Our daughter recently scratched U of Denver off her list for this reason. She has had an unbelievably privileged childhood IMO but doesn’t want to feel constantly left behind when her friends go do stuff - big or small.
To be fair - many of the trips you all are describing are what our D described as senior trips - plenty are going somewhere awesome with family. And that’s great. Actually if there had been a school sponsored option we likely would have tried very hard to make it work. The nice thing about school trip is you only have to pay for ONE person - not a whole family. Plus they are often great deals.
She also doesn’t have a wide enough social circle to organically plan anything local or casual - and her close friends - as I mentioned - will mainly be in Europe. And good for them. I’m just trying not to feel guilty.
We visited U Denver recently and didn’t get a particular rich kid vibe there? Actually I spoke to a couple student who talked about merit making it possible to attend. At least any more so than the average private university.
My kids each got to go to Europe once in high school through their music program. I didn’t know senior trips were a thing at all happily.
Yes they do give great merit aid. At this point in the process she’s realizing that she can actually only pick one school so that was an easy reason to ditch it. That an no football haha!
(Also she saw on social media DU students over the Feb long weekend (so not even spring break or anything) on yachts in bikinis somewhere.) Not judging - seriously that is awesome. But she’s already paying close attention to how many lattes she buys per week. . . .
My kids go to a wealthy school and all the wealthy kids may spend a week at the beach after graduation, if not traveling the world with family, several usually go to Bonnaroo. My kids do not, they are usually working. Our school does a senior trip, it is Busch Gardens this year, which ironically was my senior trip in 1988.
Back in the Stone Ages when I went to HS in Fla., Disney World had this awesome program, called Grad Night. Every spring for a few select nights, Disney shut down the park at 11 pm and reopened it only to high school seniors from Florida. It stayed open until, I think, 5 am.
This was highly structured - it wasn’t like kids could run wild. There was a dress code like a semiformal, we had to pay for special tickets and schools ran their own buses, with chaperones, to Disney.
Disney also had entertainment. Our headliners were Sister Sledge & Pure Prairie League. I remember nothing about the night, other than going back on the bus and having a pancake brekkie with my friends at the local greasy spoon.
Growing up with Disney in the back yard was special back then, before the Mouse got greedy. The resident annual pass was crazy cheap; we would go over many times a month. I didn’t realize how awesome this was until I had my own kids.
I swore off the place a few years ago, when they started charging for Fast Pass’s replacement, but before that happened, I made sure my kids felt the magic every year on our family trip home.
@sursumcorda Great to hear about your school. My D attends a classical high school. She started when there were only 3 grades. They originally had plans to do a trip to Greece or Rome but we have not been able to secure enough funds as a school yet. Even so, the classical curriculum is so rich. My D has grown so much. All of her teachers have PhD’s, one taught at Boston College. Good luck with your college apps!
Back in the Day my high school guidance counselor took trips like this every spring break. She worked with a great company called Cultural Heritage Alliance (they are still in business and still a fabulous value IMO). My grandmother sent me to England and Ireland my senior year and my parents sent my sister and I to Spain, Portugal and Morocco when I graduated from college (her senior trip my college graduation gift). They were great trips, economical and more educational than not, although we did have fun! We travels on a bus in a big group so touristy but we also didn’t miss any of the highlights and each day and some evenings we would have a few hours to explore on our own. Breakfast and dinner were included, lunch we were either traveling or out exploring. I wish my husband would agree to send our kids on such a trip but he hasn’t ever left our state for very long much less the country.
If my kid could only ever be one adjective (smart, rich, etc) I would want my kid to be kind.
I can’t even imagine the horror, rage, and embarrassment I would feel if I found out my kid was making comments like these. And I would do everything in my power to do whatever last minute training/teaching/raising possible before my kid left the nest to do my darndest to make sure this incident was the last of the kind where my kid was one of the bad participants.
Have any of these comments been made by students whose parents you know? If raised gently (not, your kid acted like a royal jerk, but are you aware that your kid is making these comments), parents might be able to…parent.
Similarly back ages ago my CA school did this for Disneyland. Was a 6 hour bus ride to get there. I don’t recall the dress code if there was one. Not only were all the rides open all night but they had programmed a bunch of bands to perform a festival of concerts. The only act I recall was Wang Chung whose song was big at the time. Structured I guess in that it was officially organized by the schools and I guess there were technically a few teachers along but once we were in the park, we were free to go and do whatever we wanted without adults and way before there were mobile phones if anything went south. Good times.
I would go with happy. Kind is awesome too (and more prosocial), but I feel like since they were born it viscerally upsets me if they are unhappy. It would be great if they could be happy being kind of course, and I suspect most unkind people are not happy, no matter what they have materially.
Yes, senior trips are very common in our area. Usually, families will go abroad for a few weeks immediately following graduation. After the family trip, the kids will organize a smaller/cheaper trip with friends. Mexico, camping/glamping at someone’s mountain house, and cruises are popular.
@bethy1 are you talking about sponsored trips like we’re mentioned or a group of 18 year olds going away by themselves …like a college spring break trip? There’s a big difference.
The former makes sense. Neither of my kids asked but heck no on the latter but many do that !!! My daughter was saying look at all these kids from hs drunk on the beach in wherever. But parents were sending them.