Pushing for College?

Parents Forum
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<p>Hey, sorry if this is controversial or bitter or a rant because I'm not sure what it'll be. </p>

<p>But I'm an international from Australia going to Phillips Academy Andover this fall as a sophomore and I went on CC just to see which school I should choose to go to (I couldn't tell a single difference out of SPS, Exeter and Andover and at times even Choate, Hotchkiss and Groton seemed the best school) and I was just blown away by this college thing. </p>

<p>When I applied for American schools I was totally naive! I didn't even know what the SSATs were testing me until the day before the test when I started 'preparing' and then I saw all these textbooks/prep books/tutoring etc that are available online. I walked into my interviews wearing a hooded jumper, jeans and Nikey Air Forces and I saw fellow applicants in suits etc. </p>

<p>I chose to go to an American school simply because I was bored of Australia and my old school but I didn't do any research (my fault I know but I was naive) so hence the ignorance. In fact I told my Choate interviewer that Massachusetts has been very cold so far despite the fact Choate is in Connecticut. </p>

<p>But now on CC I realize how much better universities in America etc are so now I am inclined to go to uni in USA rather then Australia/Britain. But I also noted that on CC the proportion of parents of Ivy League students was significantly higher then what is to be expected. Now congratulations to that but I can't help but feeling its a link that informed parents are better parents in the college applications process. You all are excellent parents with great intentions but in one way I feel annoyed as my parents don't know what the SATs were or what SAT IIs are etc (all my fault I know though as I should have researched it). They know the top universities through reputation but nothing else and thus I didn't know anything about them as well. </p>

<p>Also I'm sure some of you (I stress that the majority of you just have amazing kids and are just awesome parents) 'nudge' kids from an early age (I'm being vague here intentionally) to do things with college in mind etc. You have every right to obviously and you should (I know I would) by putting them in summer schools, making them take the SATs/ACTs in Grades 7 and 8, telling them to do/help them with their ECs from middle school to look like its a progression for college but I'm wondering whether this is common place in America in general. Note by 'you' I did not mean only CC users but parents in general.</p>

<p>Its just far too many of you (this time just CC) have Ds and Ss at top universities compared to national statistics and I'm wondering is this a common practice in America or more of a exception? </p>

<p>I'm just wondering whether thats the norm I guess and in a way I feel annoyed that I didn't know these things about ECs etc. We as a family just assumed it was academics purely that was the focus for uni. I know one should be doing ECs for purely enjoyment etc but to be perfectly honest I know tonnes of kids who are doing these things for college. Like I'd express my passions incorrectly. In Australia we don't have anything like clubs (because Australian unis are only academically focused) but I did stuff like school debating, mock trial etc because I enjoyed it. But with things like economics + politics I expressed my passions through watching CNN and reading copious amounts of articles etc while the 'American counterpart of me' would be doing internships/summer camps to show this passion. We both have the passion but his/hers will be shown on the transcript (and he/she deserves it) but its not because I was lazy or I was focusing on academics but because I never have had the information about USA. </p>

<p>Our school for example didn't have a guidance counselor at all (let alone one for American unis) and my parents aren't that informed at all. </p>

<p>I think I was just expressing everything and anything in this incoherent thread so apologies and I realize I'm only a rising sophomore but basically I'm wondering what people think about my rants and whether parents do push/shove their kids to doing things for top unis. </p>

<p>Whether they should be allowed to is a totally different issue in which for the record I'll say very prejudicially no simply because I never recieved this 'advantage' but when I think about it rationally I know it should be encouraged in fact and people like me should have researched American unis if we wanted to. But the thing is for people in countries like Australia we just simply don't think/are lectured about unis until Year 11 or 12 as its assumed in the educational system and by then its too late/difficult to do the internships/ECs/Standardized testing etc all in time for USA plus do the academic work in Year 12 (Year 12 academics is the only year that matters in Australia). </p>

