<p>alh, I think the Pollack article needs both a treatise and activism in response to it, aside from it’s being mostly–though not entirely–off the topic here. I will try to post some comments when I have the opportunity. At the moment, I’m on a faculty search committee, so I am knee-deep in applicant files. :)</p>
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<p>Stereotype, much?</p>
<p>How is my perception a stereotype? These are some of the distinguishing factors TheGFG has set forth in defense of her hard-working kids versus those who take grade-level classes and play video games (who, I should add, she has stereotyped as lazy).</p>
<p>A recap, heavily colored by my own perspective:</p>
<p>There are lots and lots of people who greatly value, and perhaps even overvalue, attending elite universities. These include the multitudes of bright ambitious students who apply there every year, many people who would never have had the stats to apply, and the many employers whose regard for elite school graduates is one of the benefits of attendance.</p>
<p>There are many people who don’t value, and perhaps even regard with suspicion or disdain, an elite university education. Sometimes, this is sour grapes from people who couldn’t get in or couldn’t have afforded to go. Sometimes, it reflects a limited world-view that can’t see any reason why a good local boy would want to go off to Harvard when school x is perfectly fine. In either case, these opinions probably have less of a practical effect on the lives of elite school grads than the opinions of the first group, who they are far more likely to encounter in both professional and social settings.</p>
<p>There are also many people who don’t really care either way. They might be impressed if you mentioned HYP, but not unduly so, and wouldn’t have any idea what you were talking about if you said you were going to Williams or even Dartmouth. Saying that you are going to Harvard would be like saying you were leaving to spend a year in Tibet, more a curiosity than a metric by which to judge worth. Saying that you were going to most school outside of HYP wouldn’t even be a curiosity, it would just be a fact, just like “I study chemistry” or “I was born in Chicago.”</p>
<p>For the most part, kids attending elite schools are extremely bright and motivated. Most are not geniuses. Most ARE engaging, ethical, and well-rounded people with a range of interests and talents. A few are passionless drones who sacrificed their childhoods to a singular and possibly unethical pursuit of a narrow standard of achievement. At an elite school, a student is more likely to be pushed. He will probably encounter more advanced science and math and more difficult literary texts. He is also better positioned than peers at lesser schools to get into certain graduate schools and obtain certain jobs. These are all significant advantages that, to many, justify spending extra money, if they have it, to send their kids to these schools. As you get lower down the ladder of prestige, the advantages are proportionally reduced and the cost-benefit analysis has to be recalculated.</p>
<p>There are a lot of reasons that people attend state schools. Many students there are students of average-range intellect and work ethic, which is fine, although a different kind of student might reasonably desire a different kind of peer group, especially in the classroom setting. Some percentage will be students who could have gotten into (or did get into) elite schools, but couldn’t afford to go. Some percentage will be slackers or late bloomers who are just as bright as Ivy peers, but didn’t apply themselves in high school, or at least didn’t apply themselves at a level that would have made them competitive in an elite school pool. Some will be kids from backgrounds - and I don’t necessarily mean poor backgrounds - where going to any school other than an in-state public was never even on the radar, culturally speaking. Almost anyone - including the highly gifted student - can get an excellent education at these schools, although he may have to work harder to choose the more ambitious classes/major and seek out faculty mentors. He will almost certainly be able to find like-minded people at the school, although again, he may have to look harder for them. A student who does well at a public flagship will likely have many attractive post graduation options, perhaps, if he has done VERY well, including an elite caliber graduate or professional school. </p>
<p>So what, exactly, are we arguing about here? People who send their kids to elite schools aren’t suckers, and people who send their kids to public schools aren’t setting those kids up for four years of misery and a lifetime of mediocrity. Some people will have an anti-elite school bias, and some people have an anti-public bias. That’s life; there are few areas in which you won’t find some people who agree with your choice and some who disagree, including many people whose disagreement OR agreement is ill-informed.</p>
<p>Of people subject to the two kinds of bias, I feel a lot sorrier for the state-school grad than the Ivy grad, who has any number of privileges that should make the practical effect of such opinions negligible and the emotional effect endurable. Spending a lot of time feeling sorry for victims of anti-elite bias is a lot like spending time feeling sorry for white men for being demonized - it isn’t that white men aren’t demonized in certain circles and in certain conversations, but if you look at the world around you, you’ll see that they are still doing pretty well for themselves.</p>
