Interesting Story on College Admissions Counseling / Michele Hernandez

Parents Forum
101

<p>There are so many conflated issues here. ExploringMOM, I do understand your point. However, there are very few places in society that reward learning just for the sake of learning.</p>

<p>I teach a course, The Making of the Modern Mind, to cc students. I can only teach this course because of the voluminous reading I've done. Today, I taught the difference between the Special and General Theories of Relativity. This always thrills me. I am a full-time-tenured faculty member. I don't earn an impressive salary. Not too many folks even care that I learn just for the sake of learning. Ditto for being a good citizen.</p>

<p>We live in a very economically driven society, and the values of the college selection/admissions process reflect this.</p>

<p>You're right about the hypocrisy. However, a figure like $40,000 for counseling just seems so extreme, that of course, people are going to react to it. Perhaps this reaction is out of envy; perhaps insecurity. For most of us, trying to help our kids develop their potential does not feel like the blatant packaging some articles and posts have described.</p>

<p>I certainly didn't encourage my kids to do anything for a line on a vita. However, living on Long Island they did get a good idea of the level of productivity they would need to have to be admitted to each tier of colleges.</p>

<p>They decided early on not to even try for the HYPS level, although I know some kids, like Twinmom's daughter (and others) who were accepted just being themselves without heroic effort.</p>

<p>I encouraged my kids to explore their interests as much as they could. The insights and mastery they gained would be taken to any college they attended and contribute to their personal development. Like marite's son they were happiest pursuing these interests in EC's and summer programs. I did not feel I was creating a package for an adcom.</p>

<p>Maybe this is a fine difference, but it's a difference that other parents also seem to experience. If people want to use these very expensive college counselors it doesn't concern me; however, I think some of these practices are remarkable.</p>

102

<p>The problem I have with Exploringmom's post is the assumption that the people who object to hiring college counselors are the same people who send their kids to programs with the purpose of embellishing the cv. We do not know why some parents send their kids to certain summer programs or even hire tutors. Second, there is no evidence that those who object to the use of college counselors are also those who try to impress adcoms through a variety of means.</p>

<p>Anyone who has seen kids in tears at the end of academic camp will know that those kids do not attend for the sake of getting a leg up in the admissions sweepstakes. But every year that my S was in one, I saw kids in tears, especially those who would not be able to return the following summer.
I was particularly moved by seeing girls in tears at the end of math camp. It's hard being good a math & science if you are a teenage girl. Those math camps must feel like heaven to them.</p>

103

<p>"Those math camps must feel like heaven to them."</p>

<p>Amen! I had four days at a nerd camp-type experience my sophomore year of high school. It was paradise. I had more positive social experiences in those four days than I did in four years at my high school.</p>

104

<p>My parents sent me to a summer art program before I was old enough to get a job. I sent my son to CTY and later to a Columbia U. summer school class. Neither of us studied as much as we should have for our SATs and our scores were less than perfect. (Recentered remarkably similar however.) ;) I don't see a lot of change. </p>

<p>It just feels different to me to say to a kid "you ought to do this because it will look good on a college application", rather than "do you want to do this because it looks like something that would interest you?" That's the difference between good parenting and coaching.</p>

105

<p>


</p>

<p>I'd like to see some research on whether high-socioeconomic status gives children more of an advantage in test scores on college entrance tests, or in grades in high school courses. High socioeconomic status is plainly an advantage for anyone who has it, but when low socioeconomic status young people have avid intellectual interests, I think their test scores will still be fine--I know several examples--but I would be more doubtful about their high school grades. It's still an open question whether college entrance tests are "unfair" just because it's more likely that someone with high socioeconomic status will have a high score. Plenty of kids from rich families have mediocre scores--but they are much more likely to go to college than high-scoring students from poor families, as has been shown by repeated studies of the issue.</p>