<p>My D has applied to 9 schools for Fall 2014 as a dance major. She has been academically accepted to 3 so far, and the 1 has just rejected her for their conservatory. So basically now she has 2 academic acceptances. One of those schools is her safety. We have to wait until March/April to find out about all the others because of dance auditions. She has one audition next weekend, a few in February, and one in March. Its very agonizing to have to wait for 2 separate acceptances, its very stressful. If she gets in one for academics and not for dance, then there is no point of going there. I’m seeing now how competitive it is for these artistic programs, its like your trying out for the Olympics. My D has had classical dance training since she was 3 1/2, but we live in a more rural area so her performance opportunities are limited. Some of these schools are looking for alot of solos and parts in shows that the student has been in. I feel at a disadvantage because of where we live. That really shouldn’t play a part in it, but I’m thinking it does. I can’t even sleep at night without dreaming of auditions already. Can’t wait to breathe again.</p>
<p>I agree with Post #3. (NJSue) Dare to Fail. Work hard and take chances.</p>
<p>When you put your four-year academic record and write a personal essy - it is personal So, go ahead and take it personally . . . then move on to the next goal.</p>
<p>caymangirl38 – I just want to lend you some moral support. One of my virtual nieces – a girl I have known since she was in utero, whom I saw dance in The Nutcracker each year for more than a decade, whom I took with me to professional dance performances – went through just that process last year. It was excruciating. She had never wanted to be anything but a dancer, and she wound up in a perfectly nice, but not tippy-top dance program. But along the way she learned a lot about the gap between being a star at her ballet school and competing in the larger world, and she had to come to grips with the evidence that she was not going to be a top-flight professional dancer. She also learned a LOT about what it takes to be ready for an audition where everyone does not already know you, and vice versa.</p>
<p>In the end, it was a very healthy process, but it took a lot of work to make it healthy. And of course, it was intensely personal. Everything about her was being judged, and more often than not found wanting. She was a decent student at a really tough school, president of her class, charismatic, and a wonderful dancer . . . but not quite wonderful enough, and her body was a little to this for some things and too that for others.</p>
<p>Thank heavens that one of the schools that accepted her into its dance program really put on a push to make her feel wanted and appreciated. When the dust cleared, she wasn’t where she thought she would be, but she was happy where she was, and newly mature about her goals. All our kids should be so lucky.</p>
<p>I didn’t perceive this was about grumbling because the kid-who-is-a-known-cheat got into Cornell. That grumbling at least makes sense. </p>
<p>This was grumbling because Sally, who is a perfectly nice person but no Einstein, got into Cornell when she was only second chair violin instead of first and her SAT’s were only 2200 and your kid is convinced that Sally isn’t as smart as she claims to be because this one time in class she said something really stupid, amirite? THAT is the kind of grumbling where blossom is right - teach your kids to worry about their own aspirations and hopes and dreams instead of second-guessing everyone else’s.</p>
<p>And please – like where you are and how you’re regarded in HIGH SCHOOL matters in the least? Please! Who “peaks” in high school? I think the survival skill is to put your head down, keep your own goals in mind and get the hell out of dodge.</p>
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Lots of athletes.</p>
<p>Most non-CC Americans. We’re all living in some sort of bubble here, folks. The ****ing matches over whose bubble is more real is pointless. </p>
<p>[Bruce</a> Springsteen - Glory Days - YouTube](<a href=“Bruce Springsteen - Glory Days (Official Video) - YouTube”>Bruce Springsteen - Glory Days (Official Video) - YouTube)</p>
<p>Cheerleaders, the prettiest girl in town, the smartest kid in the class. They all peak in HS, leaving the real world to the rest of us.</p>
<p>But in high school, it’s the only world they know. Same small group of same kids, doing pretty much the same things in the same environment.</p>
<p>They do focus on their own ambitions and hopes, do lack perspective. “I’m this” and “I want that.” It’s hs, not yet real life. We need to help them focus on their confidence about their potential. In life, the ability to rebound is crucial. Pretty good lesson to work on.</p>
<p>“who peaks in high school”</p>
<p>Point taken. That is why high school “leadership” ( which colleges look for) is such balony. A very few people I know who we’re “leaders” in high school went on to be true leaders later. OTOH, people I know who are business and community leaders have included a lot of folks who would never, ever been considered that way in high school. I’m talking painfully shy, kids who were bullied, kids who wanted nothing to do with the HS scene, etc.</p>
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<p>I completely agree with this. What people “think” of others in high school is more often just a popularity contest than anything based on any real insight. Which is why I think it’s a better strategy to detach than to become embroiled in it. Though that’s easy for an introvert to say, and it’s easier when I’m 30 years removed from it :-)</p>
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<p>A lot of people who are considered very smart in high school really just develop quickly. They go faster at first, but it doesn’t mean they go further.</p>
<p>A lot of people who talk about how they were so smart as mid-teenagers but the education system failed them are like this.</p>
