It always surprises me just how extraordinary most of the kids of CC posters must be. It seems that for the most part they never succumb to peer pressure and never get caught up in the college rat race. They are seemingly immune to the spell of the societal and marketing cues that portray an elite education as the key to happiness and success. They would never dare become emotionally invested in their college search, or disappointed in the results. They all somehow manage to keep it all at arms length.
And the parents/posters may even be more impressive. They carefully and successfully raised their children to only and always pursue what they truly love and never for the purposes of building an application or keeping up with everyone else. They’ve managed to get their kids to internalize “Applying Sideways” from a very early age, and so they never really need to give admissions much thought at all. As for their admissions (often to elite schools), well they are all a product of realistic grasp of how the process works, and a refusal to ever compromise their passions. It was their passion which lead them APUSH and BC Calc in ninth grade, not the desire to pursue the most rigorous curriculum for college admission purposes. Pretty impressive sense of self for 13 year olds! And as for everyone else? Well they and there parents made poor choices.
I must live on another planet, because where I live, it isn’t nearly so simple. For example, it takes much more than being “ambitious” to get into the state’s flagship, and the neither those accepted nor denied would “laugh hysterically at the notion that the college admissions system is ‘broken.’” They’ve seen too many talented, hardworking, and “ambitious” kids who are rejected despite stellar qualifications. The introspective ones realize that however it worked out for them personally, there is no apparent rhyme or reason as to why, and that they could just as easily be on the outside looking in, or vice versa. That doesn’t mean they are all suicidal, or that they won’t shake it off and get on with it, but even ones who end up where they want realize that the process is flawed, and that what the required personal and emotional investment is huge and the potential payoff slim.
And of course it is a “choice” as to whether to pursue a supposedly “elite” education. But there are layers and layers of pressures (internal and external) influencing those choices. Parents, grandparents, siblings, teachers, coaches, peers, flashy marketing material, popular media, relatives, role models, rankings, profiles, test scores, aptitudes, college visits, tours, work ethic, ambition, competitiveness, etc. all have a hand on the scale, and almost all are hinting that the right “choice” is to strive for a supposedly “elite" education. It is asking a lot to expect kids to see through all this and keep the process in the proper perspective.
And of course this doesn’t apply to everyone, but it does apply to a significant segment of society that pursue the dream of an elite education, often despite their best efforts to avoid getting caught up in it for the wrong reasons.
ETA: I meant this to be a reply to the thread, not @Cascadiaparent in particular.