Snarkly comments about athletic recruitment

<p>Oh, poor kid! He’ll get the double whammy: the accusation that he only got in because he’s African-American will be added to the one that he only got in because of sports!</p>

<p>^ I doubt that kind of thing occurs at Stanford. Do you think Toby Gerhart is mocked at by Stanford students for being a football stud? :P</p>

<p>Monstor, the thread is mostly referring to what local or high school peers, neighbors and “friends” say.</p>

<p>^^ The good news for him is that its unlikely anyone was looking to attend either S or H from Great Falls so no snarkiness on that front. He’s more likely to get comments along the lines of “Where is that and why would you want to go so far away?” :slight_smile: Being a semi-local, I’m only too familiar with the college thinking of the local denizens.</p>

<p>^^Really?? People from Montana are going to wonder where Harvard and Stanford are?</p>

<p>key, they’ll know about Stanford, but truly, Harvard is a very abstract concept to those of us who live in small population states far from New England. At our house, until spring of my daughter’s junior year, we could name 2 Ivies, and didn’t know how many others there were. I’m not kidding. In our state, top students focus on western name schools like S, UW, and UC Berkeley. The Ivies might as well be on Mars.</p>

<p>hey, the CC clock is screwed up, key. That’s why it appears I’ve answered your question four hours before you asked it. I’m pretty perceptive, but not prescient :)</p>

<p>^ Yes. I’m in a boondocky, flyover, mountain time zone state, and few here know anything about “back east” colleges. Before my son started his college search I couldn’t have named more than two Ivy League schools, much less their locations.</p>

<p>Around here, if you say “Penn”, people say “Yeah, Penn State?”</p>

<p>Everyone recognizes and respects the Harvard name, as in they “know” its the best but they don’t know why.</p>

<p>We’ve heard no snarky comments about DS’s Princeton acceptance because, I surmise:</p>

<ol>
<li> In HS he was known as a scholar more than an athlete. Val, head science tutor, sport was outside of school.</li>
<li> It was “only” P, not H. Few know enough about it to be impressed or jealous.</li>
</ol>

<p>^They might not know, key. I can tell you that here on the east coast, everyone knows HYP but many kids have asked D where Stanford Univ. is. Their first guess is Connecticut, because there’s a town named Stamford in CT. And yes, the comment after that is “Why would you want to go so far away?” Which reminds me of another snarky thing one woman said: “Do you and your D not get along, that she wants to go so far away to college?”</p>

<p>Still, it seems that people in my state are pretty open to their kids attending school up to 4 hours away along the NE corridor. After that, it’s too far. S went 6 hours away and people commented on how far that was. So what happens is that people only hear of kids attending a certain subset of schools, so those schools become the accepted universe of possibilities. A school outside that list is slightly shocking, somehow. You dare to go there?</p>

<p>wow, our kids are fortunate. as are we. i was just looking at a thread in the parents forum about the op’s D sobbing for days after she was rejected from columbia ed yesterday. and how she and her friends are under enormous social pressure to get in to top schools…prep school kids in this case. are there bigger problems in the world? sure but i can sympathize with these kids and parents.</p>

<p>my D turned down a LL to Columbia weeks ago. so i can take a little snarking…my kid got a dream admissions process compared to all the stressed out kids out there right now.</p>

<p>gfg: i like what i’m hearing about your D’s interest in that unkown school that her friends think is in CT. toby is going to get the heisman! the doak walker award tees him up nicely!</p>

<p>Yes, we are very fortunate, and yeah, D turned down a LL from Columbia too. So, you’re right, this is small stuff and I am grateful for D’s options. But people have been kind of nasty and I do resent the implication that D’s choices just dropped in her lap as easy as that. They didn’t. What the snarks don’t realize or choose to overlook is the long and difficult process skrlvr decribes above.</p>

<p>Recruiting has been extremely time-consuming and emotionally draining. We started with 12 schools and eventually pared down to the final 2. But along the way there were long- distance visits–both unofficial and official–e-mails with performance updates, phone calls received and made, FA forms to submit for pre-reads, confusing game-playing from coaches with a few lies thrown in which we had to ferret out, subtle emotional pressure, and so on. Just yesterday, one of D’s final 2 schools pulled a stunt on her which threw her for a new loop. Sigh. Can’t wait until this is all over.</p>

