“Teleia mentioned “exceptional” people on CC – I don’t see that that’s a reference to your kids.”
She actually does specifically reference my kid. “You consider YOUR Ivy attending kid exceptional”. Hope that helps.
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How many people have read the contract for their cell phone provider? Or any online click through agreement to terms/conditions? Or disclosures for medicines? I remember telling the title company that she should send me copies of our loan/mortgage docs so I could read in advance (otherwise I would read them there). She said nobody did that.
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My mom considers my brother and me exceptional. It’s what parents do. It’s not a dis. Move the conversation forward everybody
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Your brother is exceptional😀
And this is the part of college confidential I don’t like…I said I did not know what you meant when you made the distinction between your normal kids and your other kid. I assumed you meant exceptional but I don’t know. I will reiterate that I would never dream of insulting anyone’s kid and if you like we can have a conversation about exceptionalism if you like.
Not here. Take it offline if necessary.
I read them there. They regretted not sending them in advance. I found lots of mistakes 
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An important piece that people conveniently overlook is that of the total number of athletes who contact one of the Harvard head coaches as part of their recruiting process, only a small percentage become an admitted recruited athlete. Of course these numbers aren’t made public but I would estimate it’s in the single digits.
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I have been involved in youth sports for about 10 years as a volunteer in all kinds of roles, from coach to organizer. One of the things that always struck me about youth sports is how parents internalize their kid’s athletic success within a narrow sphere of achievement (athletic success at the town, regional, state level) as if the parents were somehow responsible for it. The most arrogant and difficult parents are usually the ones whose children are the best players. There is a sense of parental entitlement because little Johnnie or Jane is a little faster and/or bigger and/or more coordinated than the rest of the kids on the field/court/ice. A good term for these kind of parents is “Parent Peacock”.
The Parent Peacock dynamic is 10x’d on CC when it comes to college acceptances. Parents of T20 students find a way to frequently let everyone know that their kid got into a top school, and that they are therefore superior parents. This is a thread that started about a parent expressing very honest and heartfelt feelings about the stress of the process, and in response we have dozens of posts by multiple posters blaming parents for not better appreciating the inadequacy of their children. According to these posters, if parents and kids are stressed, it is because they are not smart enough to realize they are not smart enough. And these posters use the fact that their child got into a T20 as evidence that they know what they are talking about. Parent Peacocks.
To those that feel stressed by the process, you are not alone. Picking a college is a very big decision on a lot of dimensions, and it is OK to feel stress. My advice would be to focus on the things you can control. I would argue that includes focusing on colleges that are good fits for your kids, and ignoring the PP’s that tell you some version of your kid needs to attend an Ivy League or fill-in-the-blank-bad-thing. There are a lot of paths to success and happiness.
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I see stress in this thread and I’m happy that neither my kid and I are stressed. But we barely started paying attention to college search. Hope we stay stress-free.
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You have to work at it! (lame joke but not untrue - the stress trap is always waiting for you)
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Perhaps the CC site is in need of a more appropriate re-name? 
Bonus points to the parents who manage to squeeze in to every response that their kid is at a “tippy-top” T-20.
In my daughter’s sport, I have experienced the opposite. Usually the loudest, most obnoxious parents have kids who are at the bottom of the sport (likely due in part to the humiliation they feel from their parents’ behavior as well as the constant badgering and parent-coaching on the sidelines). My guess is that the parent behavior is correlated with the frustration that their child is not the team superstar (or, they delusionally think their child is, and is being slighted by the coach). These kids are the ones that I’ve seen frequently changing teams and never really excelling in the sport, eventually dropping it altogether. The parents of the natural athletes, who are acutely aware of the gift their child possesses - those are usually the quiet ones.
I wholeheartedly agree with you about the parent-internalizing.
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In our community parents are no longer allowed to coach their own kids to eliminate “Daddy Ball”. Parent coaches weren’t viewed as objective. This appears to be a trend.
When this “independent coach” model was implemented parents were offered and encouraged to coach up or down a year (avoiding their kid) to support their community. No surprise but very few did.
Our rec teams have improved, drama has lessened, and the kids are much better prepared to deal with HS coaches, criticism and disappointment. In many ways it serves as a first step in preparing kids for the brutality of the college admissions process.
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I coached in a leageue 30 years ago which didn’t allow parents to be head coaches. They could be assistant coaches. 25 years ago I was the only head coach in a baseball league who did not have a son on the team. I think its better to have non-parents involved but that is not always an option.
Of all the various hooks/admission keys, which ones are viewed as most valid, earned or appropriate?
I dislike that athletics is a major factor in college admissions. But that’s reality, and among the hooks, athletics is the one that is earned on individual merit (what a student has done) as opposed to what favored group the student fits in.
Note that I do not consider low-income or first-generation as hooks, but just as useful ways to adjust for having fewer opportunities to excel.
That article is based out of my city. Totally agree with the viewpoint.
I didn’t mean parents as official team coaches, but rather the “cross-coaching” that happens from the bleachers. Some kids are trained from an early age to hear mom or dad’s voice above all others. My husband has coached elementary and middle school ball for years and I’ve been witness numerous times to him coaching a player, only to have dad (sorry, it’s usually the dads) call her over and “adjust” the coaching.
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The difficult parents can be up and down the bench, from the stars to the last player on the team, but the really toxic, team sabotage stuff usually comes from the Parent Peacocks. A parent whose kid is at the end of the bench may complain about playing time, but they can’t nuke the whole team like a parent whose kid is one of the best players. And if the parents of two of the best players are not getting along, watch out.
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Aren’t the camaraderie and teamwork in sports the primary justification for their inclusion in the evaluation of college applicants?
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Like most things in life, there is no magic bullet solution. The parent coaches do present problems. They can play favorites (this can happen with any kind of coach TBH), and the coaches that are most abusive of the game officials are almost always parent coaches. On the positive side, they are more effective at dealing with parent drama than non-parent coaches. Non-parent coaches tend to not be as invested in the team, and in my experience they tend to cancel more practices than parent coaches and they will usually play fewer games than parent coaches.
Younger non-parent coaches in their 20’s are often the best because they know more modern styles of play and practices than older coaches, and can relate well to the kids. Baseball, football and basketball have changed a lot in the last 20 years. These coaches need a lot of support from the organization for dealing with parents, because a few parents will try to steamroll younger coaches. At the end of the day, there are good coaches and bad coaches, and the organization running the teams can only do the best they can.
All of the above goes for AAU/Travel level competitive sports. For town rec leagues, I prefer parent coaches, and I generally take who I can get. The organization running the league has to be prepared to support the coaches who have no idea what they are doing. The only goal of a rec league is for everyone to have fun, so the quality of the coach is less important than the right disposition and an ability to get kids to have fun.
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I miss these days! After years of school & travel ball, my daughter ended her softball career playing for “fun” on a 18U rec ball challenge team. Surprisingly, due to Covid screwing up the high school & travel ball seasons, there were a fair share of recruited players playing on these teams - so the “challenge” was real, but FUN! The coaches let the girls decide what positions they wanted to play. It was so nice to see them smiling, laughing and remembering why they enjoy the game! A great way to end 
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