<p>is our ambivalence about the quest for status. What will the world at large think about me if I go to [name of school goes here, henceforth NOFGH]? Will they view me as smart, accomplished, foolish, a partier, a snob? (Greybeard)
Great question.</p>
<p>Of course, the irony is often that the child is seeking a modicum of status in the eyes of their parents/family as a proxy for the world itself. </p>
<p>Having had the pleasure of following the eloquent conversations on cc with an ignorant and excited curiosity for the past few months, it occurs to me that the status-seeking sub-text is more likely to be found in the posts of the parents which are often only clever-coy by halves.
The kids themselves are usually a bit more up front about their need for prestige/status (when/if they are aware of it). This parental-yearning is particularly apparent in discussions addressing the best way to prepare ones child for admissions (though usually referred to as life-experience etc.)summer programs, IB, AP course selection, competitions, better fit, stats etc. Few would hope their child to forgo the advantages of Harvard and build a shack on Walden Pond. </p>
<p>Such threads run across theses boards like train-tracks slapped across Penn Station. Having participated in a number of them I can speak from experience.</p>
<p>On the other hand, all of us want the GOOD for our childrenin the Platonic/Aristotelian sense. The GOOD is, inter alia, seen as prestigious. Moreover, it is often unclear what the GOOD might be for our children so we often rely on the chattering-classs estimation of how a particular school is viewed within the public at large to reinforce our splintered understanding; that is to say, the public view is not only, ipso facto, prestige-itself, but an honest indicator of what is believed to be good - publicly. How could a responsible non-expert-parent ignore the public assessment of what school is goodor better?</p>
<p>Due to our own parental ignorance of what was good, we pretty much followed our daughters lead and did no more than to affirm what she came to believe about this or that schoolbut we were never unaware of what the public opinion of this or that school would be; we read the books, talked to GCs and listened to our family and friends and maneuvered in the background.</p>
<p>Lastly, there is a lot of talk about fit: a nebulous concept in the best of circumstances. Is it really simply a combination of like/dislike, program (though the majority of students do not seem to know what they will do with their lives at this point and thus have no idea what their major will be) and public information/opinion (prestige as-such)?
Our daughter loved her pick, Dartmouth, so much that we had to back-track to feel comfortable with Dartmouth on the turn around (I liked Swarthmore, my wife liked MIT). I pretty sure our daughter picked the school she did for the environment and kids attending it: basically smart laid-back kids she sees as she views herself; I dont think it was the prestige/program of the school. I dont believe you can call this fit, but rather a question of personal identity; she thought of Dartmouth students as my-kind based on the identity of the students, not the school.</p>
<p>Maybe at worst. I believe in fit very strongly because I have seen many times what happens when a student is a good fit for a school and when he or she is not. Not to mention the number of transfers every year....</p>
<p>And I disagree that it is SIMPLY a matter of personal identity - of finding like-minded peers. My son "fits" at his school like a hand in a glove, or maybe even moreso, like white on rice, not simply because of peers but because of the verfy specific programs, teachers, opportunities, geography, and more.</p>
<p>Fit is far, far, FAR more important than prestige or anything else. I know others on this board disagree with me ("fit is what we can afford!" they might say) but that's their view. As for others whose kids would fit at any one of a 100 schools - well, it depends on how deeply one has developed into an individual, knowing what he or she wants. The more unformed one is (and that's not a criticism - we are all unformed to some degree), the more places will fit.</p>
<p>Fit is far, far, FAR more important than prestige or anything else. </p>
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<p>I agree with this ... and also don't think fit and prestige are that closely connected. </p>
<p>Alexandre is terrific at providing lists of private Us, public Us, and LACs that fit a student's academic interests and accomplishments. Within any tier there are a ton of schools, all of which can provide a great education for a student. To me the bigger question is to find the fit ... programs, small/large, city/rural, diversity (or not) of students, etc. Among those many schools in a tier a bunch will "fit" the student better. </p>
<p>One case where "fit" and prestige might conflcit is where a student excels when they are the big fish in a small pond (more self confident or whatever) ... then the best "fit" might lead to a lower tier school than a review of the stats might suggest ... but to me this scenario is the exception.</p>
<p>The more common situation is picking among the many-many choices in the appropriate tier ... where "fit" is big player in that choice ... and where prestige among these choices will be roughly similar among grad schools and major employeers.</p>
<p>I dont disagree with what I read in the elaborate and well stated description of fit posted above. It seems right. </p>
<p>What I hoped to get across is that fit is subjective to extremis. I may be wrong, but unless a student is fated/determined to major in engineering, pre-med, pre-law (pre-professional) most of the top schools are going to offer good teachers, programs, opportunities in general; although, there may be a difference in the humanities/science emphasis of a particular school or school type (public U, private U, LAC, tech). It may be possible, but if feels unlikely that students forgo a particular school because it does not offer a specific opportunity. </p>
<p>I believe even teenagers are more intuitive then we may believe, and they are probably better readers of other kids/students than they are of programs/opportunities, as one is subjective and private, and the other is objective and universal. </p>
<p>Thus fit as a subjective evaluation will tend to be determined by subjective/intuitive criteria e.g. the aura/attitude/feel of attending students not objective and common criteria such as program/teachers/opportunities. After an intuitive fit is established it becomes justified objectively by cherry-picking from the objective offerings of a top school and rationalized to the parents as such: "it's known as a great "such and such" school/program."
