MIT Admissions Dean warns About College Entrance Stress

Parents Forum
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<p>We moved the kids from private K-8 to public high school and had the same reaction when I tried to sign D. up for honors classes. I was counseled not to do all honors. Our district requires 9th graders to take physical science, when everybody else on the planet has that in the 8th grade curriculum and biology is standard 9th grade science for everybody taking 4 years of science. I begged, pleaded, got an overview of the curriculum that had been covered in 8th grade but they would not let her test out of physical science. Luckily the year she took PT her teacher was the AP physics teacher and let her work independently on what is probably basic high school physics, and she discovered a liking/aptitude for the subject. </p>

<p>The year wasn't a complete waste because this teacher was able to differentiate the standard curriculum enough that D. had a great year. The rest of the honors classes were dead easy for her though-she ended up skipping a year of math (fairly easy to do in the integrated math system) so was in precalc as a 10th grader.</p>

<p>In our experience the school has been willing to let kids move ahead when it's clear to everybody the kid needs to work at a higher level.</p>

562

<p>It's interesting how this thread has ended up a discussion of differentiation in classrooms, heterogenous v. homogenous groupings, acceleration, etc. These are all the issues that were first and foremost in my mind nine years ago when I had one of those "genius" kids who was allowed to bring in a book to read in class so he wouldn't be bored by the classroom instruction. I was the pushy parent who thought my son was so smart and needed more in school (and caused dozens of other mother's eyes to roll at my incessant complaining about the state of education at our school). My son was convinced that the other kids in class were pretending not to understand the material just so that the teacher wouldn't move along to new material. He was (here comes the "b" word -- bored and frustrated). So I pulled him out of the public school and put him in a private school for the gifted. I never complained again. Homogenous grouping and advanced curriculum solved the problem. When my son was not placed in the super duper math track at the gifted school I was fine with that -- he's not a math savant, he didn't need to be accelerated. The idea that all us pushy parents have to have our kids on the top track -- it irritates me. I wanted him to be appropriately placed for him. That meant a gifted program for pre-HS and honors and AP classes in HS. That was his proper placement -- not one made possible by pushing, tutoring, supplemental teaching or anything but his innate aptitude and drive to learn. Now that he's a HS senior all I want for him is the appropriate college placement for someone like him -- really smart, really hard working, really committed to education (those three don't always go hand in hand). Our present college stress surrounds wondering how many places at schools that would be right for him -- competitive, academic, challenging -- are taken by students who don't really want to go there for those reasons but are being told to go there by their parents, their GCs, or national college rankings.</p>

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<p>"Our present college stress surrounds wondering how many places at schools that would be right for him -- competitive, academic, challenging -- are taken by students who don't really want to go there for those reasons but are being told to go there by their parents, their GCs, or national college rankings." </p>

<p>Burnthis: I started a thread after admissions decisions came out in an attempt to determine the answer to the question you raise. We are assured that the adcoms of elite colleges can pick out the student who's the real thing (who has the qualities you name) from the posers, the resume padders and builders, and the prestige-mongers. I asked whether or not the elite schools had succeeded in selecting the most-deserving students from their high school or not. What do you guys think from your experience watching your kids' classmates get into various schools?</p>

564

<p>Maximum number of AP's and heavy EC's are not necessarily required to land in a so-called top school. Here is a little story about 4 elementary school classmates. All were in a program for highly capable students, all probably could have handled more than they did, but none was eager to overload themselves. One of the four completed Calc BC, two Calc AB, and another no Calc at all. The most AP's any of them completed was 6. One was in a nationally recognized EC, the others were quite run of the mill, and one spent most of the EC time in an unusual non-varsity sport. None went through high school thinking much about college and none complained of workload or stress. How did the four end up? One is at Yale, one at UChicago, one at Harvard, and the other at Stanford. All are doing very well. Looks like the admissions folks knew a little something about choosing students.</p>

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<p>The GFG:</p>

<p>The problem is not figuring out if kids "deserved" to be admitted to some top schools, but why others were not. Or why some were admitted at some schools but not others. For ex, one of S's friends, a science kid, got admitted EA to MIT but rejected from H & Y. I would have thought that competition among science applicants would be even more fierce than at H & Y. All those who got into HYM were highly qualified. I don't know of anyone who applied to P and only one to S.</p>

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<p>idad, that's a great story, but I think it's not all that common. I also know of several kids who competed in international engineering competitions, took tough AP classes with high GPA's, 1500+ old SAT I scores, were musicians or athletes who did not get into schools of their choice. We can all come up with anecdotes, but if you look at the data, the kind of kids you describe are an anomaly. </p>

