<p>cobrat - name ONE parent poster on CC who is ok with mediocre/average grades. What some of us have said was it is ok if our kids have tried their best. Just because we do not want our kids to be one dimensional doesn’t mean we exhibit the mentality of the “scions of wealth.” It is called being normal and able to enjoy many aspects of life.</p>
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<p>It would be interesting to know how that has changed in 30 years, as it seems to be society-non-grata from the standpoint of my D and her friends. Just another club / organization from their point of view, nothing that sets any kind of social tone.</p>
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<p>That’s something that you constantly attest to that is not grounded in reality. No one on here disparages students who work hard, and no one on here is sanguine about mediocre grades or a kid who isn’t showing a good work ethic towards schoolwork.</p>
<p>Wow, I stand corrected, amtc - didn’t know undergrads were living there, I thought it was just some Kellogg-ites! Personally, being right above the Whole Foods and next to the Peet’s coffee would be my idea of heaven. Seriously, I’d want to live in that location if I were to move to Evanston.</p>
<p>If anyone’s interested, here’s the education trajectory of one extremely wealthy Midwestern family:</p>
<p>GENERATION 1: Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company, never finished high school, but he did study bookkeeping at a proprietary business college in Detroit.</p>
<p>GENERATION 2: His son, Edsel B. Ford, graduated from an elite New England prep school (Hotchkiss) but apparently never attended college, instead going back to Detroit to be groomed to take over the family business, which he eventually did.</p>
<p>GENERATION 3: Edsel’s oldest son, Henry Ford II (“Hank the Deuce”), also attended Hotchkiss. He attended Yale briefly but left to join Ford Motor Co. upon his father’s death. He succeeded his father and grandfather as head of the Ford Motor Co. Henry II’s younger brother William Clay Ford, Sr. got a degree in economics from Yale. He worked in the Lincoln division and later became a Ford Motor Co. board member and chairman of the Detroit Lions professional football team. Another brother, Benson Ford, Sr., attended Princeton for two years but dropped out. He ran Ford Motor Co.’s Lincoln division and later served on the company’s board of directors. Their sister, Josephine Clay (“Dody”) Ford, apparently did not attend college, instead marrying at the age of 20.</p>
<p>GENERATION 4: The current executive chairman of Ford Motor Co., William Clay Ford, Jr. (“Bill” or “Billy” Ford, son of William Clay Ford, Sr.) also attended Hotchkiss and got a degree in history from Princeton and a master’s in management from MIT’s Sloan School of Management. Bill’s sister Elizabeth graduated from Princeton. Another sister, Sheila, graduated from Yale, and a third sister, Martha Parke Ford (“Muffie” Ford) graduated from Vassar.</p>
<p>Their cousin Edsel Ford II (son of Henry Ford II) got a business degree from Babson College. After working for the Ford Motor Co. for a time, he now sits on its board of directors. His sister, Charlotte M. Ford, “was educated in private classes in Grosse Pointe Farms, Michigan; Noroton, Connecticut; Florence, and Paris,” according to a New York Times wedding announcement. Another sister, Anne Ford, “studied fashion in Paris” after prep school, according to a wedding announcement. </p>
<p>Another cousin, Benson Ford, Jr. (son of Benson Ford, Sr.), graduated from Whittier College and now works for the Ford Motor Co. Another cousin, Walter Buhl Ford III (“Buhlie,” son of Josephine Clay Ford and her husband Walter Buhl Ford II), graduated from Cleary College in Ypsilanti, MI, and worked for the Ford Motor Co. Buhlie’s younger brother, Alfred Brush Ford, attended Tulane before joining the Hare Krishnas in the 1970s; he prefers to go by his Krishna name, Ambarish das. Couldn’t find information on their sisters. Eleanor Clay Ford Sullivan and Josephine Clay Ford Ingle.</p>
<p>GENERATION 5: One of Edsel II’s sons currently attends Georgetown; his eldest, Henry Ford III (“Sonny” Ford) got a degree in history from Dartmouth, and works for the Ford Motor Co. Another son, Calvin Ford, graduated from the University of Virginia, and works for the Ford Motor Co. Another son, Stewart Ford, graduated from Miami U (OH). William Clay Ford, Jr.’s son Will is a senior at Princeton. Elena Anne Ford, daughter of Charlotte M. Ford, graduated from NYU and now works at the Ford Motor Co. Alessandro Uzielli, son of Anne Ford and grandson of Henry Ford II, graduated from Boston University and is a Hollywood film producer, restaurateur, and the Ford Motor Co.’s liaison to the entertainment industry.</p>
<p>Lots of Yales and Princetons in that family history, but many other colleges as well, including some with less distinguished nameplates, and many family members with no college at all.</p>
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<p>There were a few posters on a thread I can no longer find who were inexplicably arguing for elimination of timing on standardized tests and for considering low IQ as a disability so they could get extra time/help on academic work/exams and special consideration from college admissions despite low grades/standardized scores. </p>
<p>I don’t know…but those are the same “any academic standards are too elitist” type arguments I read about from the loopy educational activists and politicians who forced CUNY/CCNY to implement open admission which caused its dramatic academic decline within a few years and almost succeeded in their attempts to close down public magnet schools. </p>
<p>Oddly enough, most folks I’ve known IRL who make such arguments tend to come from upper/upper-middle class families and a disdain/suspicion of those with high academic achievements.</p>
<p>cobrat - you make a lot of generalization with very little data point. You certainly meet a lot of interesting (or strange) people because I don’t know anyone who has disdain or suspicion of high academic achievements, whether they are of high/low/middle social economic class.</p>
