Ticked off Parents

Applying to College
81

<p>Once again, another high strung private school parent takes offense for the wrong reasons.</p>

<p>It's your money and your kid. Earn it, spend it, enjoy.</p>

<p>Just don't take the high hand with parents who chose to have their kids attend the local high school by implying that we are the dirty unwashed masses unworthy of association with your sons and daughters.</p>

<p>Just as a rich man is unable to buy his way into the kingdom of Heaven , private school tuitions do not guarantee admittance to the ivy league.</p>

<p>The word "ghetto" has racist implications and I hope that you and Parent of Ivy Hope will not continue to use that term in future posts.</p>

82

<p>DrWho- I wasn't the one who initiated the ghetto discussion.
What part of "most kids don't go to private school to gain admission to the Ivy League" don't you get?<br>
You have no concept of the different reasons parents might choose to send a kid to boarding school. It is no slight on parents who make a different choice. The private school parents on this thread are NOT the ones who started throwing stones.</p>

83

<p>I think some people on this thread need to understand that sending children to private or top of the line public school do increases the probability to get into Ivy not because there is a magic in those schools but because of the reason that school provide the resources that increases this probability.</p>

<p>In the end it is up to the child who have to work hard, earn grades, do EC, score high on SAT's to get into the Ivy. School (private or public) won't help anyway their.</p>

<p>Putting that straight, the parents who send their children to Private don't strain on the Fed. resources and still pay property taxes and those available funds can be used to actually bring up the standard of the public high schools in the poor area.</p>

<p>The close knit top public schools on the other hand exploit the lower class neighborhood by taking away the resources and using them to benfits those wealthy parents children who can easily afford private education but prefer to spend the money on their cars/vaction houses at the expense of poor people.</p>

<p>Let me substantiate it with an example.
In the SF bay are their are two public High Schools separated by a Freeway.
One neighborhood boost a median house value of $750,000 with a high school sending 8-10 studensts every year to Stanford another across the freeway have a median value of $450000 and seldom have any one making it to the same university.
If you look at the school resources, the teaching staff at one school outweigh other schools hands down, one school provide all the extracurricular activities while the other is infested with crime/drugs and have regular presence of police.</p>

<p>If the fancy/wealthy neighborhood parent send all the children to private school then the High school their can allow admission to students across the free way to attend and make use of the facilities.</p>

<p>So public school system is a sham and a scheme to use public funds for the purpose of wealthy people to protect their wealth and exploit the poor by excluding them any option to attend such school.</p>

<p>On this giving you another example for SF bay ara. There is a city public shcool here with only 350 class size the smallest in any public school and the way it is maintained as the board doesn't even include part of the city in the school area where the house prices are less than 1 Million dollars. There are no rental community in that area. House size restriction disallow smaller houses. The only way to get into that school is to buy at least a Million dollar house in the school boundary.</p>

<p>Now some of you are suggesting that this school will be diversed and will provide a better experience.</p>

<p>Ponder more and think does public school are what you imagine or you are just ignoring the reality here.</p>

84

<p>I wasn't even thinking of boarding schools. I know that parents enroll their kids for a variety of reasons and that it is a difficult decision to make. Your child seems to have made out OK and that's good.</p>

<p>I also wasn't thinking in terms of the left coast where it seems that 450,000 gets you a house on the poor side of town. I could buy a decent ranch for that money.</p>

<p>In my city there are several private day schools that have competitive admissions starting at Kindergarten. Moms sign up with a deposit to get their kid on the waitlist for a Kindergarden spot within hours of getting their pregnancy test back. They know the "feeder" pre-schools and compete to get the kids in there. The preschools have interview days for the parents and observation rooms where they watch the babies interact with other babies. If your kid takes away a block from another kid he gets labeled as aggressive ie:reject. Sounds like a sicko Psychology experiment but it's true I made the decision to stay away from that scene 18 years ago and I have no regrets today.</p>

<p>When all was said and done, my son is going to UT Business and so is the son of my neighbor who chose the day prep school route. Their Ivy accepteance rate was as bad as ours. A URM football player got into Princeton. Call the press.</p>

<p>To the OP: I hope that your parents have given you a hug and a pat on the back for Vanderbilt. If not, send them to this thread. We'll take it from there. Peace.</p>

85

<p>I'll offer my two cents on this one. I attend Phillips Academy Andover, and my sister attends Public school about 40 minutes away. College placement was NEVER a consideration when my parents decided to send me to Phillips Academy Andover. I was always a bright kid, I had decent grades and good scores, but both of my parents thought it would be valuable for me to attend a school surrounded by other motivated students. I won't lie, I'm a bit of a hedonist. I procrastinate and indulge in other activities from time to time when I should have been spending more time working. My parents saw this, and thought that if I were to attend a competitive school I would really apply myself to learning and working hard. </p>