<p>The situation, as I see it, is that there are too many really smart, talented kids graduating from high school right now. The competition was not as tough five years ago, and will probably not be as tough five years from now. The schools have to make choices -- so they probably look for kids who have demonstrated interest in a field through ECs, classes, APs, SATIIs and essays. What else can they do?</p>

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<p>Ok, that's not common around here...you are evaluated in your context...not only in your school, but in your area. It may benefit kids to live in outer Montana, rather than in populations of highly successful, competitive parents who run to Kumon at the slightest drop of a hat (just got off the phone with my sister who has a 2 and 6-year old...I pity her...and the kids...there's not ONE child in first grade who isn't in Kumon, Score or some other after school program, except my nephew who does Saxon math every day with his mom. She says you can't choose not do it if it is the norm. The average child is doing several digit multiplication.). I digress...Your story is great for kids coming from less competitive regions of the country where this is not the norm. However, once you get to these universities, they will be filled with kids with extremely strong backgrounds...so there is really no winning on this one. One of my friends just sent her kid to Stanford and the girl reports that her classmates all seem exceptionally smart and accomplished. That's the norm at such places today, so in order to get the most out of such a wonderful education, you have to be well prepared. Yes, I speak out of both sides of my mouth. It happens. I guess I'd like EVERYONE to stop going to Kumon:)</p>

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<p>Kudos to burnthis. Why does everyone agree that kids with severe learning problems deserve an appropriate education, but when parents ask that their gifted kid be given something to do in class besides sit there waiting for everyone else to get finished with the assignment, those parents are considered pushy, arrogant, braggy and out of place? My gifted kid had as much of a right to spend the school day learning something as all the other kids. I too had to spend a huge amount of money sending one of my kids to a private school for four years, where he finally found great friends and challenging classes. In my household, "heterogeneous grouping" borders on a dirty word. Apologies to all who are offended.</p>

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<p>As a public school teacher, I am all too aware that heterogeneous grouping work best for the middle 80-90% of students. The top 5-10% or so are not sufficiently challenged, and the bottom 5-10% are overwhelmed. But the goal of the public schools has never been to provide excellent education for all; it's been to provide adequate education. The goal of the public schools is to educate children who are ready to enter the public universities. </p>

<p>A few states define special education needs as occuring at both the bottom and the top of the educational spectrum. When my children were in a special program for the top 2% (i.e., for those who are two standard deviations from average), it was pointed out by the principal in an interview that two standard deviations below the average represented an IQ at which children were not expected to ever live on their own (70)--and that she thought her students were just as different from the average IN TERMS OF THEIR EDUCATIONAL NEEDS. (The teachers at the school were the first public school teachers my children encountered who supplied information at a speed that matched my children's ability to learn.)</p>

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<p>midmo, you bring up a good point: in many school disctrics a child with a learning disability will have their needs met much quicker than the needs of the kid with advanced skills. </p>

<p>(Maybe it's the word 'gifted' that bugs people. It bugs me. Which is why I loved the teacher who told my S's class that the "H' in HGT (highgly gifted/talented) program they were in actually stood for 'hardly.')</p>

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<p>I'm willing to lose the word. Do you have a ready stand-in?</p>

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<p>Here in SoCal, we call it "GATE" -- I think the acronym is "gifted and talented education," or some such. It's clearly a dodge. Students have to take the GATE test to be admitted to the special GATE classes. Note I didn't say the students have to score at any particular level: they have to TAKE the GATE test. After that, it's all about teacher recs, parent bravado, and ... I suspect ... skin tone.</p>

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<p>With reference to the WORD. My neighbor's kid is on the football team. He is regularly referred to as a gifted athlete. Which he is. Are people turned off by the word in that context?
BTW: my son is most definitely NOT a gifted athlete. He knows it. We know it. We don't care.</p>

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<p>Interesting celloguy - in colorado, where I live you also have to test into the HGT program. The test is a combination of an IQ/achievement test, and in order to get into the program you have to score in the 99% or higher. (There was once a move to lower it to 98.5 percentile, but some parents howled about lowering standards!) Because it is test driven, and all kids are tested by 3rd grade, the program is actually quite diverse, with whites/latinos/blacks well represented.</p>

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<p>midmo, I think what irks people is the 'specialness' of that word. As if other kids weren't gifted. Why label the kids any more than they label themselves?Why not just call it 'accelerated' progam - since that's what most of those prgograms offer?</p>

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<p>Where I live, they used to call it "MG" for Mentally Gifted. I guess some people felt that sounded elitist, so they changed to "ES" for Extended Studies. No one knew what that meant, so they changed it again to "AE" for Academic Enrichment. I think this final name is a good one.</p>

