weed-out courses their first year or courses that are requirements that are out of their major (and thus they are perhaps less talented in that area.) For instance, let’s say a bio major takes physics and math their first year and bombs it, then improves their GPA in year 2 and 3 when they are taking all bio courses. If the SAT correlated to the first year and not later years, it could be reflecting a lack of math ability that didn’t affect the bio classes rather than the fact that the test only reflected performance before the student had adapted to college.</p>
<p>
Here’s the article.
[High</a> IQ children at midlife: An investigation into the generalizability of Terman’s genetic studies](<a href=“http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10176.aspx]High”>Resources for Gifted Children & their Families | Davidson Institute)</p>
<p>To answer the second question, it was a one-line speculation that the author didn’t attempt to support.</p>
<p>Qwertykey, it’s an elementary school, not a college.</p>
<p>And, yes, I went there, and I’ve heard of that study. (Obviously, I was far too young for it, since it went only through the class of 1952, and I was in the class of 1966). It always was, and still is, harder to get into than Harvard! (There are, after all, a great many parents in NYC who are convinced that their children are gifted.)</p>
<p>I even vaguely remember one of the early IQ tests I took there, when I was 3 or 4. I had a lot of difficulty climbing into the chair (I was a very early talker but a very late walker), but once I got there I did just fine! </p>
<p>Although my class has had people grow up to be doctors and lawyers, etc., I doubt anyone here would have heard of any of them, except perhaps for one woman, a doctor, who writes for the Science Times on occasion. I won’t try to speculate about why that is, although I’m sure the identified reason may be part of it for some people. Or maybe, as I suggested, other people just eventually catch up. And, purely hypothetically, of course, without any intention to refer to any particular person, there can be a lot of internalized pressure when you’re identified as gifted from a very early age. Especially when your parents are both incredibly brilliant. Sometimes, it’s easier psychologically to withdraw from competition (in part or in whole), than to put oneself entirely on the line for it and take the risks that come with that.</p>
<p>I try not to read all the threads people post seeking advice about their highly gifted children. For whatever reason, they always make me feel slightly sick to my stomach. Which certainly accounts, in part, for why I never pushed my son in that area or sought out any special programs for him. I just let him read and write and follow his intellectual curiosity on his own. And I think he’s turned out just fine, thank you very much.</p>
<p>"Although my class has had people grow up to be doctors and lawyers, etc., I doubt anyone here would have heard of any of them, except perhaps for one woman, a doctor, who writes for the Science Times on occasion. I won’t try to speculate about why that is, although I’m sure the identified reason may be part of it for some people. Or maybe, as I suggested, other people just eventually catch up. "</p>
<p>Most people – no matter how smart – aren’t going to be things like U.S. senators, college presidents, and Nobel Prize winners. They aren’t likely to be known by the general public even though they may be very well respected at their place of employment. This doesn’t mean that they have underperformed or are failures.</p>
<p>I haven’t seen evidence that people who aren’t that bright catch up to the career achievements of people who are far smarter. By this, I mean that I haven’t heard of people from, for instance, my high school class who appeared to have average intelligence becoming physicians, lawyers or scientists, for example. They may, however, have been very successful – financially and otherwise – in their careers. They just didn’t end up in careers that required high level academics. They also may have become highly respected people in their communities, including holding top offices in civic groups.</p>
<p>What I’ve noticed is that a wider range of career options is available to the brightest people. For instance, a very bright woman from my high school class chose to become a kindergarten teacher. She had the brains to have become a doctor or scientist, but apparently preferred working with little kids.</p>
<p>Following up on FallGirl, when I posted I didn’t even remember that I worked as a waitress through high school about 23 hours a week. Most people I knew had part-time jobs. I paid for my clothes and a separate phone line ($15.00 a month, so I would not get yelled at for being on the phone all the time with the boyfriend). Funny to think about now when every kid has their own cell phone.</p>
<p>Remember “party” lines?</p>
<p>Just from old movies. They didn’t have them in NYC anymore by the time I was around!</p>
<p>^“Just from old movies”.Ouch</p>
<p>This is a cool thread. I myself went to high school in the 1970s in north Jersey. I was a Westinghouse semi-finalist and a winner of an NHS science contest (can’t remember the name–it’s defunct now, anyway), and got into Yale (didn’t end up going, but that’s another story). My SATs weren’t that good, in the mid 600s; my GPA was 3.8 or higher (can’t quite remember). I took all honors classes (everything was ‘tracked’), but nothing was identified as ‘honors’ on the transcript. I was involved in everything - marching band, track, Model UN, the school newspaper, the school yearbook, the musicals, and more - and worked at Sam Goody as well, 10 hours a week. But I did my activities because I liked them and my friends were involved, not really because of college. Also, to be honest, I had a miserable home life. But we were certainly aware that our activities ‘looked good for college.’ I too read a great deal and my friends and I often met at the library after school.</p>
