<p>This may make me persona non grata here, but I think this is a fantastic piece. I would love to laminate it and give it to every parent of a HS student. And my kids' school is not an uber-competitive place. I cannot imagine what it must be like at a PTA meeting or something in a more competitive district this time of year.</p>
<p>Lisa</a> Belkin: In Praise Of The Good Enough College</p>
<p>Great link!</p>
<p>I especially like:</p>
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<p>That is a nice summation. I’ve noticed a huge difference between S1’s application cycle in 2006-2007 and my last son. My last one and his friends were talking about college as sophomores and he seems much more concerned about getting into a “better” college. I don’t necessarily think this is a good trend.</p>
<p>I love this article - saw it earlier today and meant to post it. Good enough college, good enough parenting…if we could slow down and enjoy, it would all be good enough…</p>
<p>Anyone remember Belkin’s article “The Opt-Out Revolution”?</p>
<p>^^ Yes I remember that article because at the time I was in the middle of a decade, probably the most important decade of “career development” turning down job offers and staying in my safe little job because I was having babies and while I couldn’t go all the way to be a SAHM I couldn’t figure out to balance the inner drive vs. actually piecing it all together while my husband was also advancing his career. I remember my 25th college reunion and some people exclaiming over my “success” and deep inside a little voice was saying “oh but I could have been so much more”… ouch. </p>
<p>I found Lisa’s reference in the OP’s thread interesting because she pounced on the “we”…I have never, yet used that…but it is like nails on a blackboard when I read it in posts.</p>
<p>“I found Lisa’s reference in the OP’s thread interesting because she pounced on the “we”…I have never, yet used that…but it is like nails on a blackboard when I read it in posts.”</p>
<p>I also wince whenever I read “we” but I’ve also read a few posts on CC by parents using “I” !!! </p>
<p>I loved my son’s GC who told us when he had our first college meeting that there is no such thing as a “good” or “bad” college, only colleges which are a good fit/not a good fit for a particular student.</p>
<p>Without implying any disrespect to any particular schools, I feel the tendency of elite-top20-etc colleges will run its course. If nothing else, college teaches people that no matter how good they are (or think they are), there is always someone smarter / better / more prepared. </p>
<p>The end game is simple. The elite-top20 type schools will keep recruiting under-represented Elbonian American kid with 2401 SAT and 5.3 GPA and eight years worth of bagpipe lead EC’s. Maybe a legacy or two, or an athlete or two. All these folk will make up the next 1%. Call them 1%U.</p>
<p>The 99% will still be needed, largely because those graduating from 1%U will go their way and we’ll go our way. After all, someone will have to do the real work. If there’s no job for the 99%U’s and the few remaining jobs go to the 1%U’s then it’s game over for 100% of us. That simple.</p>
<p>This dynamic is playing out in our household these days. Kid 1 was a goal-oriented, highly-talented super achiever who longed to be with other kids who appreciated opera, the Brontes, and other artifacts of cultural genius. She set her sights high and wound up at an Ivy. Kid 2, who read 2-3 books a week from age 8 on then admitted that she was a little miffed because she’d also had her sights set on the same Ivy. Lo and behold, when it was her turn she got in there too.</p>
<p>The younger brother who his sisters always considered the brains of the operation, is a HS senior now. He got dragged along on visits to his sisters’ campus for five years, and never saw the attraction. He wants to go to the U. of Georgia. His passion is playing snare in the marching band, he’s got a core group of great friends who also want to march there, and he likes the big school / high-energy vibe. He also likes having free tuition to one of the nation’s top college towns, thanks to the state’s HOPE Grant (especially significant now that our EFC is just above the cost of attendance at a private school). And though it’s not the place I originally would have chosen for him, I really can’t argue with his rationale. It’s not only “good enough” but well-suited to his priorities.</p>
<p>One can certainly get a good education on either campus, but the unique advantage of the elite school is the peer group influence. Our Ds have spent their college years so immersed in a setting of remarkable peers that they’ve come to see excellence and high goals as the norm. Our challenge with UGA will be helping our S to find those areas of engagement in which the peer influence might set a standard that could serve as motivation. I must admit though, it’s been nice not having to sweat out the admissions decisions this time.</p>