<p>But sorry for the rant but I'd really like your opinions, information and thoughts on this topic and whether my bitterness (too strong a word but you know...) can even be justified. Thanks</p>

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<p>The school you will be going to is very prepared for helping you. You are not behind at all. Perhaps have someone in the guidance office recommend a general book about the US application process that your parents can read to learn how things are done here.</p>

<p>My husband and I didn't push the college research, think about your application stuff until summer before senior year. Around here that probably is the norm. No test prep. She didn't write her essay until late October, we scrambled to get a third sat2 in, and December she wrote 11 applications in 10 days ( All top schools and our local state school). And she got in almost everywhere. One does not need to obsess about this.</p>

<p>The summer of kids doing specialized summer camps and internships is actually quite small. We live in a mostly rural area where such a thing would be at least an hour drive. It is just not in our mindset. The lack of these will not break your application. Plus a whole lot of people either can't afford it or would rather be doing a summer sport or working.</p>

<p>I think that this forum's demographic tends towards the much more involved parent, either researching how to make the best of their financial situation, trying to figure out what type of college might suit their child, or offering tidbits of advice based off of previous experiences. I will admit that some of the students come across as very wound up, admissions as matter of life or death. Remember, the people most likely to post are anxious; people who are calm and feel they have it all under control do not have much to post about.</p>

<p>A lot of our state run public colleges have a more straightforward process that seems less mysterious than the private universities and colleges. Trying to decode the most selective schools' mysteries gets a lot of attention.</p>

<p>The US has hundreds of universities and colleges, many of which are awfully good just not as known. When it is time for you to look, dig a little deeper and take a look at some of the schools mentioned in the "Brag about your lesser known school" thread. You may find your perfect college.</p>

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<p>You have several different topics in one post, with at least these two questions in mind:</p>

<p>1) Will you be negatively impacted come college application time by not having been aware of SATs, ECs, etc. before recent times?</p>

<p>and </p>

<p>2) Do American parents "push" their children more than Australian parents, or are the parents on CC simply not representative of American parents in general due to the nature of this being a board where parents discuss college issues?</p>

<p>I doubt you will be hurt come college admissions by not having been in a bunch of school groups, though I am not sure as Phillips Academy Andover is one of the premiere high schools in America and I would guess most students there have access to be in many clubs and sports teams and such and a general awareness of "how the game is played" on and off the court, so if college admissions people see you went there and didn't "do as others do when in France", <em>that</em> might hurt you. If you were coming from a high school in Australia, I would think the odds of admissions people thinking, "Well, he was in Australia, and the culture is different there, so it's no wonder he doesn't have a bunch of ECs." That said, I suspect ANY applicant can get into top schools without "playing the game" but just by doing what makes sense to them, following their interests, etc. Today, it's unusual for a student to get into a top graduate program in science without having research done in undergraduate school or a pretty serious nature (often published), but our son got into a top graduate program (ranked number one in all four fields of his when he started there) without having published anything in a journal in undergraduate school (and he had opportunities to, but wanted to wait till graduate school to start publishing), so there are exceptions to every rule.</p>

<p>I'm not familiar enough with parents in Australia to compare them to American parents, but assure you that the parents on CC are NOT representative of parents in America as a whole. Their merely being on a college board shows a stronger interest in college that the average American parent has. Remember that less than 30% of Americans have a bachelor's degree, let alone one from a top college, and i suspect there is a disproportionate percentage of parents on CC who have a college degree and also who have a graduate degree and also who have a degree (or several) from a top school.</p>

