I know everywhere he dines out since he has my credit card. He’s a fiscally well-disciplined kid, but he’s also a sort of fanatic when it comes to his physical well-being. He doesn’t like to eat out too often due to unhealthy food. A good combination to have, discipline and health consciousness!
@TiggerDad : I have been following a long list of college v-loggers for a long time. One v-logger from Princeton recently posted a video which went viral, which talks about his feeling about Princeton. He only took some simple courses last year. This year he really started to feel pressure when he is taking some serious courses.
“suggest to change the title to “Things About Life that Your Kid Didn’t Know About Before Leaving Home” For many kids if not most, college is the first time getting to know the real world, meeting different people and learning to be independent.”
My kids went to overnight camp for 8 years each. They were just happy that they didn’t have to scrub toilets and mop the floors like they did in these first experiences away from home.
One thing that both my kid and I weren’t counting on was that the cafeterias at Berkeley are kinda good for the first couple of weeks, then gets really old fast. So my kid’s meal plan (12 meals a week) pretty much only gets half-used each week. Luckily Berkeley has a ton of decent restaurants everywhere.
UMass-Amherst wins hands-down for the best cafeteria food for a university.
@maya54 DD’19’s first away from home experience was working last summer at church camp. She cleaned cabins, washed up to 1200 sets of dishes per day, ate camp food (“usually soggy meat and green beans”) and lived in a rickety, leaky, buggy, no heat or a/c cabin with 17 other 16-22 year olds. It was fantastic for her, and I’m guessing dorm life will feel like a breeze. She will be in a suite, though, and have to clean the toilet!
As to toilet paper, DD’17 has to buy her own at apartment style living. She’s getting a 24 pack of the nice stuff for Christmas!
@TiggerDad I will not be that impressed about Stanford innovation attitude if they cannot figure out a way to emulate UCLA cafeteria food. According to my kid even a Chinese public school has better food than Stanford, and my understanding is Stanford cafeteria food is better than the cafeteria foods at most top schools. Heard Berkeley cafeteria food is worse, but they do have some good cheap foods outside campus.
I have no idea when people say there are brilliant kids at every turn at Stanford or any other top schools. If most kids at Stanford were brilliant, my kid would be flunking out. Sure, there are some truly brilliant or talented kids there, but most are just hard working, motivated, above average intelligent kids.
I am comfortable in saying if you were top 7% of your class from a decent high school, and you were and continue to be a hard worker, you should be able to do average at HYPS. Not sure about MIT. Maybe what I said doesn’t hold true if you were from a not so good high school academically speaking.
When I was a grad student at Cal, I was a resident of the I-House for two years. I really enjoyed the quality of their dining food. They’ve always had great choices of food to satisfy everyone!
I’d agree with your statement regarding the top 7% of a decent high school being able to be at least average students at HYPS. I also think that the vast majority at these schools are made up of intelligent and hard working kids. My S went through the IB program, and I think he was well prepared for his college experience. The IB program at his high school had a rather high attrition rate. Some 150 or so students begin the program and by Junior year, there are less than 50 remaining. Then, only about 40 graduate through the IB program with about half of these actually earning the diploma. I remember talking to an older brother of my S’s friend who went to Stanford upon his first visit home about how his IB experience had helped at Stanford in terms of academic adjustment. He simply shrugged and said that Stanford was about the same as his high school as far as academic rigor was concerned. He’s now a grad student there.
I think I know which Princeton v-logger you were talking about. If we’re talking about the same person, he was admitted to Princeton after being waitlisted with his academic stats rather on the low side (within the context of Princeton’s CDS, I think his belonged in the 25th percentile). Then, he went prolific v-logging on YouTube about his Princeton experience, which I don’t really think represents the average Princeton students. I think, in one video, he even talked about taking an intro course on micro or macro economics and he had such a hard time in the course that he changed his mind about majoring in economics. My S told me he’s actually in one of his courses, I think language course. His videos are very fun to watch, though. He’s so refreshingly honest – everything from his GPA, SAT scores to being waitlisted and everything else! He’s apparently extremely talented in photography and won a scholarship to travel with the National Geographic or something like that.
“I am comfortable in saying if you were top 7% of your class from a decent high school, and you were and continue to be a hard worker, you should be able to do average at HYPS”
This aligns with what my kids say about their colleges too. My S18 says that at UCLA he meets amazing people every day. However, they are not amazing because of their academics, but because of everything else they’ve done (or are doing), and doing well academically is not that hard. (I can confirm that the food is amazing too, he sends pictures of his meals on a regular basis).