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<p>I’m probably sounding defensive with this statement, but if this is a priority, why not invest in a top elementary and highschool- the formative years? Or how about just watching you as parents, and your friends and their kids? It just strikes me as a bit odd that it would make a difference in college. </p>
<p>I think it’s just a rationalization for folks willing to fork out all that extra money who are going full freight. They can’t argue it on purely educational grounds so now they play the ‘peer influence’ card. And like most things, entirely and completely overrated. Plenty of hard working, highly motivated kids with high goals are found at lots of great publics.</p>
<p>I never get that argument either Starbright but it is made over and over again. I certainly never experienced it at Northwestern.</p>
<p>This seems to be another “be relaxed by going to an academically weaker college” article. Why not teach to be relaxed while building skill in one area that they can be masters in all while boosting admissions chances?</p>
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<p>Based on what criteria?</p>
<p>One can certainly get a good education on either campus, but the unique advantage of the elite school is the peer group influence. Our Ds have spent their college years so immersed in a setting of remarkable peers that they’ve come to see excellence and high goals as the norm. Our challenge with UGA will be helping our S to find those areas of engagement in which the peer influence might set a standard that could serve as motivation. I must admit though, it’s been nice not having to sweat out the admissions decisions this time.</p>
<p>The fallacy is in assuming that students can only get that peer group influence at the tippy-top schools in the nation.</p>
<p>I was in the top 5 of my college’s admitted class - not top 5%, top <em>5</em>. I was one of 5 students who got a Presidential Scholarship. In fact, I found out that I was the admit with the highest SAT score when I looked at a fact sheet and recognized my number there. The middle 50% range of SAT scores is a 480-560 on the sections. And yet, I felt motivated by my peer group. These young women (it was a women’s college) were leaders, movers, shakers. They didn’t want to just be something - they had high dreams and hopes. Our school had a huge emphasis on community service - not the superficial kind, putting in your 10 hours a week, but dedicating your life to giving back and helping others. So the girls at my school didn’t just want to be doctors - they wanted to start clinics and run hospitals. They didn’t just want to be teachers - they wanted to start their own schools. They didn’t just want to be lawyers - they wanted to run legal aid clinics to aid the poor. And so on. That kind of goal-setting made ME aim higher, and start thinking about a PhD when I thought I would just try to make it.</p>
<p>The University of Georgia isn’t a mediocre school by any means. The middle 50% of students do far better than the average on all three sections of the SAT; 67% of the entering class had a 3.75 GPA or higher, and fully 88% had a 3.5 or higher. 53% were in the top 10th of their graduating class and 90% were in the top quarter of their graduating class. UGA students are by and large a high-achieving crowd; it is our state’s flagship, after all. I don’t think your son will have any problem trying to find engaged peers. It’s just that - just like your son - they have different priority areas.</p>
<p>Also, peer influence can be bad, too. I am currently a grad student at an Ivy and I work as a grad hall director, so I have direct interaction with undergraduates every day. My Ivy was recently voted the most stressed out school. The students here are STRESSED, for real. It’s kind of frightening how many of them feel overwhelmed and have breakdowns. The university administration does nothing to handle it on a large scale, even though it’s a commonly acknowledged problem by the undergrads. They do have services for it on the smaller scale, but no one is encouraging these students NOT to take 7 classes in a semester or to NOT try to write 4 papers in a week.</p>
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<p>I.e. the “why go to UT Austin when SFA is good enough?” argument.</p>
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<p>No need to decrease your ambition, IMO.</p>
<p>Again: academically weaker based on what criteria (and measurement thereof)?</p>
