The Mystery Revealed! A bit of levity and insight--I hope.

Prep School Admissions Prep School Parents
41

“How is that all defined? Hopefully not based on salary.” – In my view it is not so much defined by salary but more on debt service. If a family can pay 100% of BS and College and the graduate want to an NGO, I think great.

However, if that graduate is self-funding and ends up with $250k of loans and is only making $50k, maybe his college choice wasn’t the best and maybe should have gone to the public University.

There is even a larger question about how many kids go to college and don’t need it. But I digress.

42

@SculptorDad – I used $80k because it is closer to what MA teachers average.

I love the story but it was totally unrealistic. My favorite part how they scraped up cash for $42k like they suddenly won a lottery and could buy another condo.

43

I agree with that. Honestly, I don’t think anyone should take out $250K in college loans and I don’t think anyone she take out loans for BS at all. There are other options to both.

And I do agree that some who currently go to 4 year college, shouldn’t. I wish our country had better vocational options like some of the european countries.

44

No one should take out $250k or even half of that without a clear path to handle that.

45

That kind of loan should only be taken out for professional degrees, WITH a clear post graduation plan. A plan for teenagers is just that, a plan that is subject to change, or has a high chance of failing to achieve.

46

Remember, the student can’t incur that debt; I believe students are limited to $5,550/yr in loans for undergrad. It’s the parents who are shouldering that burden, and I totally agree, that much debt IMO is insane, for ANYthing.

47

I wouldn’t say it’s not justified for “anything”. I assume that for some professional degrees, unless one has significant savings, loans in the 200K range are not out of ordinary. Medical school is one such example. For undergraduate education, there are commercial loan options available to students with a cosigner. So technically a student can borrow more than the federal loan limits.

48

Yes but that would be incurring debt with some future payment plan.

49

Having run many FA calculators at top tier colleges and boarding schools in the past few years, I can’t imagine a scenario where a student OR his parents would end up with the debt load being discussed here. It’s often harder for students who need FA to get in to these schools, but the aid is generous.

50

I haven’t seen a dad (mom?) so enamored of his daughter since Donald and Ivanka. What an odd thread.

51

@Momof7thgrader I’m mostly PO’d for the older daughter who has been proclaimed so publicly as okay but not all that (and who, incidentally, sounds quite similar to my oldest, who thrived at his Woo Woo Boarding School). I’m tempted to start an antithesis, The Mystery Concealed! thread.

In my CC experience, there’s a parent every year who just can’t help it.

52

@classicalmama yeah I thought about the other daughter as well. Hope she doesn’t ever peruse the CC boards and recognize her parent and superstar sibling. When reading the OP (parts 1 and 2 8-| ) all i could visualize was Regina George.

53

Greetings @Momo7thgrader and @classicalmama!

Thank you for your thoughtful and insightful observations. Allow me now to fill in some of the gaps in the story.

Meet my “okay,” as you put it, older daughter: she plays six musical instruments and sold her first piece of graphic design work at age 15. She was All Western New England in softball, attends a liberal arts college, and is currently a part-time employee of a major New York-based art gallery–at age 19. (I’m tempted to post a video of her smacking a majestic home run over the fence at a rival school–but then our cover would be blown.)

Believe me (as Donald says), she’s every bit the equal of her sister–just very different. Indeed, I’ve never met someone who is more comfortable in her own skin, more self-contained, more quietly confident, and happier to be alive. This is a kid who needs no external validation–in contrast to her sister, who arguably depends upon it.

So why didn’t I mention her in my earlier (“Mystery Revealed”) post? Well, my artsy firstborn did not attend a “top” (acronym) school and she is not quite the social butterfly that her younger sister is–hence, her school situation and personality profile did not suit my aim of providing a detailed portrait of the sort of kid who is a “relational” standout, who features the “non-cognitive personality traits” that, according to Lawrenceville, “are among the most important and reliable predictors of success and achievement.”

Sure, it’s easy to sound like the World’s Biggest Jerk when one talks about one’s own kid. But I don’t know how I could have accurately and meaningfully described my second-born and sounded otherwise. Let’s hope that those parents who, prior to my post, didn’t quite grasp what those “non-cognitive” factors consist of–and why their own studious but retiring child did not get into their first-choice school–have now come to grasp those things. Sure, I’m paying the price for my forthrightness–but, hey, anything to help!

Moreover, how is what I posted any different from what other parents of exceptional kids post on the “Official Prep School Stats/ECs” thread? Does giving your kid’s stellar stats (e.g., 99% SSAT, 4.0/5.0 gpa’s, all-county everything) somehow not amount to bragging? Whether it’s stats or a personality profile–call it what you will, it’s really all the same. (And, needless to say, neither of my kids has those stratospheric stats.)

So there’s no need to feel sorry for the “older daughter.” And if you thought that I would not do it again, that I would never have the gall to brag about my other kid in the face of the bad press I’m getting for my earlier post–well, surprise!

Peace,

“Baron Ferdinando Cefalu” (aka “Don Fefe”)
World’s Biggest Jerk

54

Actually, I identify more with Gretchen Wieners, but thanks @Momof7thgrader

55

Speaking of Med School … Is bloodletting and the use of leeches still a thing?

56

Both leeches and bloodletting are indeed used in modern medicine. However, they no longer cure as many ailments as they used to.

57

SMH…

58

Thanks, @twinsmama - Good to know!

For this particular thread … I would be willing to explore all feasible remedies . Sadly, nicotine is off the table- for now!

59

@DonFefe I’ll be less snarky, explain myself, and then I’m over and out.

First, We all love our kids, but not a one comes without flaws mixed in with the gifts. I’m perhaps too Puritan, but I think it’s good for our kids to know we see their warts that are just plain warts (not warts that are really gifts in disguise), and that we love them just the same.

Second, the stats thread is asked for every year and there for people who are in to that kind of thing. I don’t think they are particularly revealing, except to point out that there simply is no X factor that gets anyone in anywhere.

So and finally–I don’t think the mystery has been solved. The fact is that there are hundreds of gifted, lovely, vibrant, flawed children–each in their own way as stellar as our own top tier BS admits–who are turned away from those same schools every year. Outside of Harry Potter, there is no child that has “Hogwarts” stamped on his forehead from babyhood.

I could, in hindsight, give you a hundred reasons why my son got into Exeter when others didn’t. I’ve probably even written posts in the past about some of those reasons. But the bottom line is that, as much as his test scores, grades, achievements, “non-cognitive personality traits” (in many ways the very opposite of FefeKid2’s) and all his various yada yada truly did make him a viable and interesting applicant for a top tier school, he was one of hundreds. In the end, he was simply very, very lucky that someone in the admission office saw something in his application or essay or interview or hometown or whatever that attracted their notice, and gambled that he was one of the 100 or so kids that they wanted that year.

Anyway, I try my bestest to keep all this in my short-term memory for those all too frequent times when my parental pride buttons are bursting at their seams.

60

@classicalmama I get your point and I’d never be the one who use my children as exmaplary cases to demonstrate what kind of students top BSs are looking for. But maybe a couple of earlier posts were a little too harsh and unfair to OP. To @DonFefe 'a defense, the main purpose of his posts didn’t seem to be bragging but rather to share his opinions (right or wrong is another matter) on what makes an extradinary BS applicant using his kid as an example as he did say " THERE ARE MANY, MANY KIDS AT HER SCHOOL JUST LIKE HER", in all CAPs!