<p>I guess PG and JHS that you suggest our kids just ignore their peers. Great advice…but quite impossible for mere mortals in practice. I’m sure both of you drive the cheapest possible cars and look down on folks that drive “prestige” auto brands. (Oh, sorry, they’re prestige brands for others but “superior quality” brands for you?)</p>
<p>And as a midwesterner, PG, do you tell your neighbor whose kid does not get into that sought after state U to get over it, because other places are just as good or better? Better yet, why not just give your neighbor a lecture about their values, and how they deserve some of JHS’s censure? Are your neighbors pseudo-pretentious snobs who think that schools beyond the Big 10 or Big 8 are sloppy seconds? Okaaaaay…</p>
<p>Maybe going over to the “Are your kids freaking out” thread would put it more in perspective, where it is more in the moment about the pain of the rejection and less about the accomplishments later. Watching our kids face rejection, while an unavoidable experience of parenthood, just doesn’t FEEL good. Regardless of what comes after.</p>
<p>You know, I don’ t know that certain kids wouldn’t feel badly regardless of the culture around them.</p>
<p>Really thinking this through, the truth is that beyond a certain point, kids who reach certain levels are very personally driven, outside of their peer or home culture. It is internal. I know in sports, and I suppose this holds true in the academic world as well, that a kid can only get to a certain level being driven by outside forces. After that? It’s the kid and not the parents or friends who make it to the next level, and that, I don’t think can be mitigated by anyone.</p>
<p>All that said, I hope any parents whose children have been disappointed in the past week or so, will know that so much of this is outside of thier control and will be able to just show up and love thier kids. Blossom made a really good post about this earlier in the week, something about “the mood of your house.”</p>
<p>She recommends cookies. In our house, ice cream is the panacea. This too shall pass.</p>
<p>There are things to worry about and things not to worry about and the name of your school is pretty far down the list. One step above, “what should I wear this evening?”.</p>
<p>Yes, as an ADULT I agree with you. NOw, go on over and tell that to the rejected kids on the cornell, dartmouth, duke and columbia boards. For them? Maybe they don’t agree today, although I’m sure they will when they are old like you and me.</p>
<p>Even if the parents don’t buy in to the HYP mania, it is very hard for high school kids to be immune to the values of their peers. And beyond school culture, I believe that these rejections are tough on the kids because the process feels so <em>personal</em>. Firstly, there’s all the emphasis on “fit”, so kids are applying to schools where they feel they “belong” and of course it hurts to be turned down. Secondly, the application process is supposed to reveal “who you really are” to adcoms. Kids are pouring their hearts into personal essays, their favorite teachers are sending heartfelt recommendation letters, etc.; so I think it makes complete sense to feel the sting of rejection as something very personal.</p>
<p>No, I drive the cars I want and that fit my budget, and the opinions of anyone other than my spouse and me in our car choice is irrelevant. Other people can drive what they like, as well. What part of this is so difficult to understand? </p>
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<p>No, I wouldn’t say anything to my neighbor other than “I’m so sorry your kid was disappointed.” MY opinions on where their kid might / should / better go are of no value to them – just like their opinions on where my kids might / should / better go are of no value to me.</p>
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<p>No, but some of them absolutely don’t get why I’d take my kids to other parts of the country or why, if they want a prestige school, we don’t just stick with NU in our backyard. But, no, I’m not going to give them a lecture. I don’t particularly care if they’ve never heard of half the schools we are looking at (which I promise you, they haven’t). I don’t need to “convince” them of anything. I’ll just smile sweetly and move on with my life and do what I want to do in the first place. Why some of you seem to care so desperately about gaining the approval of your random neighbors and your kid’s random high school classmates is totally beyond me. </p>
<p>I remember heading off to NU at the time when they had the distinction of the most awful football team, and other kids told me and the others from my hs who were also headed there, “Why would you ever want to go there – their football team is awful.” And they were totally serious in that assessment. Now, should I have taken that assessment seriously and reconsidered? I mean, they were my peers and all. Well, of course not. So why should NMD’s D have taken seriously the assessment of her peers who thought U of C was sloppy seconds?</p>
<p>If my kids’ peers decided that the value of a human being was measured in whether they carried a Louis Vuitton bag, I wouldn’t expect them to take the opinions of their peers seriously. What’s the difference? I’m being totally serious here.</p>
<p>^^^^anneroku, yes, yes, yes. For both my kids, the hardest part of the application process was mustering the courage to spill one’s guts and confide all those hopes and aspirations.</p>