It’s an interesting contrast with my university in the UK where the number one listed aim of the math faculty is “to provide a challenging course in mathematics and its applications for a range of students that includes some of the best in the country”. Very few top 1% let alone top 7% HS students would be able to “do average” just by working hard…
“It’s an interesting contrast with my university in the UK where the number one listed aim of the math faculty is “to provide a challenging course in mathematics and its applications for a range of students that includes some of the best in the country”. Very few top 1% let alone top 7% HS students would be able to “do average” just by working hard”
I don’t think anyone thinks that the top 7 percent of HS Students would do even average in an elite universities math department. Like engineering it requires a specific academic ability. My guess is that there are many students with excellent grades at HYPS who would flounder if they tried to major in math or engineering.
@TiggerDad : Yes. We are talking about the same person. 80 reactions in orgo II vs 20 reactions in orgo I. (Be very careful. Take other easier courses to mix with orgo II) My kid also took a Korean course and its Korean friends were surprised and said the course material is not “basic” Korean. (It went so fast !!) By the way, the valedictorian who went to Dartmouth and loves sciences can’t get "A"s in science courses there (she never said she is premed so she is fine). Another v-logger from Princeton (Indian girl who loves K-pop) has passed orgo with flying colors! ( I am assuming that is the case because nobody would post videos related to orgo if they are miserable.) It is very difficult to stand out in Ivy schools. But for those who can stand out, the feeling is incredible.
Another thing that my S discovered: so many students wearing Canada Goose jacket and other high brand clothing that cost over $1K. The most expensive winter jacket that my S ever wore never exceeded $40, and he’s perfectly happy wearing one so cheap by comparison but nevertheless very comfortable. Fortunately, my S isn’t enamored with “brand conscious” crowd, so he’s content to let them live their lives any way they want to; he’s got his.
His fellow orchestra violinist mate who attended the pre-college Juilliard was complaining to my S that her mother had sold her $100K violin and replaced it with a “cheap” $30K violin that she now has. Well, unbeknownst to her, my S happens to own a “cheap” violin, LOL. My S brought home lots of highly amusing stories to tell.
Math departments sometimes do have different course options within the major (e.g. regular versus honors real analysis) so that the stronger-in-math students can be challenged while the not-as-strong-in-math students can still complete the major. However, even the “less rigorous” options in upper level math courses (e.g. regular real analysis) are likely to be too difficult for a large percentage of generally-top-end students like you would find at HYPS.
Have to wonder if, later in life, your son will be The Millionaire Next Door, while those other students from the presumably very wealthy and very spendy families will be here complaining about not being able to afford college for their kids despite incomes high enough to preclude FA at Princeton…
Maybe that student’s mother needed trade down the violin to pay for a year of Princeton for her…
“Have to wonder if, later in life, your son will be The Millionaire Next Door, while those other students from the presumably very wealthy and very spendy families will be here complaining about not being able to afford college for their kids despite incomes high enough to preclude FA at Princeton…”
Maybe. Life is full of twists and turns, so who knows…
“Maybe that student’s mother needed trade down the violin to pay for a year of Princeton for her…”
Maybe. Or, that student’s mother got tired of paying to insure the violin? Or, her mother didn’t feel secure having that $100K violin laying around the daughter’s dorm under the bed? Or, most likely, the mother realized that her daughter isn’t going to be a concertizing violinist around the globe, so having a $100K violin just for playing in a university orchestra is no longer justifiable for the ownership. Maybe’s all around, so who knows? All very amusing, though.
By the way, I have to confess that I had never heard of “Canada Goose” jacket until my S mentioned it. :(( I guess I’ve been living on the wrong side of the paradise all these years…
Canada goose jacket worths every cent it charges. Lol and they look great too (sans the fluffy collar). :))
My Canada Goose coat changed my life. It took me from miserable walking to work to wonderfully warm. And I had I tried tons of other brands that have a good reputation and nothing compared. I made sure that my kid had one for college. Worth every cent. If you can’t afford it, you can’t. There are reasonable alternatives that are decent. But it is not just a status thing.
Canada Goose is pretty cheap compared to this Cornell engineering student’s BUSINESS CLASS ticket back to Manila. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJ77OR3Dx3o
Notice that she did not film the food on crappy United flight segment. She only filmed the food on ANA segment.
Ever wonder how much her ticket would cost? I am getting a quote from Google for a time after high season (her ticket probably would be more expensive) https://www.google.com/flights?lite=0#flt=ITH.MNL.2019-01-10*MNL.ITH.2019-01-23;c:USD;e:1;sc:b;sd:1;t:f
It only costs $4577.
Okay, I must have been living in a cave all these years without knowing the comfort of Canada Goose jackets. I’m glad that I fought the urge to write disdainfully about those kids wearing one. Come to think of it, I have no right to be disdainful about other people’s preference for whatever in life. After all, I have no problem spending my money on my camera bodies and lenses that total more than $10,000, so why should I be judgmental about those who prefer very expensive feather? :))