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<p>Our son took the SAT at age 8 (as an 8th grader as deemed by the Johns Hopkins talent search due to his taking algebra I at the time and their feeling that was an 8th grade topic, no matter that many take the topic in 7th grade and earlier these days), but it wasn't due to us <em>making</em> him take the SAT. Quite the contrary. Our son wanted to take the SAT at age 7, when a psychologist tested him and said he should already be in a 4-year university as he was post high school level across the board academically and had a mental age in the 20's already, and should go take the SAT - no matter that he was <em>7</em>. My husband and I felt that since he was clearly doing a fine job educating himself, college wasn't necessary, so the SAT wasn't necessary, and wouldn't grant our permission for him to take the SAT then. When he was 8, he learned about some mechanical engineering CTY class where students (who paid extra, we later learned) could also get college credit from Johns Hopkins and to qualify to take the class, all one needed to do was score a certain number of the math SAT. Since we were having difficulty meeting his desires for a mentor in engineering, we figured we might let him take that CTY class, saying he scored high enough on the math SAT to qualify, and he scored well above the cut-off quite easily (no test prep other than taking the paper practice exam sent with the registration materials and one computer practice test). However, when we learned people had to pay extra for the college credit, and how much the total would be, we felt it not a good value and our son had plenty of other things going on that summer, so we actually took a pass on his ever even bothering to do a CTY summer class (though he did a couple day classes on astronomy and whatever else that were rather inexpensive). Our son wasn't "pushed" to take the SAT at age 8. What's more, when he didn't get the 1600/1600 score he was hoping for (and we did let him know nobody under 12 had ever scored a 1600/1600, so he shouldn't expect himself to), he wanted to take it again to try to get that score, and we felt it a silly goal and <em>did</em> talk him out of that goal (which he could perhaps someday hold against us, who knows). If one has an SAT score high enough to get them into their college of choice, especially with a scholarship, it really doesn't make much sense to me to take it again and again for a higher score. And a "perfect" score might even (not sure) have the likelihood of acceptance go down over a slightly less perfect score as schools seem to enjoy saying, "We didn't except X people with perfect SAT scores." They never say, "We didn't except X people with just under perfect SAT scores." And a 1590 (or 2390 today) will essentially raise their mean score just as well as a perfect score, and given that only 25th and 75th scores are usually even given anymore, anything over the 75th percentile mark might be all the same to them for all I know.</p>

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<p>And again, our son picked his ECs. A public school friend of his invited him to her school to hear her sing and during that night of entertainment, our son heard a handchime choir for his first time and thought it was really neat and I had to tell him, "Sorry, that's one thing that you won't have an opportunity to do being a homeschooler" (as our state doesn't allow homeschoolers to do <em>anything</em> as far as academics or ECs with the public schools, despite their getting the same tax money from us as from the kids who attend the schools). However, I think it was within a month of that evening that a new family moved to our county and the grandmother had been a professional handchime/handbell director in Asia and her granddaughter was just starting to homeschool, and so she started a handchime choir for homeschoolers from age 10 up, and she heard our son play music at age 6 and made a single exception for him to join the choir (he was also one of few who got to do a solo for a concert). Now I don't know of any American colleges that have handchime choirs, so I doubt our son having that as an EC would be a "hook" for any college, but I didn't care - the kid liked playing music, it was a good <em>social</em> venue (the kids played together after practices both at the director's house and at a playground), and I felt a fine thing for our son to do. His other ECs were probably similarly "different", but again, we really didn't care. he was having a good time doing things that were neither unsafe nor immoral and <em>that</em> was what was important to us.</p>

<p>Many of his ECs, by the way, were suggestions of people who were not his parents. Back when he was 3, he met this other three-year-old at a pool whose name was Nick and when he told our son this, our son joked, "I bet that's just your NICKname," which flew right over little Nick's head, but stuck with the boy's aunt and uncle, and our son never saw the uncle till 4 years later, when amazingly enough, this guy remembered our son and invited him to chat at his booth where he was letting people know about his computer users group. He learned our son had been programming (on his own for fun, not as a job) since he was 5, and while the users group had no children in it at that time, he felt our son would be helpful to the group and urged him to join, which our son did (and he was indeed helpful to the group, despite his only being 7).</p>

<p>When our son was 8, my step-mom happened to hear that her church book discussion group (a group filled with people with advanced degrees in a wide range of areas) was about to discuss a book our son had recently finished and so she called and suggested he attend that book discussion to discuss that book. Again, this group had never had a child in it, but after hearing our son's comments that first day, they convinced him to stay in the group for book after book (and he only left the group once he started college). So a number of his ECs weren't even with high school or chronological peers (though many were).</p>