<p>Hunt’s local high school must be like ours, because I agree with his/her posts about kids not reporting cheating. They don’t tell because they have learned the hard way that the school will not do anything about it, short of a national publicity crisis. A senior student was caught red-handed cheating on an AP test at S’s high school. S was taking the same test, so he and all those present knew what had happened. There were rumors that this student was a cheater, and kids thought the teachers suspected, but now there was no denying it. Except that they did. He went on to be the Val and attend a top school. A girl my D’s year cheated on the SAT too. High schools are loathe to report irregularities because it affects innocent kids who might get their scores cancelled, and the high school, could lose their right to be test center. And then there are the kids with lawyer parents and so on that the school doesn’t feel like messing with. The cheater girl got asked to leave college for academic dishonesty, but not before taking a freshman spot at a top school.</p>
<p>I agree that hs kids don’t report cheating, but I think this is a red herring, because the angst on CC about where-my-kids’-classmates-got-in isn’t generally about the cheaters, but about kids for whom a parent (or other kid) knows only a little but are “convinced” they weren’t “worthy” of the spot that should have been reserved for YOUR kid.</p>
<p>No, that is just your negative characterization of the angst. When a kid is rejected, it’s easy to imagine that those other kids somewhere who were accepted were just better somehow: more talented, smarter, more athletic, etc. But just like when a teenage boy prefers one girl over another and the spurned girl asks, “Is there something wrong with me?” or “What does she have that I don’t?” it’s a little harder to process the expressed preference when the student is a known entity–not some anonymous imagined-to-be “better” person out there. It can be, but doesn’t have to be petty or small.</p>
<p>At my house, we followed and discussed the college results of my kids’ classmates with great interest. Mostly, we were happy for the kids who did well, and disappointed for the kids who didn’t get the results they wanted. In a few cases, there were some kids that my kids didn’t like–usually because they were obnoxious, or “phoney,” or some trait of that kind (and a couple who were cheaters). For kids like that, my kids and I sometimes felt that selective colleges had erred in choosing them over some other kids from the school that we liked better. This was just our opinion, based on the limited knowledge we had, and it didn’t blight our existence or have any impact on anybody. As in, “How could Harvard accept X, who is such a big [epithet], while rejecting Y, who is so nice?” (Not unlike, “How come Miley Cyrus gets to be a big star?”) There were also a few kids who we felt had made very bad choices in where they applied, and we felt really bad for them.</p>
<p>I’m actually very surprised by the conversation. I had absolutely no idea this went on, or people cared about this. I honestly do not understand the interest, hand wringing, and teeth gnashing over who got in where, who’s the real deal, and who deserved it. So what?! Really, what does it matter in your kids world and certainly in your own? Kids I have known grow up will share results, or their parents do, and I am happy for their future. Kids I don’t know that my kids mention in passing I smile, nod and say “oh good for them”. My kids have never cared or given the time of day to thinking about someone getting in a school and micro-analyzing what tipped the scales (because surely as a fellow student they are privy to all details in the other students apps). They never bothered agonizing over where the habitual cheaters were going, I’m assuming thinking they’d be caught eventually (or not) but it wasn’t effecting their lives so it didn’t matter. I’m speculating because with three kids, two at competitive schools, the subject has never came up. My kids aren’t above irritation, frustration, disappointment by any means but these are things they deal with individually (how do I move forward in a positive way?) and don’t view in context of their peers.</p>
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<p>And a lot of them really WERE failed by the educational system, starting back in grade school, which is why they didn’t develop the skills they should have.</p>
<p>Regarding the other topic, kids know who is a brown-nosing, hyper-competitive, self-promoting grade grubber or a habitual cheater or whatever. They are likely to be less than thrilled when that person is rewarded in the admissions process. But that doesn’t mean they are obsessed with it forever. They do move on. They already know all too well that life is not fair.</p>
<p>Wait, there are hs stars who do go on to greatness, one sort or another. And sure, late bloomers. And, those kids who eke their way into a better school than “you” think they deserved…and don’t do so well. It’s “we’ll see.”</p>
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<p>Sure, some of them were. But some of them were just faster developing than the other kids. Just like the kid who is taller at age 12 won’t necessarily be taller as an adult. A lot of early twenty-somethings who describe themselves as ‘smart but unmotivated’ are like this.</p>
<p>It is very hard not to take it personally. And just wait- because there’s some “be careful what you wish for” here also. Getting into a top school is something to be quite proud of, but along with that comes very tough competition once you’re there to get into clubs, organizations, sororities, and more. I’ve cried a few tears in private recently for my freshman D who has recently had a string of rejections: a sports club, a student organization, and just last night, sorority rush. Uggh. It’s like applying for college all over again once you’re already there. We can rationalize it all day long and try to put it in perspective, but it really hurts. They do get over it though. But it’s so darn hard to watch them go through it- that’s just the truth. I keep telling her to just keep trying. Life’s disappointments continue, but so do the good things too. I can’t help feeling terrible when she calls in tears- it’s hard to come up with all the right things to say sometimes. “Fall down seven times, get up eight.”- Japanese proverb.</p>