<p>You’re absolutely right, pacheight. Our athletes and we, their families, are really fortunate. In hindsight our S didn’t even view the process as stressful (though I did) - I think he really enjoyed the whole adventure. And it was wonderful to have a decision long before April.</p>

<p>GFG - hope the “new stunt” one of your D’s schools has pulled doesn’t present a real problem?? Keep us posted!</p>

<p>GFG if the first two choices sour, let me know. I’m sure she’d be very welcome at another school nearby :)</p>

<p>LOL, riverrunner! If it were up to me, she’d have picked that school already.</p>

<p>We’ve spent an emotional evening plotting our next move in the game. D stomped off to her room to chill–the tension was too much for her.</p>

<p>So far the worst comments have been no comment at all, not even a congratulations. Yes, jealousy is the problem. It’s so funny because when others’ children have been accepted to their first choice colleges, I have been very congratulatory. When mine got accepted to a top engineering school (not for athletics) I got, “maybe it was because she’s a girl”. I could have answered, well, maybe yours got into XXX because or her hispanic last name.</p>

<p>All in all, these last couple of years I have experienced disappointment in people I thought were my good friends. As for my daughter’s latest accomplishment with her early verbal, I’ve been quiet, telling only those who ask. It’s too painful to realize your friends aren’t really that at all but your competitors.</p>

<p>It’s hard to write off those experiences by saying, “Oh well, I guess they weren’t really my friends” because in many ways they truly were good friends–people close to us that we trusted. I’ve asked myself if I have ever said, or would ever say anything like what people have said to me, and I honestly don’t think I have or would. I suppose I might have sniped at home to my family, but I love my friends too much to deliberately insult or hurt them like that. I’m sure my bad stuff oozes out at times, but I know for a fact I have never criticized to anyone’s face the school their child was accepted nor insinuated anything negative about why their child applied to or got into that school. Maybe it’s easier for us to be nice because our children have done well, but as I’ve said, it seems it’s the parents of similarly successful kids who are the worst ones.</p>

<p>Honestly, it is almost like a game to me, where I try to completely separate my emotions from the reactions of others. I know how exciting and awesome this is, and sometime, that has to be sufficient.</p>

<p>My D is being recruited for crew. When the mother of one her former classmates, who is a boy rowing at another prep school, learned that in my Ds first season, she made varsity’s first boat, she said “oh well, that would never have happened if she went to my son’s school…”, implying that my Ds team is weaker than the girls team at her son’s school (completely not the case - they are well-matched competitors). This family has poured all of their resources of time and money into their son’s future D1 crew aspirations, and have done so for years, so objectively, I can understand they might be miffed that my D just walks on to a team, and has it all work out so quickly for her, as a sophomore (last year). They are completely focused on an ivy recruiting their son, and are openly rude about just about any male from their son’s school who has currently committed to a school, as an athlete - I don’t understand feeling competitive with students who are a year older than your own child!?!</p>

<p>Now that this mother knows that my D is in the recruiting process, she is telling me how much easier it is for girls, SO much more competitive for boys, etc. etc. It must be exhausting to be that competitive, and not be able to just enjoy the achievements of others.</p>

<p>However, instead of getting really annoyed, I try to focus on feeling like the end result will speak volumes. Right now however, I comfort myself with snarky thoughts about all of the really great schools/coaches that are actively interested in my D, whereas her S has yet to experience anything like this level of interest…of course, I am keeping my smirks to myself! And doing my best not to dwell on ridiculous stuff like this!!</p>

<p>^^I do feel bad for this woman’s son, though. Imagine how much of a failure he must feel like not being able to meet his mother’s expectations.</p>

<p>Our D is a college soph and I remember there was a lot of tension and competition senior year, within the school and within the sport. And some people handled it much better than others, some parents just get too caught up and emotionally vested in the process. When April rolls around everyone knows where they are going and gets excited about their particular schools, I think the tension fades. And starting next fall, it’s a whole new group of friends and your kids are spending time with kids just like them, students with a passion for a particular sport. All this other stuff fades quickly away.</p>

<p>mayhew: that woman sounds nasty. Or as Bill Murray used to say an “ignorant s…”</p>

<p>she not only insulted your D’s school and team but it sounds like she said your D wouldn’t be good enough to make the top team or boat or whatever you call it in crew, at her kids school. and it’s easier for girls than boys to get recruited, that sounds like a title IX bs argument. The fact is there are thousands of woman rowing just like there are thousands of men, so anyone, man or woman, who makes it to and through college recruiting is equally deserving.</p>