<p>Sybbie, thanks for sharing about that scholarship. I see it is for students from New York City so I was not aware of it (nor is my kid from there) but it sure sounds great. Good luck to Yankeegirl's daughter. That one would be hard to turn away if she got it.</p>
<p>Sybbie..that is the one I was refering to.
Mattmom..you hit the nail on the head, it is a form of eliteism. I call my D "the city snob". She thinks the world starts and ends with NYC ( and she has traveled to many other places). She wants to go elsewhere for college, but not down south and not to the midwest. Bottom line, whatever the reason, it's her choice.
Bridie & Sooz..you aren't telling me anything new. I think my D would love it at Vandy, but she won't even talk about it, let alone see it.</p>
<p>It's all relative. My son had a friend who grew up in Manhattan, went to Harvard, and semiseriously thought of Boston as a village.</p>
<p>Could the OP's D substitute hockey for football? My S is a freshman at Boston University which has an excellent communications school. I'm sure freshmen are welcomed at the newspaper, because S is an intern on the radio station and he's not even a COM major! </p>
<p>Ah, fit. In our house we are major major cheerleaders of fit. S was ready for a large university with many academic options in an urban setting. He considered NYU, GW, Brandeis, Johns Hopkins, and Georgetown. I think he would have been accepted at all those schools. But BU felt right, and he applied ED. </p>
<p>Too bad she won't look seriously at Northwestern. For kids who KNOW they want to be journalists, it's a great pre-professional school. I'm a Medill grad and wanted to be a sportswriter until I discovered advertising. I know several classmates who are sports editors and sportswriters on major newspapers.</p>
<p>dadX3 -</p>
<p>Penn State has a sports journalism specialty within the j-school...</p>
<p>I think all of our kids are just trying to find a "good fit". I think there are really smart - and less smart - kids at every school. Even if your child does not go to an Ivy, there will definitely be smart kids at any school. Sometimes the kids considered "gifted" are those who studied all day and night with the goal of getting into a specific college. They worked hard and earned their admission, but they are not necessarily "smarter" than the student who didn't buckle down until later in life. When I think of the people I know who have become famous in the business world, all of them went to State Schools (of course this is coincidence, there are many from Ivies who are spectacularly successful, too). But it should show us - and our children - that where you go to school does not determine your success or failure in life. I'm not putting down the Ivies (I went to one) but my immediate boss went to U. Wisconsin and the guy over him went to Brandeis.</p>
<p>"gifted" should not be confused with high-achieving or successful. The high-achievers are those who are of above-average intelligence and achieve high by dint of hard work. They may well be very successful in life, thanks to their work ethic. A lot of gifted people, on the other hand, are not successful, for a variety of reasons, eg. some learning or physical disability). Equally importantly, many gifted students become underachievers through not being sufficiently challenged in college or wanting to fit and therefore not nurturing their potential.
Mozart would not be Mozart if he had not practiced the piano relentlessly. But there are any numbers of kids whose parents make them practice the piano just as relentlessly but will never be Mozart. If I recall, Mozart was buried in a pauper's grave, but Salieri parlayed his more modest talent into a far more affluent life.
Anybody recall A Beautiful Mind? Just a reminder that a person can be incredibly gifted as well as incredibly pyschologically mixed up and be a not particularly admirable human being.</p>
<p>As an undergrad, class size didn't mean very much. My learning style at that point was far more book-based, i.e., I needed to review the material on the page in front of me, going quickly when I could, but pausing to review and puzzle out when something wasn't clear on the first reading. Hence, a small class wasn't much better than a big lecture - having a prof (or TA) who could clearly articulate the material in a comprehensible way was more important.</p>
<p>Brilliant profs aren't always brilliant teachers. I had a Turing Award winner for a CompSci class, and most of the time it was students at dial-up speed trying to synch up with his broadband. :)</p>
<p>Marite - just a comment when you mentioned "A Beautiful Mind" and said someone very gifted might also not be an admirable person. I am sure you did not mean it to come out this way, but the Movie was about someone who developed schizophrenia. One out of 100 people develop this devastating mental illness - it s the most common psychosis. Any of our kids could get it (it doesn't occur until your twenties in most cases). I am sensitive to this because a friend just found out her son - a college student - has it. It's devastating and has nothing to do with not being an admirable person, or an intelligent person. It's a very sad disease and it is so common we will all likely end up knowing someone who has it.</p>
<p>No. John Nash fathered an illegitimate child and treated the mother very shabbily. The reason was that she was lower class. It's in the book, but not in the movie. That's what I was referring to.</p>
<p>I stand corrected, Marite. I only saw the movie. Sorry.</p>
<p>Catherine, that's okay. I realized afterward that I had only referred to the movie.</p>