<p>People online so often <em>assume</em> that students who are at top colleges and/or advanced academically must have been pushed, rather than that they were given opportunities to try a lot of things out and go with their interests (as our son describes his own history), or in some cases (like one of our son's friends who started college at 11 and was in a top physics doctoral program at 16 or 17) were early to have a single passion or maybe just two or three passions and <em>allowed</em> to really focus from an early age rather than to be <em>pushed</em> into being "well-rounded" to please those who feel that important. This isn't to say none of the students at top colleges and/or advanced academically haven't been "pushed" as certainly, some have been, but you just really can't know unless you know the family, or at least the individual.</p>

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<p>Not all parents on this forum have children in elite schools. Most of us do have children in colleges, but the 'status' varies widely. </p>

<p>That said your observation is correct (I believe.) The parents here are not representative of parents accross America. Most American students go to their state schools -- many of them are fantastic universities, but still, they're the local universities. The "push" or simply expectation that kids go out of state, to highly selective or private schools is not universal. Most American students (well over 90%) go to public schools and their counseling for college varies greatly -- usually the richer the school, the better counseling. </p>

<p>And by the way, few schools will prepare their students or advise their students better for college -- even the most demanding colleges! -- than Andover. You will be in fine hands. With good grades and test scores you will do just fine. Congratulations on getting into Andover. Don't forget to make the most of this amazing opportunity -- and that includes having fun.</p>

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<p>Thank you very much for all your advice and to Lazybum, you must have the most wonderful child ever so congratulations! </p>

<p>You're very right katliamom, I'm only a rising sophomore and Andover seems a great school so thanks everyone. </p>

<p>But have any of you know of parents who specifically pushed their kids and their kids eventually ended up at a top college?</p>

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<p>Neither you nor I know all the children in the world, shore, so it would be going overboard to say my child is the most wonderful ever, but he's a good guy and we are delighted to have him as a member of our family. I can't take congratulations overall as most of who he is he was simply born lucky enough to be. The genetic toss of the dice could have been quite different for him.</p>

<p>As for knowing any parents who pushed their kids and their kids ended up at a top college, I suppose my father was somewhat pushed. He was a child prodigy in New York City on the violin and was admitted to Juilliard, but he was assigned a teacher who was not the best of the violin teachers and he took this to mean he would never been the next Heifetz and he felt if he couldn't be a world class violin soloist, he should do something else as a career and so went to an Ivy college's physics doctoral program and became a physicist. Whether his parents ever pushed him academically, I can't say. I just know my father said that his father made him practice the violin as a young child. And he did play first chair violin in a community orchestra till he was 80 and the conductor died and the group broke up after having been together for something like 50 years. While he played very well (both by ear and reading music), he <em>never</em> practiced all the while I've been in the world other than the once a week practices with the orchestra. So he loved to play, but only with an orchestra - never again on his own. Oh, and back to academics, I do know his mother pretty much raised my father to consider a college education a must do sort of thing, despite her and her husband having done quite well for themselves as emigrants turned business owners who never went to college. Indeed, my father told me the best thing he feels his mother ever did for him (and she lived to be 92 and did quite a lot for him, I suspect) was to move the family to NYC so he and his younger sister (who got a college degree and then became a multi-millionaire business owner) would be able to get a free college education. And while my father expressed being "pushed" to play the violin, he never said this was a bad thing - indeed, he felt it was a good thing and feels we did our son a major wrong by failing to push him to stick with lessons and practice the lessons teachers asked him to practice (meanwhile, he didn't feel my brother did his children any harm by not pushing them to take music lessons as he felt our son had natural music talent that was quite unusual while he felt the other grandchildren did not, so it wasn't like he felt <em>all</em> children should be pushed, but he felt those who showed natural talent should be).</p>