<p>With S1, he truly was not bothered by the rejections. Au contraire. By the time April of senior year rolled around, he knew they would not have a been a good fit for him – and he was absolutely right. His HS program had a lot of focus on HYPSM or flagship w/money – ~35% of his program goes to T-20 schools, and ~30% took the flagship, most with major merit $$. There were some who really focused on the prestige. S just didn’t care except as it related to the quality of his major(s).</p>
<p>I suspect S2 will take rejections a bit more personally. He’d like some validation that IB was worth it. No Ivies on his list, though he wouldn’t be laughed off on any admissions committee.</p>
<p>DH was a double legacy Ivy and it was hard for him to sit back and listen to our kids say they just didn’t care for the Ivies much. For DH, it was the ticket for a first-gen student putting his own way through. To his credit, he kept his feelings to himself, though I know he still thinks S1 should have gone to MIT…</p>
<p>As for parents’ weekend? Never been. Can’t afford what would be close to a $1,000 weekend.</p>
<p>I don’t know if we live in a bubble or what, but there is much less of this top school mania where we live. Many kids do get into CC top schools, but many get in and decide to go elsewhere, or go down 10 of more slots on the “rankings” list. Many forgo the Ivy’s. Others don’t get in, but nothing much is made of it by parents or students. One of S2’s top choices is ranked far lower than some of the other schools to which he is applying, he just really liked it when visiting and likes a particular major they have. I see this all the time. The kids have a large bulletin board at school where they post their rejection letters, the “wall of rejection.” (Some students who do not have a rejection feel bad they have nothing to post.) I believe this may be part of it. All their years in HS the kids see all the places kids they really respect don’t get into, but are very happy where they do attend, and come to understand that this is the nature of the beast. They begin early on to broaden their personal goals. In testament to its power, a new principal had the board removed and the students went ballistic; it was immediately returned.</p>
<p>Marite, yes, now that I think about it, you probably win the greatest distance to college travel award…someone could have been further away but one would have to work at it.</p>
<p>I did have the unkind thought that reluctance to travel in your neck of the woods is borne of the amalgamation of road design and driving conventions, e.g., the infamous “Boston left.” It’s enough that it could turn one into a dedicated pedestrian, unwilling to travel any place one couldn’t walk to in six blocks or, at most, take the T to and then walk six blocks. See also, “Can’t get theah from heah.”</p>
<p>I took a look over at some of the stats on the ED results threads and assuming kids are correctly mentioning any hooks, Ive got to say I havent a clue why they picked some kids and rejected or deferred others. It certainly doesnt appear to be as SAT/ACT or grade related as I thought, at least not looking at those threads. Its pretty baffling to me. I hope it’s well reasoned and not capricious because some kids take it pretty hard.</p>
<p>That’s the thing about it, really. Nobody can ‘count’ on getting into any of those schools. As some of us pointed out at the start of this thread, the adcoms themselves are clear that they could fill thier schools 2 to 3 times with qualified applicants. Also, they are making a class. If the orchestra needs an oboist? It’s not going to matter if you have 2400 SATs…that’s the thing and why it is so tragic this time of year and also in April. Also, it is verrrrry exciting for some kids who do make it.</p>
<p>But, widening the horizon geographically and talking up some other schools during the entire high school career is probably the best defense, imho.</p>
<p>I think people in my neck of the woods imagine that traffic everywhere is just as bad as here. As a consequence having to drive 45 minutes to work is reason for commiseration and looking for another job. And driving to Logan during the Big Dig? Fuggeddaboutit!
That said, when S2 came home on the bus from his East Coast grad school for Thanksgiving, the traffic was so bad that I think he spent 10 hours on the road. The only consolation was that airfare would have cost five times as much and would not have even been non-stop (and it’s his money, not ours, he is spending).
I did try to interest him in West Coast grad schools, but he was not enthusiastic.</p>
<p>My D is the same. She’s applying to good schools, but the order of her preference bears little relation to the order of the schools’ prestige. She’s visited all the Ivies but one (Dartmouth, which we both knew would be a bad fit). Her stats would make her a plausible contender for admission, but she really doesn’t care for any of them except Brown, the only Ivy to which she’s applying—but it’s midway down her preference list. As for matching up her preferences against the schools’ prestige, I’d say the order looks something like this:</p>
<p>Preference / Prestige
1 / 3 (applying ED)
2 / 5 (match) (probably applying ED II if ED I school doesn’t pan out)
3 / 4
4 / 1 (Brown)
5 / 7 (safety)
6 / 2
7 / 6 (match)
8 / 8 (instate flagship–safety)</p>
<p>Most kids and adults here in the Upper Midwest have never even heard of her #1, 2, 3, 6, and 7 schools, all small LACs, mostly in the Northeast, so it’s safe to say she’s facing no peer pressure with respect to any of this. There are LACs of comparable quality much closer to home, but she has no interest in attending any of them. For her, once the school meets a certain threshold of quality it’s all about “fit,” and IMO she’s done a good job in identifying the schools that offer the best fit.</p>