<p>Symbolizes everything that is wrong with college admissions. I don't mean to insult them in any way, but it really pulls at my heart to hear these parents checking their kids scores the instant they are put online and being so disappointed in their kid's achievements. They are unhappy with anything but the top scores, and above all they simply are controlling their kids lives. </p>
<p>My parents give me complete freedom in terms of how I am doing this. Sure, they suggest things and I listen, but they never tell me they are disappointed! I got a 2090 on my SAT and I swear if my parents were like some of my parents here I would be in the doghouse! </p>
<p>Kids don't need any additional pressure, we have enough of it already. I really was shocked while reading through the HS Class of 2011 thread there (I'm a rising senior in HS). </p>
<p>Why can't people realize that not only are test scores above 600 above average, but also that there are other colleges in the universe besides the top 20? Let your kids live their lives. </p>
<p>/rant</p>
<p>(yes I realize not all kids are motivated. Put pressure on them but please don't try and ruin their childhoods =/ )</p>
<p>The parents are trying to look out for their children. All parents want the best for their kids, and will do everything in their power to ensure a bright future for them. It’s sweet. However, they do seem overly helicopter-y. I mean, not all of them. A lot of the parents are actually really cool. But the ones who are like “OMGEEEEEE MY KID GOT A B+ AND 2200 HE WON’T BE ABLE TO GET INTO HARVARD!!!” Well, they are a little overkill.</p>
<p>I had a friend whose father wanted him to go to West Point so badly. He played the part in high school and got the grades and the sports achievements, so he got in. But it was his father’s wish and not his. His father was pressuring him to go and so pushed him to try harder. When he got to West Point, with no father pushing him, he realized how much he hated it. Parents have your best interests at heart. But you need to make sure you tell them what YOUR hopes and dreams are, not theirs.</p>
<p>This is in general why I have becomed quite disillusioned with the non-HSL bits of CC… I always want to scream things like “Do what you want to do during you high school career and when time comes to write your appliacations put down what you’ve done and if college X wants you then fantastic if not then I’m sorry but at least you weren’t miserable for all of your high school years doing things that you didn’t want to do just of the sake of the appliacations. Because what will most likely happen if you do that is any top college adcom will see that you have no passion for what you do and therefore you won’t do those things in college and therefore quite rightly rejection, and you therefore (again quite rightly) feel as if you have wasted your high school years.”</p>
<p>When my TOK teacher took our class to the Seattle College Fair we weren’t allowed to bring parents. He actually got into a shouting match with a parent who wanted to tag along. I’m pretty sure admissions officers HATE helicopters.</p>
<p>I still find the parents on the forum, including the helicopter parents, to be infinitely more sensible than a large portion of the students. I have not seen a thread yet from a parent stressing over whether their kid gets an A rather than an A+ in an AP class. I’ve seen a couple threads like that from students, though.</p>
<p>Actually, the vast majority of the Parent’s Forum has nothing to do with academics. I’m on there quite often and I very rarely see anything academic. I agree with SaintSaens’ that normally students are much worse than parents. </p>
<p>I love the Parent’s Forum. They help me in every aspect of life lol.</p>
<p>Haha, yes, I’ve made it back to civilization. I was in a village with 400 people… but we really only interacted with 6 people for three weeks :). </p>
<p>It was awesome. I had so much fun. If you add CC people on fb, add me and look at the pics that I’m uploading. I had major medical problems and ended up in the hospital. It was so much fun though!</p>
<p>Well, I’m studying abroad for 2 months. This was three weeks of volunteer work, but we lived there too (there were only 2 of us. I lived actually at the place in the president’s “house” and the other student lived with the other president about 20 minutes away). We did trail-building and a LOT of technological infrastructure building. They had dail-up internet which took about 15 minutes just to open a page, so we had to travel to another city just to use internet. We ended up building a website for them and teaching them how to use the computer. We also did a lot of farming and gardening lol.</p>