I can tell you that I'm 45 years old and my opinions had more to do with the impression made by the students my daughter meet, and we saw, on campuses than the public reputation-prestige of the school.</p>
<p>This is just my limited experience and I was curious what others thought.</p>
<p>My main point had to do with prestige and the charitable v cynical views of it, and the difference between parents relying on prestige v kids relying on prestige in college choices and the influence parental notions of prestige have on their childs decision.</p>
<p>Whos driving and whos the backseat driver?</p>
<p>As far as my younger d. is concerned, if it doesn't have Division I gymnastics, it IS a lower tier school. (And she will likely not succeed as well ACADEMICALLY, if it is not a Division I gymnastics school.)</p>
<p>She is concerned about prestige - which of these schools gets the Olympians?</p>
<p>Whos driving and whos the backseat driver?</p>
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<p>Woodwork, wow, you said what I have been thinking while reading many of the posts here on the parents board in the past few weeks. The sense that I am getting is that the current crop of "CC parents" is more obsessed with getting their kids into the "best" school than in the past. The obsession with "packaging" their kids correctly is really getting to me right now in a way it has never gotten to me in the past. I often wonder, "are the kids thinking about how to package themselves as much as the parents are?"</p>
<p>And, why should kids be "packaged" at all? There are at least 200-300 colleges and universities in this country where one can get a very decent education. The vast majority of those schools accept more students than they turn away. Why all this angst? Why is it seen as a "failure" if your child is rejected from a few schools? What message are we sending to our children?</p>
I find this very thought-provoking. Looking back on our college visits, I think S was, in fact, very intuitive in his reactions and ultimate selections. I wouldn't necessarily have codified it in your word, but I like it. He didn't really need to evaluate the programs/opportunities, did he? As the schools had already been culled from the list (more by us than by him) on that basis. And, as you say, with very few exceptions, our S/Ds are not so established in their future direction that fine-tuned evaluation of a specific program even makes sense.</p>
<p>Maybe neither parent or child are status/prestige driven. Some kids are self-driven and I believe that is an inherent trait that surfaces long before a child is conscious of "status" or "prestige." </p>
<p>If that's what my child wanted to do, count me among the few. </p>
<p>Some parents "just" want their kids to be happy, healthy, safe and sane. And some parents (and kids) don't let others define "status" or "prestige" or "success" for them; they define it for themselves. </p>
<p>and I'll end with a quote from our aforementioned literary genius:</p>
<p><<"I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings.">> Thoreau</p>
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My main point had to do with prestige and the charitable v cynical views of it, and the difference between parents relying on prestige v kids relying on prestige in college choices and the influence parental notions of prestige have on their childs decision.