<p>We had FAR FAR less homework than now–that is the biggest difference. Also, grades were non-negotiable, period, end of discussion, and if you had a crazy teacher, tough. You had to get things in on time, no matter what, even if you were sick. If you had a paper due on, say, Feb. 8, and you were sick that day, you had to get it in that day or you failed. Nothing was accepted late. The reasoning was that the due date had been announced for a month, and you were responsible for it coming in; also, in a job, if you had a project due on a date, you got it in, end of discussion. Also, grades were dependent on far fewer individual scores than now–an essay, a test, a couple of quizzes maybe. That’s it. You had homework, but you did it because it helped you with your tests, not because the teacher graded you on it. If you did badly on a quiz, your grade could go down one whole letter that marking period. That was how it was–more like college is now. I have to say this is the one way I think my school was better than most schools now–I believe this strictness and trust in my own individual responsibility prepared me very well for college and the workplace. I believe parents nowadays (myself included) try to jump to our kids’ rescue far too often, to their detriment. But the stakes seem so much higher. Is that our imagination? Not sure.</p>
<p>I grew up in an upper class white collar community and my kids are in a mostly blue collar lower income community. Even so, their school is probably at least as good as mine was, and the teachers are far, far better. Other key similarities/differences between now and then as far as I can see:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>In my school, you took the SAT twice, or three times if necessary, not that different from now. But you didn’t study much. We did study vocab in school. </p></li>
<li><p>Parents were not involved, as per above. I applied to everything myself–I remember walking to the post office to mail everything. When I found out I was a Westinghouse semi-finalist (for work done by myself without any help from anyone), I mailed the info to my colleges. My parents did pay the application fees. But that was it.</p></li>
<li><p>The upper class pressures weren’t the same–people weren’t hysterically bent on getting into an Ivy. If you could, great. If not, it didn’t matter. This is exactly how my kids’ school in blue-collar South Jersey is now. That is, the biggest change I’ve seen is in the upper classes, who have become extremely invested into getting their kids into the top schools and are willing to spend exorbitant amounts of money and time in order to do so. It has become a far bigger ‘designer’ label thing than it used to be–I honestly don’t remember it mattering all that much when I was in school. I mean, yes, it was prestigious to have gotten into Yale, but my best friend got into Univ. of Virginia, and we were just as happy for her. There was far, far less of the “Get into an Ivy or die” thing. </p></li>
<li><p>All that said, I don’t see any huge essential difference between kids now and kids then. Probably the biggest thing is that kids had more leisure for self exploration then, and read more in general (for pleasure). But kids also drifted more, and I believe many more fell through the cracks. There were kids of high accomplishment then as well—I forgot to mention I myself was top ten in math in NJ too. A classmate of mine acted on Broadway, and another was a child extra in the Metropolitan Opera for many years. There was a LOT less external pressure though. The idea was that there were many paths to success. As I said, upper income people were far, far less invested with their kid getting into an Ivy or else. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>Many of my classmates have grown up successfully–doctors, professors, writers, etc. One of my classmates became a well known TV actress (you’ve heard of her). Another was a very successful Broadway star for a good ten years (she was featured one year at the Thanksgiving Day Parade in NYC). Both went to no-name schools.</p>
<p>Shrinkrap, I remember party lines. I also remember my D looking at me like I had two heads when I explained them to her.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Not in my high school, unfortunately. In fact, I think my son, at his public high school in a small, relatively affluent suburban New Jersey town a couple of years ago, had far less of that kind of pressure than I did at my New York City private school so long ago. Only a handful of kids from his school go to the Ivy League every year, and not one person in his class of about 100 got into H, Y, or P. (Although about 15% of his 100-person class did go to so-called “top 20” universities or LAC’s.) Very different from the expectations where I went, even more than 35 years ago. </p>
<p>Of course, when I first moved to that town more than 20 years ago with my ex, <em>nobody</em> ever seemed to go to really top schools; the emphasis was far more on athletics than academics. So things have definitely changed since then. Partly because of a particular, highly-publicized, incident that happened in that town a year or so before my son was born, involving a group of athletes.</p>
<p>DonnaL: when I read your post, I thought that couldn’t have happened that long ago, and then I googled it. Wow. It seems like it was more recent than that.</p>
<p>^^OK, you got me…what was the incident?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I definitely agree with that. </p>
<p>Also, our parents didn’t have any contact with our high schools or colleges. With high school, they went to parent-teacher nights once a year and then showed up for graduation. And in college - they wrote the check, dropped us off, and that was that.</p>
<p>Involving a group of athletes and and a developmentally disabled girl. And the reaction of the school administration and some of the people who lived in the town (defending the boys, vilifying the girl), and the subsequent trial, book, TV movie, etc., etc. </p>
<p>But I’d prefer it if people didn’t publicly post the name of the town. It wasn’t always easy for my son to grow up in a town that was so well-known for something so awful, even though it happened before he was born and the high school was (thank God) very different by the time he got there.</p>
<p>“Also, our parents didn’t have any contact with our high schools or colleges. With high school, they went to parent-teacher nights once a year and then showed up for graduation.”</p>
<p>At my high school, all seniors parents got individual meetings with the GC at the beginning of the year. The GC would give suggestions for the type of colleges the student should apply to. Until the GC met with my mom, I had planned to apply only to Howard, where 3 previous generations of my family had gone. My GC suggested that I also consider Harvard, which is where I ended up attending.</p>
<p>My mom also was secretary of the PTA, so attended monthly meetings at school.</p>