<p>I thought intelligent is not the same as intellectual. Same with intellect, isn’t that correct from reading this thread?</p>
<p>I was using the terms loosely. Intelligence does not mean intellect: you can be intelligent and not an intellect. However, I would say, being an intellectual requires a certain level of intelligence.</p>
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<p>Good Lord, you drug up a few rare geniuses, and had to go back as far as Chopin, Mozart, and Pascal to do it. Remove the musical prodigies from your list and it shrinks substantially. The original post said “most” - that’s ridiculous. The majority of accomplished scientists, authors and intellectuals (even a lot of geniuses) performed their most important work after they began attending university and after they turned 20. Einstein, Feynman, John Von Neumann, John Nash, Linus Pauling, Marie Curie, Isaac Newton just a few names off the very top of my head. And I suspect that for at least a few of them, nobody would have predicted their tremendous breakthroughs when they were 15 years old.</p>
<p>Norbert Wiener is known as a rare prodigy. In fact I think his autobiography uses the term “Ex-Prodigy”. Very, very few people are on the level of Norbert Wiener.</p>
<p>And most writers need at least a little life experience to write anything decent. I stand by my original comment and think a person needs to be a little more precise in their wording.</p>
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<p>Edit: Gee. That’s not any pressure on a kid, is it? Wonder what the kid would have wanted without your badge? Maybe the same thing. Who knows? We all do what we think best.</p>
<p>Cur, that pressure would be light compared to someone I know having to walk around Dairy Queen Paradise (aka Central Texas) with … such a badge. Now, a badge with “I want my kid to shine under the bright Friday Night Lights” that is … money! ;)</p>
<p>I wouldn’t have added Bobby Fischer to a list of child prodigies in a positive sense given his tragic later years.</p>
<p>JHS, thank you for acknowledging that all the Life of the Mind stuff “DOES risk spilling over into pretentiousness.” I have a certain antipathy toward pretentious people. These are formative years for our kids. Did I think that perhaps my S, should he attend Chicago, would become a person I might end up not liking? I think so. Anyway, where he is now (and I don’t want to drag that into the discussion!), despite his overall problems adjusting…I’m liking him. :)</p>
<p>Edit: I’m NOT saying that all kids who attend Chicago are pretentious! I did see it as a danger for my own kid, however.</p>
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<p>LOL! As opposed to what started this thread - which encompasses a discussion of a high school atmosphere in which HYP and pretty much only HYP were valued (and phooey on U of C, Rice, Wellesley and other schools)? hyjeonlee’s “I want my kid to be an intellectual” (and note that she’s only applying that to her kid who actually has those qualities, and not pushing S2 in that direction since he marches to a different drummer) seems pretty tame compared to, apparently, all the affluent suburbs in the Northeast for whom “I want my kid to go to an Ivy” is de rigueur.</p>
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<p>I think, that given sufficient time, you’ll be able to find plenty of contradictory “measures” on College Confidential. I believe you will find plenty of people who are clearly in awe of academic achievements and elevate such achievements to measures" of superior intellect of superior intelligence. And, you will find plenty of people who are irritated by the recurrent expressions of “Ivy League or bust” and others who cannot stand the mere reporting of a public Ivy. Throw in the love/hate for LACs and you have quite a hodgepodge of opinions. </p>
<p>The reality is that it is easy to applaud positions that espouse our own and hard to understand --let alone-- forgive the ones we find contrary to own perceptions or values. It is equally easy to develop affinities for schools that happen to appeal to us, or even better, placed us (or our family members) in the admit pack. On the other hand, it is easy to do just the opposite with schools that seem to attract applicants with whom we find few connections or similarities. And so it goes!</p>
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<p>Well, then, might as well send all the kiddos to Southwest Directional State U where the qualifications to get in are a pulse and a checkbook. I mean, there ARE going to be smart kids there too.</p>
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And , apparently, goes , and goes, and goes.</p>
<p>Those even in academia have to deal with plumbers, car mechanics and the phone company.</p>
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Here’s the OP by nmd
Y’all did the rest. For what reasons, I have no idea. (Though I may have my suspicions. ;))</p>
<p>Hey, curmudgeon, don’t be coy…after all, we believe that argumentation rather than deference is the route to clarity!!</p>
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<p>Well no, my spouse does that. For the record, I am female and not in academics ;)</p>
<p>aaah mummom, that would spoil the fun. I’m sure the intellectuals on this thread will have no trouble deciphering. Anyway, I don’t have the ups to play above the rim like they do. I just muddle along reading what’s written in the OP. What others were able to divine just amazes me. Now to stumble back to my foo’ball , beer, and belching.</p>
<p>re Post # 331:</p>
<p>You betcha’ ;)</p>
<p>Just ask Sarah Palin… :)</p>
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<p>Never told my kids to study harder. Never asked them when the exams are. Never told them they have to go to the top schools. Never asked about their school progress. Never asked them to do certain dog and ponny show type ECs so that they can pad their college appl package. Whatever they do to go to the kind of college they want to be at was entirely left up to them. Only intervened when they ran out of options and asked for my help. I do a lot research so that I can be a good “resource” in their college strategy.</p>
<p>However, all of our vacations were in culturally enriching and intellectually stimulating places: no vacation time wasted in international resorts, it was rather spent in remote places off the beaten track in faraway place in the world or museums all over the world. We provided an “intellectual” environment and it’s in the way my H and I spend our time, but that’s very different from “forcing” them to live up to our expectation.</p>
<p>By the way, S2 wants to join the Army - not exactly the “life of the mind” intellectual path. His goals and ambitions are ENTHUSIASTICALLY supported by me. Took him on a tour of world war I and II battle fields in Europe. The only input I had that he wholeheartedly accepted is, he follows the ROTC path, rather than enlisting right out of high school.</p>
<p>I want S1 to be an intellectual because he has all the early signs of being an intellectual, and it would be a shame not to cultivate his natural gift. By the same token, it would be a shame for S2 not to cultivate his natural gift and ambition of being an action oriented military leader.</p>
<p>Columbia_Student, lots of people are tripping by conflating “intellectual” with “academic” with “intelligent”/“smart.” </p>
<p>The idea of, say, U/Chicago being a good fit for students who have a pronounced intellectual bent seems to offend the sensibilities of some who—probably rightly—think their students are smart enough to go to college almost anywhere (except maybe Vanderbilt).</p>
<p>Doesn’t surprise me. “Smarts” may be tolerated to a degree, but them pointy-headed interlectuals is looked at with suspicion in many quarters and a virtual nest of them is cause for grave unease.</p>
<p>Congratulations, hyeonjlee . What a joy it must be to have two such naturally-gifted children. </p>
<p>And I’m sure this 'tude had nothing to do with their successes.
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<p>I , for one, wish I’d wasted lots more time with my kid. Just playing and being stupid. And being together without purpose or agenda. Wasting time and gaining what? I dunno, maybe everything that is truly important. </p>
<p>But we all do what we think is best.</p>