<p>They were right. I am POSITIVE that if I had put in the same amount of work at my public school, I would have ended up at the same college. But I don't think I would have done the same quality work. I would have been surrounded by a much higher percentage of students who weren't as committed to academics and other activities, and I probably would have been somewhat of an underachiever in public school. Because I was surrounded by such an intelligent group of people with ambitions, I felt like I owed it to myself to take advantage of my education and my own potential.</p>

<p>Andover also provided me a completely new perspective on the world. I have friends from completely different socioeconomic situations. We can all agree that education in America is not a complete meritocracy. But there are a TON of kids here on full financial aid and from all over the world, and meeting these people has really made me much more receptive to other people's opinions (socially, politically etc.) and for that I am extremely grateful. There are a remarkable amount of reasons to go to a top private school that have nothing to do with college placement. I'll be going to a very good college next year (not an Ivy, but I wasn't really interested anyway), and I know when I get there, I'll be absolutely prepared to face whatever challenges it throws at me. I won't have to adapt to a boatload of homework every night. I've already done that. I won't have to adapt to living away from home. But most of the kids, no matter where they went, will be prepared for college. I would love to see if there were a correlation between the GPA of college students and the money they spent on private school education. I don't think there will be much of one. But for people who went to boarding school or private school, there will be a lot of things they've already experienced that will make the transition much smoother. </p>

<p>Tell your parents not too worry. You proved yourself at your private school, you got into an excellent school where you'll most likely be overprepared and ready to rock. This wasn't my most cohesive piece of writing, I'm late to baseball practice, but when a lot of kids are struggling first term at Vanderbilt and its a breeze for you, let your parents know you were thankful for being pushed very hard in highschool. I'm sure you've grown a lot over the last four years as well based on how much your teachers pushed you. Thank them for that as well.</p>

86

<p>FreeFree113: Thanks for the post, I couldn't have put it any better.</p>

<p>Your post really show that you had a good education and that is what is being sought by sending the children to private school. It is not a way to buy admission into Ivy school. That is being done by hiring an admission consultant by the students going to top of the line public school.</p>

<p>In the end this what I realize
10% of children have such inborn qualities that they can excel even from the toughest of the environment.</p>

<p>10% of the children have such negative that they can be an issue at the top private or public schools.</p>

<p>But for the average 80% a conducive environmnet is required where they can feel secure and can enhance their inborn abilities and to make best use of the resources. For these average children a better private or public school can make or break the future.</p>

<p>Good public schools are only accessible to few wealthy children in USA while a good private school is available to willing poor children too.</p>

87

<p><em>Sigh</em> I never wanted this to turn into a public V private debate. As I said before, both have thier merits.</p>

<p>Anyway, I just got into into Notre Dame so now I have a choice of either or =) And I explained to my parents and I guess they just had a little "period" of anger/confusion. They apologized and explained that they were distraught at seeing me work so hard in academics and athletics and only get into one school. Vanderbilt is a great school but they felt that I didn't deserve to get rejected almost everywhere else. Even my college consuler is scratching his head...</p>

<p>Im sure my situation is shared by many others.</p>

88

<p>Well i guess i should apologize, kinda my fault for starting this, and i'm glad for you're acceptance-go irish.</p>

89

<p>SweetLax88 - Congratulations on your admissions - way to go!! We just visited ND for the 2nd time last week. My DD was admitted to ND EA (still trying to decide). Sounds like you have some great schools to choose from - we are finding that now comes the even harder part - CHOOSING!</p>

<p>It really sounds like college admissions was a sort of "bloodbath" this year. My nephew - SAT 2390, 34 ACT, NMF, Presidential scholar candidate, etc. etc. - rejected at Stanford, Harvard and MIT. </p>

<p>To everyone debating the merits of private VS public - just count yourselves lucky you have a choice, no matter which way you decided for your child. We live in a small town with ONE high school, a very mediocre public high school with 2 APs (and one is so bad there is no reason to take it). My heart has ached that we didn't have another option for our girls. Youngest daughter is counting the days until she is done.</p>

90

<p>Congratulations on getting into Vanderbilt and Notre Dame. Those are excellent colleges.</p>

<p>One a side note: You cannot compare public schools to private schools because the opportunities they offer can be wide-ranging, like facilities, qualified faculty, and AP/IB classes. Colleges are more concerned about how you took advantage of what you had available and how you, as an individual, excelled in making the opportunities you had work for you.</p>

<p>I know that this is true because I have a friend from a summer program who lives in a small farm town with a population of less than a 1,000 who got into 4 Ivies and several top liberal arts colleges, and she attends her local public school. She took advantage of all the opportunities available to her, like varsity sports and summer programs, and she excelled in every one of them. I truly admire her.</p>

91

<p>to the op, congrats on vandy. it's a great school and just give your parents time, they will see soon enough that this isn't a disappointment. i go to a good public school, with lots of people going into ivies and other top 10 schools each year, and i'm thankful for that. but not everyone has that same situation, so it's not true that your parents wasted their money. this year admissions were really weird, with many qualified students rejected while other not so qualified got in. so don't worry about your parents. if you love the school and you feel that it's the right place for you, then your parents will just have to make peace with that. good luck.</p>