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<p>I take it you/your social circle never heard anyone disdainfully called a grinder, bookworm, nerd, geek, etc in K-12. Or attended a mainstream American public school where academic high achievers who weren’t social butterflies, athletes/cheerleaders, or wealthy/well-connected were disparaged by classmates and sometimes even other parents/school staff. Really?</p>
<p>While my experience with this was limited to a couple of years in public middle school, dozens of undergrad classmates recounted having been ostracized and bullied for being highly academically engaged and achieving from their mainstream American high schools whether it’s from an upper/upper-middle class suburb to the poorest inner-city neighborhoods. </p>
<p>From my brief middle school experience and the college classmates’ K-12 experiences…it wasn’t considered cool to be exceedingly smart or even highly interested in academic/intellectual matters without attracting negative attention from the bullies. </p>
<p>Even Hollywood acknowledged this to some extent with movies like Revenge of the Nerds. While it may be a movie, such movies weren’t created out of a vacuum.</p>
<p>Yes, it’s true that in middle or high school it’s not cool to be academically inclined. But we are all grown ups now. Who on this board is disdainful of academic achievement? Chirping crickets.</p>
<p>IRL my kids had a lot of friends who were very attractive, very involved with various ECs at school, and also did well in high school then went on to some top tier colleges. I don’t think I ever heard their parents say, “Oh gosh, I wish Jenny didn’t do as well in school so she could be more popular.” On the other hand, I would hear some parents say, “I wish Kaitlin would have spent a little bit more on school work and a bit less on social life.”</p>
<p>Which, of course, is not the same thing as “I wish Jenny would just blow off schoolwork altogether.”</p>
<p>And posters who have opinions on learning disabilities and advocate accordingly are NOT the same as “any standard is too academically elite.”</p>
<p>“Or attended a mainstream American public school where academic high achievers who weren’t social butterflies, athletes/cheerleaders, or wealthy/well-connected were disparaged by classmates and sometimes even other parents/school staff.”</p>
<p>Other students? Possibly. </p>
<p>Other students’ parents? School staff? Nope. No one believes your tall tales that parents care enough about random classmates of their children to call then names or disparage them. You vastly overestimate the extent to which people actually think about and pay attention to other people. I was a high school nerd myself but I’m quite confident my classmates’ parents weren’t walking around calling me names. Please. Get a grip.</p>
<p>I agree that there are some anti-intellectualism out there.</p>
<p>One can see this here:
[Academia</a> and the Politics of Anti-Intellectualism | eTrilobite.com](<a href=“火狐体育直播平台,火狐体育登录”>火狐体育直播平台,火狐体育登录)</p>
<p>One can also think about egghead and bookworm, two non-flattering words, used to describe people of more academic inclination.</p>
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<p>Oh well, it goes both ways for small minded people: dumb jocks, air-head blonds… Who cares and how does this relate to the OP??</p>
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I didn’t really see this much at Y in the late '70s, and I sure don’t see it now–these days, just about everybody there is a “striver.” Even the rich kids and legacies, except maybe a few development cases, have to be very accomplished just to get in. The gentleman’s C just isn’t a thing any more.</p>
<p>“Who cares and how does this relate to the OP??”</p>
<p>Anti-intellectualism does not relate to the OP, but it does relate to the flow of this thread. It supports Cobrat’s statement #128 and contradicts Oldfort’s statment #127.</p>
<p>Notice that I did not spoke to the issue of whether or not people have non-flattering words for the less academic inclined.</p>
<p>There’s no evidence that the “wealthy elite” are any more inclined to tar smart people with the “bookworm / egghead” brush. So it’s irrelevant to the OP.</p>
<p>ARobot - the link you posted is ONE person’s view, as a matter of fact, it is someone’s rant.<br>
I don’t see how this supports the wealthy elite are anti-intellectualism.</p>
<p>Yeah, I don’t think there’s a ‘gentleman’s C’ anymore, frankly. If there was, trust me, my youngest would have pointed this out to me, repeatedly. I also do not believe there is a strong anti-intellectualism. Again: see my youngest D. </p>
<p>She was “popular,” an athlete, a class officer, and even she figured out that she had to get A’s by her sophomore year in HS. </p>
<p>And, we could get her a start almost anywhere, as long as she has a respectable GPA from a University. Nobody cares which University, but they do care about the GPA.</p>
<p>carry on.</p>
<p>It seems to me that the general public in the US has two distinct factions. There are the anti intellectuals and there are those who place academic achievement as the most important thing in the world. Both exist. Often in the same place at the same time.</p>
<p>My son, currently a rising sophomore, had a foot in both worlds when he was in high school. It was an interesting time for him. He was a football player. He was a good player. Captain, scholar athlete award winner, outstanding defensive player, etc…Many of his team mates wondered why he bothered to put any effort into his school work beyond what he needed to remain academically eligible to play.</p>
<p>He was also a top student. Top 5% at a private, college prep school. His schedule included all honors/AP classes. He won several academic awards and also logged many more community service hours beyond what was required for HS graduation. Many of his classmates wondered why he would take so much time away from his schoolwork to play football. They considered sports to be a waste of time.</p>
<p>Now that he is in college (still playing football) this dichotomy doesn’t seem to exist for him. All his team mates are smart and accomplished. His classmates seem to value his experiences outside of academia. But high school was a different story.</p>
<p>So-with regard to the anti intellectual/academic achievement argument, both sides are probably right to an extent.</p>