<p>Kenyon isn’t even “settling.” Pack up the covered wagon and hie thee to Gambier.</p>
<p>livelife55–thanks for confirming the regional difference in attitudes. It’s hard to grasp how intense it is if you don’t live it. I am going to look for that article…</p>
<p>Still looking, but came across a fluff article comparing the East vs. the West which says: “When you grow up in the North East, everyone around you is talking about what prep school, boarding school, Ivy League school, or prestigious college they would like you to attend. This talk starts at age two or three.”</p>
<p>Sameoldguy is very funny! I agree- congratulations!!!</p>
<p>Kenyon is lovely! It was my son’s second choice (he got in ED at his top choice but would have ED 2’d there if the decision had gone the other way). I don’t think it’s “settling” at all. Tufts was on his list (at one point it was his number one) and he ultimately preferred Kenyon over Tufts. This is an apples and oranges but both are delicious type of choice.</p>
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<p>I’m just quoting this because I wish I’d said it myself. ;)</p>
<p>We have been going through a similar situation and have also chosen to go with merit $ over “prestige”. Even if your daughter is “loving” Kenyon because she knows it’s better financially for you, that’s OK. She is behaving responsibly and wisely.</p>
<p>I was very close to making the $60,000 jump myself-but then thought of that merit $ in terms of roofs, oil burners and car repairs. It was a family decision and I was proud of my daughter for understanding (as well as a 17 year old can) the financial implications of the higher priced school. It’s a fine line - if you choose Tufts, would you be burdening your daughter with guilt as she is aware this is uncomfortable financially for you? </p>
<pre><code> She sounds like a great kid. Be happy she’s mindful and that you will be able to sleep better the next four years!
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<p>I grew up in California and I don’t remember anyone talking about prep school, boarding school, or Ivy League schools. Among the college-bound, it was which UC are you going to. My Dad is a Berkeley alumnus, and his years there were the high point of his life. I remember getting brochures from Reed based on my SATs, but that was the only non-UC I remember considering (I could have gone to school with Steve Jobs!). Nobody wanted to go to USC- we wanted the beach! Santa Cruz, Santa Barbara, San Diego- why would we go anywhere else? There was no Silicon Valley, Stanford was conservative, with the Hoover Institute and the like, and not on anyone’s radar. My parents never mentioned the East Coast- I guess with my dad working in areospace (with constant threat of layoffs), supporting five daughters on one income, that was never an option. They certainly couldn’t favor me over the others (who went to community college before transferring). Times have changed, but you do what you can do.</p>
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Maybe it’s because we aren’t supposed to discuss politics here, and some of the fervor is leaking into these discussions.</p>
<p>Really, I think it’s what somebody mentioned before: we are college-hunting enthusiasts. It’s no different from the unbelievably heated discussions you will find on stereophile discussion boards.</p>
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<p>Well, in my working class neighborhood in Philadelphia “everyone” wasn’t talking about those things. It’s still only an upper middle class bubble where it’s “everyone.” (Though my working class grandparents did think Penn, Bryn Mawr, Haverford and Swarthmore were the bomb. But I digress.)</p>
<p>But this is precisely why the regionalism of the East Coast gets to us on CC at times. Because there continues to be a belief that not only are these eight schools the pinnacle of awesomeness in the East Coast, but that they are regarded as the pinnacle of awesomeness everywhere else. And that the smart kids in Washington State or Texas or Georgia are absolutely dying to go to Dartmouth or Brown the same way the smart kids in New Jersey and Connecticut are. And the answer, said again and again on CC but often not heard is … No. The smart kids in Illinois want to go to NU and Notre Dame and Michigan. The smart kids in California want to go to USC and the UC’s and so forth. And that extends to what employers consider elite or excellent schools, too. There isn’t a single place in Chicago you can get to from Harvard that you couldn’t get to from Northwestern, or probably U of Michigan while you’re at it. There isn’t a single place in LA you couldn’t get to from UCLA or USC. And so forth. </p>
<p>None of this is denigrating the Ivies! They are all excellent schools that offer tons of opportunities! They all deserve to be at the top of the heap in many dimensions. It is just … they are not the magical dust elsewhere that they are in the northeast. That’s all. And to extrapolate that they, alone, set you up for life when to the extent that’s true, that’s only true in the northeast and in certain industries … that’s what I call the “p” word that shall not be named. And not to understand that in other parts of the country other schools can serve those purposes … and not to understand that by golly, you know, upper middle class life in any reasonably sized city is pretty much the same thing whether it’s Boston or Charlotte or Minneapolis or St. Louis or Denver or San Francisco … that’s the “p” word. I know the east coast mentality. I lived it growing up.</p>