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<p>Sounds like my sons, except for the video games part. But seeing that both are/were computer science majors and both are interested in eventually starting their own video game design company, I’d call that exception long-term research. ;)</p>
<p>Wow, apprenticeprof- you’ve done it! You’ve Cliff-noted College Confidential - this entire site in one post. Well done!</p>
<p>sally305, not to pile on, but I do disagree that the defensiveness necessarily comes from “I pushed my kids hard, they had no social regular-kid life, and now I’m defensive about that choice.” I haven’t seen anything from TheGFG to suggest that she pushed her kids - they seem to have been very self-motivated.</p>
<h1>165 - very nice</h1>
<p>^ Excellent summary!</p>
<p>I did not mention video games and laziness in the same post. Any connection was yours, sally05. I merely said my kids restricted their play and leisure time a bit more than other students did, and none of what the spent less time doing mattered to them much.</p>
<p>Apprentice- what will we do all day now that you’ve so succinctly put all of CC in a nutshell (except of course, Bedrisers, XL twin sheets, and the evils of fraternities.)</p>
<p>Sally- give me a break. One of my kids had seen every episode of the Simpson’s multiple times by the time he applied to college. One of my kids was as much of a mall rat (although eventually switched to Salvo and Goodwill for value and low, low prices). None of my kids ever played a musical instrument, or played chess for anything but fun, or were even on a competitive sports team (to name three things that parents often push their kids to do in the interest of college admissions.) I could point to dozens of kids in my region who gave up their childhoods for competitive gymnastics, figure skating, and tennis- with parents who really thought they’d be “cashing in” in a monetary sense in addition to the bragging rights that go along with having a talented athlete in the family.</p>
<p>THOSE are the kids who are burnt out at age 20.</p>
<p>Quite a shock that this discussion has devolved into an elite-college mud-slinging contest. </p>
<p>Can’t say I’ve read the whole thread, but the 2 contexts which come to mind when I hear “you can always go there for grad school” are:</p>
<p>(1) when a kid has always rooted for a particular football or basketball team, and always hoped to cement that affinity with a degree from that school, but for some reason it just doesn’t work out at the undergrad level.</p>
<p>(2) the kid really wants to experience a particular city or part of the country (e.g., Hawaii, Colorado, NYC, or Chicago), but for whatever reason can’t find an undergrad fit in that location. In a similar vein, all of those adventurous folks who got turned off by the hoops they would have to jump through to get in Oxford, Cambridge, or other elite foreign university for undergrad, might be surprised how streamlined the process can be for grad students.</p>
<p>TheGFG, mostly I think our differences are a matter of parenting philosophy. </p>
<p>You say…
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<p>When I read this, I thought…hmm. Is that what I would say to a sixth grader—an 11-year-old child? No. Not at all. What I said to mine was things like, “It’s great you like math so much. The teachers have noticed your enthusiasm and think you’re good at it, so they’ve put you in the most advanced class. The teacher also runs the math club and they do all kinds of math competitions, so if you want you can participate in those too.” I never had to “counsel them to work hard,” because they either wanted to or didn’t. And I also declined to mention that Mr. X’s math team has won statewide and even national competitions over the years, and that participating on the team in middle school might set them up for an impressive EC in high school. </p>
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<p>Again, I guess I believe more in internal motivation. I haven’t had to encourage my kids to strive. They have chosen the things they are interested in and pursued those most enthusiastically. On the other hand, they have a pretty finely tuned BS meter and won’t do things just for “how they look” (i.e., resume-padding ECs that they don’t have a genuine interest in). My daughter is a highly accomplished dancer. ALL the motivation has come from her. In addition for being noticed for her talent, she has been singled out repeatedly for her work ethic. Not once have we had to say, “SallyJr, you need to try harder/stretch more/practice at home/watch Alvin Ailey videos if you want to have options in college and beyond.”</p>
<p>The underlying theme to a lot of your posts is hard work. I TOTALLY agree that adults should model the value of hard work to our kids. But you make the proposition an “us versus them” one. To continue with the example of my daughter, she will very likely attend a state school because she wants a ginormous campus and D1 football (she might try out for the dance team). She doesn’t take the most advanced classes (except Spanish). She DOES, however, stay on top of her work in addition to dancing 18 hours a week and working 10-15 hours a week at a part-time job that she got to help pay for her car and studio fees. She doesn’t watch TV, use Facebook or Twitter, or drink or use drugs, but she does love hanging out with her friends and going to the mall. She is a very “regular” kid, but the idea that kids like yours would judge her because of the lack of AP classes on her transcript and a perceived lacking work ethic is one I find absurd.</p>
