I say bring the water bottle to school!! Your daughter should be proud of her accomplishment!! And as @buuzn03 said, most kids/teachers won’t have any idea what it means.
Kiddo’s school allows seniors to wear college sweatshirts to school instead of the typical uniform sweatshirt when they are accepted to a college. As very few 8th graders apply to BS from her school, she was given permission to wear her chosen BS sweatshirt on those days too…unfortunately, the BS store was closed due to covid so we couldn’t get our hands on a sweatshirt before it got too hot to wear one!! But now her little brother brings her school’s swag to his school.
This sounds so awesome! If only I could visit schools earlier and commit. I’m always in a hurry, and this is a good time to learn patience! But, I’m so excited to order some sweatshirts and tshirts from said school.
What is kind I think will depend on where one lives.
Here, no one even knows anything about boarding school. (As someone on CC posted a couple years ago, no one knows the difference between Phillips Academy and Phillips milk of magnesia, which made me laugh.). My kid also wears the hoodies from schools she isn’t attending, and no one has any idea what they mean. (And…mom may still use water bottles, coffee cups and drawstring backpacks from last year’s admissions too…)
But I will say that if someone lives in a boarding-school-app-steeped culture, then I think the norms might be different. Is there a general sense that waiting until A10 is the thing to do? (I have no idea; I’m just making that up.). Are there tons of kids floating on WL and is the general sense stressful still, or one of excitement and hope? I would think that there would be some (unspoken) social norms that would emerge to find the balance between celebrating good news and being sensitive to those nursing wounds from bad news. If my kid’s sweatshirt made another 13-year-old kid go home and break down in tears to her mom over fresh M10 wounds, then I wouldn’t want my kid to wear that sweatshirt for the first few weeks, personally.
I liken this a little bit to college admissions process – there are some rules of kindness (some official, some unofficial). Like posting every single admission letter you get on social media = obnoxious. Posting a happy photo once you’ve committed is pretty universally considered an exciting sharing of good news.
And whatever rules of kindness exist for 18 year olds heading off to college, we might double them for 13 year olds, IMO.
How hard is it to be happy for oneself, and to be kind at the same time?
Surprisingly, not that hard.
If there is any doubt, choose the kinder option.
On the flip side, no need to live in a bubble world of acting coy because then that gets into a weird false modesty thing. (“Oh we were so blessed to be offered admission to XYZ school,” which feels like a yucky acknowledgement that the school is SO great that you are almost apologetic for now being in a different class altogether. Also an obnoxious approach, IMO. Maybe worse, because the person doing it is playing the role of “awww-gee-chucks modest winner.” argh. It feels condescending.)
To answer your question @AnonMomof2 – no school sent us swag more than once. (wait, maybe Andover did – a follow up t-shirt?). Miss porter’s sent 4 wrapped gifts for week 1, 2, 3, 4. Other than that – once box of swag. (Out of 18 schools between last year and this year).
Taft sent a decal for the car and they adopted a Rhino or two for the entire class. Much prefer that to some swag. Though it does mean that I’ll have to spring for a t-shirt and sweatshirt.
I received a gloating email from a non-private school parent about a recently published Atlantic Article…with an accompanying message about how privileged we are, our kids are, and how the tide will now turn against us in the college admissions “arms race”. One of the things I found lacking in the original Atlantic article (which BTW required my “privilege” to pay for) is the author’s convenient misleading information about prep school statistics. The author, who used to teach at Harvard-Westlake, failed to mention the diversity (racial & financial) of students within those statistics. Would like your opinions. Here is a synopsis of the article from Inside Higher Ed.
Ooops, almost forgot. To the parent who sent me the article and who called me out for my privilege: Yes, my avatar reflects privilege. I apologize if it offends you, but I had a sports & merit scholarship to college - was first gen - raised in a bilingual home - and worked as a caddy, as well as housekeeper in the locker rooms of clubs so I could play the game. I did not attend prep school. I was a teen cleaning the locker rooms of the country club my family could NEVER join (and I still can’t). I think there are a lot of old assumptions about parents who send their kids to prep school, and also stereotypes of the kids that attend prep schools. I would bet that most of us parents on here never attended prep school. As for me, like most parents I know, I want a better education for my kid than what I had. Yes, wanting a better life for our kids than what we had might seem selfish to some of you. I thought we had the freedom to do that in this country. I am sorry. I am not sure if my apology will cover it, but hope I offend you less
I have complicated, contradictory thoughts about college admissions and prep schools. On the one hand, everyone should have access to great education. On the other hand, nowhere is it written that it has to be at elite, private institutions.
And it should surprise no one that high schools popped up who attempt to position their students for a better chance at admissions, and they charge for it. And that it is expensive. And that people with money will pay a lot of money for what the high schools offer. It is basic supply and demand. Scarcity of desirable elite college spots is the engine feeding the beast.
If you want to shake up that economic ecosystem, you don’t shut down the private high schools, because money will always find a way to get what it wants. You create more options to compete with elite colleges. You make it so elite colleges are no longer the only ticket to success (they really aren’t anyway, but they do have a corner on the prestige market). Make a high school diploma from anywhere good enough to be a sufficient educational end point in and of itself.
Elite Private high schools, imo, to the extent they are problematic, and I don’t accept they are in and of themselves, are a symptom, not the disease.
My problem with this article is that it fails to mention that the kids at many of these schools are working their butts off. My dd could have stayed at her above-average LPS, but chose to pursue a top bs far from home. Having just witnessed her complete her winter term from home, I know for a fact it is a lot more work and sacrifice than most kids her age have to worry about. Would she be more deserving of a spot at a top college if she’d stayed at her LPS–with less diversity–where she could have skated by at the top of her class? Is her hard work negated because it came with a price tag (and in her case about 50% FA)? Should she be punished for choosing a harder path?
In the more progressive states, changes are happening to elite public schools too. Boston Latin School, the country’s oldest public school, has switched to a quota based process that is based on zip code and median income from a long standing practice of GPA and standard test. Actually, all 3 exam schools in Boston have made the change.
We will see what happens in the years to come, but I see the wave coming.
I’ll assume we will not have musings about they Atlantic article, especially since the previous discussion on the topic was shut down by someone above my pay grade.
How can a thread titled “Miscellaneous Ramblings” have a subject that is off topic?? By definition it is impossible.
As to why an article in a respected magazine, on the very subject of a CC forum cannot be discussed by consenting adults . . . I throw up my hands and give up in disgust.
I know the edict doesn’t come from you @skieurope but it is emblematic of the things I think CC gets dead wrong.
@skieurope - just a suggestion or maybe a question…should we have a dedicated thread where we can post links or news relevant articles about prep school, boarding school topics?
Also, apologize for posting the article links - I did not know that this had been posted and shut down before! Wow
Not sure the Inside Education article is verboten like the Atlantic one. Regardless, it will be interesting to see how colleges respond (if they even do).
Not sure why it’s not allowed to be posted…I posted the link to the original article above and hope you have access without having to subscribe to Atlantic.