<p>Sorry hit send too soon … And part of the college search, at least for me and my kids, involved looking for excellence. Which encompasses traditional-northeast-elite, but also goes wider than that. Are the Ivies both excellent and elite? Of course. I don’t have any patience with the “well, it’s all just the same, no difference between Harvard and East Podunk” nonsense. But by the same token, I don’t have a lot of patience with dancing-on-the-head-of-a-pin “top Ivies versus lower Ivies” (gag).</p>
<p>Pizzagirl, I think what you say is true–but I do wonder if it’s becoming less true as mass communication and the Internet make everybody think less regionally. It could be gradually happening that while parents in Illinois are perfectly happy with Chicago, students in Illinois might be shifting to a more nationwide perspective. It may only be a matter of time until we get a more global perspective, and we start seeing more American students going to school overseas. There seemed to be a lot of people interested in Yale-NUS, for example, including people from the US.</p>
<p>Let me add that this goes both ways–while kids from the west and south may be getting more interested in the Ivies than they used to be, kids in the northeast may be getting more interested in Duke, Chicago, etc. Aren’t apps skyrocketing at most of these places?</p>
<p>When I was applying to colleges, I can’t remember, but I think I only applied to UCs. And maybe only two or three. My parents were totally clueless. My dad knew only about engineering at Cal, and my mom never graduated from college (she was Rosie the Riveter, literally- her name is even Rosie!). I maybe met with a couselor twice. Nobody gave me any advice. There wasn’t any Internet or CC. None of my siblings went to four-year universities right off the bat. It was a different world. The Internet has really changed the game, plus the huge increase in the college-age population, and just the more competitive nature of everything.</p>
<p>Gee, these threads move too fast. Hard to keep up.</p>
<p>Going backwards…</p>
<p>skoonix, this is a classic example for me…schools very much within the same peer group where one gets some preference in prestige for reasons unfathomable to me. I have a kid at Kenyon. So I’m biased. (Read my posts on Kenyon Magic on Kenyon site.) Kenyon is just the best IMHO. Absolutely love it, and more importantly my kid loves it. We are in New England and he chose Kenyon over 4 NESCAC schools. Not a single regret. And with the merit, I agree totally with the covered wagon guy.</p>
<p>Marsian, I’m originally from the South, and IMHO the South has it own, and sometimes equally virulent, brand of elitism.</p>
<p>livelife55, great post. Very much appreciated and very honest. Expressing feelings and thoughts that everyone has doesn’t equate to not moving on in my mind.</p>
<p>Indifference most often is feigned rather than real. It’s more likely to have reactions (which are virtually autonomic) that one chooses to ignore (or tries to ignore).</p>
<p>Hunt, I believe you are correct, and partly out of necessity. Guess how many very smart kids live in Massachusetts? A lot. And even more so with girls, how many do you think a school like Wesleyan takes that is so obsessed with increasing diversity, including geographic diversity, and its diversity ranking? Not a lot. So that accounts for some of the East Coast moving to other regions, as well as the fact that some of us simply prefer the vibe in the Midwest (or South).</p>
<p>"(Though my working class grandparents did think Penn, Bryn Mawr, Haverford and Swarthmore were the bomb. But I digress.)"</p>
<p>pizzagirl, I didn’t think that was a digression. Rather, I think quite germane.</p>
<p>And Haverford is one of my very, very favorite schools to recommend.</p>
<p>every area has it’s elite schools, preferred by those who live regionally. Kids from the Chicago area are not going to prefer New Haven to Ann Arbor. I mean some will, but not many, not ones whose parents did not priveledge that growing up. I’m talking from the perspective of an area which sends the largest number of students to the Ivies of any other area.</p>
<p>Okay, forget Chicago.</p>
<p>Let’s talk about the state of North Carolina, for a minute, sorry SOG. The kids in the state prefer UNC. They don’t prefer Duke. It’s not “sour grapes” the way some would like to make it, it is a true preference.</p>
<p>It does not take Derrida, finalchild, to point out that a preference for a hot dog without ketchup on it is not a desire for ketchup unfulfilled. It is a regional preference. A preference for a Vinegar based bar-b-que sauce is not a “lack” of KC Masterpiece, but a preference.</p>
<p>The same can be said of colleges.</p>
<p>There are places all over the country where Yale is seen as a school in a cruddy neighborhood. I’m not denigrating the school. I’m simply saying, this is true.</p>
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<p>It’s not just preference, it’s tradition. My first week down there I met the sweetest, kindest octogenarian in line at the store, and she told me she was fifteen years old before she realized the full name of the school wasn’t “GoToHellDuke.”</p>
<p>Those southerners can say the meanest things and still make it sound nice. Did she add bless their heart?</p>
<p>Of course. And a “God bless y’all, but I hope Carolina beats the fool out of ya.”</p>
<p>“Isn’t that sweet?”</p>