<p>People need to be honest with themselves about their motivations for wanting to get into a top school or for wanting their kids to go. Is it really the education? Or the bragging rights? A bit of both? And, for parents: Are some of your own “issues” at play (a bit of vicarious living)? Not that any of these motivations are bad … Just: Why not be candid? My own take on large public schools (proud alum of two: U. of Nebraska and UT Austin) is that you can get a superior education if you want one but you don’t have to. I expect it’s harder (not impossible, but harder) to hide at some of the more selective schools that do not have a state mandate to educate a broad swathe of the populace. I am not going to say that I couldn’t have had a great undergraduate experience anywhere but in Lincoln, Nebraska (!!!). But I did have a great undergraduate experience at my good-enough option, surrounding myself with bright, engaged, fun students and wringing everything I could out of every class (I didn’t know I was working harder than I needed to; I was working as hard as the material seemed to warrant, which may explain why a third of my straight As were A-pluses). My point is that the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Once kids land at their schools (good-enough or top-drawer), what do they do? Do they walk around all starry-eyed because they got into Harvard or all glum because they ended up at Iowa State? Or do they tune out the noise and get engaged in the learning experience whether they’re in Cambridge or Ames?</p>
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<p>The more selective school may cover more material in a given size (credit unit) course. For example, a three semester, 12 credit introductory CS sequence at a state flagship university appears to be equivalent to a five semester, 17 credit CS sequence at a mid-level state university in the same state, based on course catalog descriptions. There are also some other one semester courses at the flagship that are split into two courses at the mid-level.</p>
<p>This does not mean that the mid-level school is “bad” (CS graduates from there are certain sufficiently prepared to work in many CS jobs), but a high achieving student there may want to take higher course loads in order to learn more material than most students there will learn.</p>
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<p>Some parents have…including mine when they encouraged me to take the admissions exam for my NYC public exam magnet high school. While being in this exceedingly high achieving group was hellish at the time, it allowed me to experience “hitting the wall” academically as a 13 year old high school freshman when the stakes are far less costly than what was incurred by college classmates at my respectable private LAC or HS classmates at various other respectable and elite universities…including HYPSMC. It certainly paid off when I and a vast majority of my classmates…including those at HYPS found college academics to be much more manageable or even easier than those at our high school. </p>
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<p>Not necessarily. Some kids do need to be in a campus environment where a critical mass of students are just as/more high achieving academically than themselves…including those who are FA type kids like myself and many HS classmates. That was a reason why even some high school classmates with C/D averages found their experiences at the CUNY/SUNY flagship colleges to be so underwhelming and the bureaucracy so inflexible to their academic needs that they ended up transferring up to elite private LACs/universities like Reed, CMU, and Columbia…and found the new schools they ended up graduating from to be a far better fit for their academic capabilities. YMMV, however.</p>
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<p>A few college classmates found that their respective state universities’ Mandarin Chinese courses…1 year at their state universities would be the equivalent of one semester or less at our private LAC. </p>
<p>A reason why my college was reluctant to grant credit for such courses if taken over the summer without testing the student to ensure he/she can meet the same standard as the college’s own equivalent course. This was even an issue with some classmates taking the equivalent course at other elite universities due to differences in material coverage/emphasis/depth…</p>
<p>Have had 2 kids in engineering, UVa grad and now Virginia Tech student. Both great programs from what I can tell. Older son is gainfully employed so that is a real plus in this economy. Younger son at VT is one of the top students in his class despite a rather lackluster performance with grades in high school.Husband is CMU engineering grad from the 70’s and saw no reason to pay 2 to 3 times the price for an engineering degree when we had good instate options for undergrad. Husband said one of his Carnegie Tech professors(his dad was a grad in the 40’s) would tell his class more than once that the kids at Pitt and Penn State up the road were learning the same stuff but paying more to do it. It would have been cool to have a son be a 3rd generation CMU grad but there was no way to pay for that these days and neither kid was a good fit socially anyway. The CMU marketing stuff went into the circular file. Too expensive and not the right fit. CMU has come a long way since the 40’s when my late FIL was there and my husband still supports his school financially (only 100 bucks here and there but he’s been consistent) as an alumini.</p>