<p>I don’t think we disagree as much as you think. But please don’t assume my advice was given because my kids lacked internal motivation (again the pushy parent meme), or that we are into padding their resumes (ugh again), or that you and your child are more into learning for learning’s sake, while we mercenary sorts are into the monetary or status rewards of education or whatever you’re thinking. And why you’d think I am implying your D is lazy, when I never met her and knew nothing about her before your post above, is beyond me.</p>
<p>Here’s the issue, at least in our district and in competitive districts in the NE with which I have some familiarity through friends: there are some games to be played, some hoops to be jumped through, and some unspoken rules to be followed which kids often don’t pick up on until it’s too late and the ship has sailed. For one thing–going back to the theme of incorrect popular wisdom which is taken as fact–many people have the attitude that middle school grades and the caliber of work done there don’t matter. “Nothing counts until high school.” They confuse the concept of a middle school transcript not forming part of what is sent on to the colleges, with the belief that the middle school record won’t carry over to the high school in any sense beyond a collection of letters in a computer file. Therefore, kids and their parents often think they’ll just get to decide their child’s high school courses, for example. Thus Johnny can have the “normal childhood” he wants now, and get all serious about academics in 9th grade, “when it counts.” Back in the day, they and their parents could just choose their high school schedule. But in reality, the math, science, English and social studies classes and their levels are all assigned to the student. Kids get exactly ONE elective choice for freshman year. ONE.</p>
<p>So, if a kid believes what he hears, he may, to use your example, employ his BS meter more than is advisable given his goals, and inadvertently get himself knocked off the academic track he would otherwise be on due to work ethic and ability.</p>
<p>There are far more examples I could give, but I have spent way too much time posting today.</p>
<p>blossom, I mostly agree with you. Competitive sports (or dance, or music, or equestrian sports) can be every bit as burnout-inducing as academic pressure. Parents can be pretty awful when they try to relive their lost glory (or achieve things they never did) through their kids.</p>
<p>^I hear you, and we have some of the same issues with the unspoken rules/games/hoops and the fact that middle school does influence the academic opportunities available in high school. I guess I can blame my laid-back parenting style for my daughter ending up in more grade-level courses than she should have–but that ship has sailed. As a result her transcript won’t tell the true story of her potential, and if college admissions people (or higher-achieving classmates) mistakenly see the absence of advanced courses as a lacking work ethic, there’s nothing we can do now. So it’s probably a good thing that she has only set her sights on a state flagship. :)</p>
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<p>I wasn’t thinking this, BTW.</p>
<p>It was clear that D1 was a good student from the earliest days of kindergarten. But sending her to Harvard never crossed my (or her) mind until halfway through her junior year of high school when we got her SAT scores back. Prior to that I wasn’t thinking beyond Berkeley - our state flagship school. So there is no way she suffered a deprived, tortured childhood being relentlessly pushed and groomed under an Ivy-or-Bust training regimen. It just didn’t exist at our house. </p>
<p>D2 was also a self-motivated, excellent student, and she pretty much just followed the path blazed by her big sister, but with her own different interests and emphases along the way.</p>
<p>courier,
in absense of a LIKE button, here is my endorsement.</p>
<p>Had UCB or UCLA been our state schools. I would have been happy. I paid into our state system since the worm 5 y o, but he was clearly not going to be a good fit. I think some kids make their own path, with no guidance from us oldies.</p>
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<p>Of course, these are the only two reason some may not value an elite university education. Sometimes it is “sour grapes” or it reflects a “limited world-view”. It could never be an intelligent and reasonable decision for any other reason of course.</p>
<p>Cut it out with the defensiveness, skiblack. “Sometimes, X …” and “Sometimes, Y …” is not the same thing as saying “And X and Y are the only two possible reasons.” You really do have a bug up your butt with people who go to elite schools (or choose them for their kids), don’t you? If you don’t value an elite education, or you do value it but not enough to pay $xx premium over a state flagship, then so be it – Great and have a nice day!</p>
<p>This thread is at a touchy 8. Would be nice of we could bring it down to a cool 4. </p>
<p>Yes? Yes.</p>