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<p>When gifted education was introduced in our district ( but never funded so it hasn't really gotten off the ground), the idea was that children talented in a variety of areas would receive enrichment. What it amounted to was special three hour programs once a year related to art, music, writing, or problem-solving. A child might get to do one or two of these (for a grand total of 3-6 hours/year), but never more than that. There was nothing for the athletically talent. Using this unfunded mandate as my rationale, I tried to get the school to allow my athletically gifted 6th grader to participate on a middle school sports team. 6th graders are in the middle school but excluded from sports. Without training, D had badly beaten all the X-C team members in a meet when one day they had allowed the 6th grade X-C club to run FOR FUN fun along with the teams. I really didn't care that she couldn't be on the team yet, but was really annoyed that the team parents had gotten so majorly bent out of shape about it that they had stormed the AD's office and angrily demanded that he never ever let the younger kids run again. The request was denied. People don't like athletically gifted kids either unless they're their own.</p>

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<p>Before you guys start coveting the parents of kids with learning disabilities -- as the parent of a dyslexic child, I have to tell you that getting meaningful in-school assistance for a kid with that sort of LD is extremely difficult. The kids with exceptionally severe disabilities did get help in our district, of course -- severe mental retardation, autism, down's syndrome -- all were in special ed. But the kids with the more typical LD's affecting reading, math, organizational skills... forget it. Unless the child is grossly behind in skill level, it is jumping through one hoop after another to get anyone to do anthing -- they will blame the kid ("lazy", "doesn't pay attention"), try to label everything ADHD and push the family towards medication, or simply deny the existence of a problem ("just wait, he'll grow out of it").</p>

<p>And since I am the parent of (a) a kid who couldn't read, and (b) a kid who was a precocious early reader.... I need to say -- the LD problem is a lot, lot worse to have to deal with. I elected to keep my precocious kid in school, at grade level, but there were all sorts of modifications to curriculum that were easy to implement -- it was generally simply a matter of obtaining extra materials and sticking them in her hands. The delayed reader was another issue entirely -- school was one continuous day of torture after another - he needed HELP that wasn't forthcoming, and he could not function until he had it. </p>

<p>Fortunately my story has a happy ending, but one of my pet peeves is parents of gifted children who compare their needs to the disabled. It's like very wealthy people thinking their stress over their investment portfolio equates to the life stress experienced by those living below the poverty line. Do they have a problem? Yes. Is it in any way equivalent? No. </p>

<p>Try spending a day after being told your bright, healthy 5th grader probably will "never" be able read well or just "is not college material". Think how you would feel after receiving that news. Curriculum adjustments/modifications aren't going to help -- what are you going to do, ask the teacher to dumb everything down for your kid? You don't want dumbed down, you want the services the kid needs to overcome the LD. </p>

<p>If you have a child who is bright enough to be bored by age/grade level instruction and able to work comfortably ahead of his peers, you are blessed. To keep your child happy, it is appropriate for you to seek out enrichment material and instruction that will present an appropriate challenge. But in most cases, your kid will do just fine with or without the advancement, though obviously he will be happier and more fulfilled with support for his needs. The same can't be said of the kid who is about to enter 6th grade unable to read anything more challenging than Hop on Pop. </p>

<p>So complain all you want about the lack of school support for gifted kids.... but don't take out your frustration on the 10-20% of kids who have specific learning disabilities.</p>

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<p>Calmom,</p>

<p>Our family has a similar situation to yours - one high achieving child and one not so much. Unlike you, however, our youngest is profoundly autistic and medically impaired. I identify with your comment and, in fact, I would go further. I prefer that schools devote most of their resources to the average student and to mildly learning disabled students. From society's standpoint, we benefit far more from pulling these students up to higher levels than we gain from focusing on our highest and lowest achievers. </p>

<p>Of course, I hope there are resources for everyone but there often aren't. I've seen many students with mild, treatable problems like dyslexia that stumble along because the school district devotes a large percentage of its resources to students like my kids who are on the extreme ends of the spectrum. It's not cost effective to structure our schools like this because it focuses on the few to the detriment of the many, but I think we do this because it's often the parents of the extremes that are the most vocal.</p>

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<p>Calmom, your response is exactly the reason teachers in my son's school felt justified refusing to give him any extra materials whatever. Just make the parent feel guilty. (His principal had a rabid devotion to heterogeneous grouping, way beyond the bounds of reasonableness. If you are interested, PM me for a couple of examples.) I have never, ever, complained about the "problem" of having a kid for whom school was extremely easy; in fact I have always been disdainful of "gifted parent interest groups" who actually have mtgs about their special 'problems'. We're getting too far afield for this thread, so I won't give you a few anecdotes to explain why I butted in on this topic. Let's just say I am very happy that since 6th grade S has been in a situation where he has friends and loves school. CC is about college, so I will add that it is so refreshing that at the college level, everyone is free to choose the environment that works best for them, and for that we should all be grateful. And grateful I am.</p>