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A few thoughts [ul][<em>]for me it seems impossible to determine whether and how much prestige is influencing my thoughts. I try not to let it determine my actions, advice, guidance - but it is in there in the mix of my brain activity and I don't know how to sort it out [</em>]the prestige virus is catching - from parent-to-parent, parent-to-kid and kid-to-kid. Some get a mild case of it and work right through and around it. Some have a full-blown case that crowds out almost everything else. We see this more on the kid threads than here, which brings me to [*]agreeing that the kids are more out front with their focus on prestige, the parents are a lot more conflicted about it[/ul]</p>
<p>I think "fit" is a good word and a good concept, regardless of whether it's simply like/dislike or something more complex. It means looking for what will work well for the kid in terms of all the variables - program, degree of challenge, comfort with surroundings and peers..... It's what we all should be looking for. If prestige is part of the fit, so be it. Some people, consciously or unconsciously, overtly or covertly, want the prestige. Some people want other characteristics (say, to be among top-performing students) for which prestige is a by-product.</p>
<p>Look at where I went to school (Wellesely, UCB, Stanford) and clearly I have/had the disease. I never thought to myself (and I was over 30 -gasp! - when I went to Stanford), "I want the prestige. I want people to be in awe of me." It was something innate - a kind of, hey, if-you're-gonna-go-for-it-go-for-the-best thought process. But it was a different world then. Playing loose with the numbers here, but in that world 90% of the kids here on cc would have gotten into HYPS/AWS if they wanted, not 12%.</p>
<p>All of that said, I think "fit" is often used here on cc as an explanation or rationale: we didn't go for HYPS, we were looking for "fit."</p>
<p>I'm really just trying to make the same point as jmmom (I believe you said it better than I did jmmom), that is, the prestige=objective knowledge thing always seems to be there whether we want it to be or not. It is knowledge, because it is objectively true and "out there" and because we are like sponges when it comes to absorbing what we learn/hear/read.</p>
<p>"We believe all ponds to be fathomless" because we want our lives to be fathomless; but as Thoreau proved to himself, Walden Pond was not fathomless, it had a measurable depth. I suppose I am measuring my depth as honestly as I can and I know I am not as idealistic or fathomless as I sometime think. </p>
<p>My daughter and I went to the pond after she'd visited all her schools and done all her interviews to reflect on the grand choice she was about to make. When we turned to walk away from the site of Thoreau's hut she decided she needed a stone to place on the rock pile that marks the relic of Thoreaus hut. We walked a little ways and crossed a dried up rivulet. When she looked down she saw what appeared to be an unusual stone, picked it up and held an old Indian spear-head in her hand. She took it as an omen. We took it to the museum in Concord and they told us it was about a 4000 year old spear-head. It is now her most prized possession. </p>
<p>This story was the bulk of her admissions essay.</p>
<p>You figure out the sort of school that feels like it "fits" big state U, LAC, Med size U, etc. Then you apply to schools of varying "prestige" levels (read: selectivity) that are all schools that "fit." Of the ones that admit you, you make a choice based on your own internal barometer of the fit/prestige combination best for you.</p>
<p>If my D had to choose between UCLA & Beloit, she'd pick Beloit for good fit. There is no point in chasing the prestige if you will be an unhappy misfit in the school. If she was picking between Haverford & Beloit She'd pick Haverford, because the fit would be good either place so the prestige element would count more.</p>
<p>Prestige isn't objective; it is relative. That's why the spearhead is your daughter's most prized possession while to another person it is just a rock.</p>
<p>What makes some of us crazy is when the choice is between school A, say HYPSM, with 'fit/prestige' combo and school B, say Tulane/CMU/other large merit$ school with 'fit/nice price/not prestige but not too da*n bad either' combo. That's where the searching of conscience begins, along with trying to divine how much difference there really will be in calibre of peers/classroom experience, etc.</p>
<p>Check out and see if you agree with this lineup:</p>
<p>1) quality of education (methods, class size, etc.) and offerings (strong depts./core reqs.) - Venn diagram sometimes overlaps with "prestige" - faciliates the quest for truth, beauty, and The Good
2) placement record for grad school/prof. school - including "prestige" - the outcome measure, which some would argue should be #1 - practicality intrudes
3) connections for career launching - can be just as strong at state schools or in certain departments in schools with indifferent ranking placement, but also often correlates with "prestige" - greasing the wheels for adult life - practicality again
4) "fit" - in my book, it is "everything else" that tangibly and intangibly contributes to the sense of being comfortable in a situation - including location, matching ECs, size, state, 'style' vibe of the student body, peer academic qualifications, residences, etc. etc. - a product of the student's very reasonable desire to achieve a rewarding overall life experience during college.</p>