Tips On Who To Be Mad At

Parents Forum
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<p>Sorry, frazzled! I thought you were implying that I should have provided the numbers. (I did not partly out of laziness, but partly because I think that any kid or parent who is mad could benefit by expending some energy to find out exactly how much competition there is.)</p>

<p>It’s always been my belief that these types of questions arise because humans are very bad at comprehending very large numbers. We can see that a kid is one of the stand-outs in her town, and we know that there are “lots” of towns with their own stand-out kids, but it’s hard to really comprehend <em>four million</em> high school seniors. So we can’t really grasp that you can fill a small city with high school seniors with awesome grades and test scores.</p>

<p>It is my belief - and others may disagree - that one measure of success is even being able to be a player in the game, and that the only place that people never strike out is T-ball. As adults, I think we all have been through things in which it is an honour to be considered, even when we didn’t get the nod. </p>

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<p>@usbalumnus </p>

<p>Funny! :)) </p>

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<p>Thanks, I needed a good chuckle!</p>

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<p>I don’t think students or parents should be castigated as entitled for disappointment - or even anger, depending on the situation. The problem is when they are unable to put that disappointment or anger in perspective.</p>

<p>If you’re a stellar student with great test scores and the typical array of extracurricular accomplishments, you’d have to be practically inhuman not to be disappointed to be going to a safety school. I don’t agree with the lottery analogy, because while most people don’t, I would guess, know anyone who has won the lottery, most kids in elite schools know plenty of other kids in their own school with similar stats who have wound up in AN elite school, if not the particular one they had wanted to go to. Go to any of the Ivy results threads, and you’ll get confirmation of how difficult admissions is, but you’ll also see that most kids with really outstanding profiles wound up getting into at least one elite school. In that context, getting accepted at only your safety is indeed a disappointment.</p>

<p>Anger is often less attractive, but I don’t think that is always unwarranted either. At many schools, there is a group of kids who take all of the honors and AP classes, do really well on their SATs, and have a record of extracurricular involvement. It smacks of entitlement for the valedictorian with a 2400 to be angry when number 8 with a 2300 gets into a school and he doesn’t - even if number 8 and the 2300 has a non-academic hook of some kind. At that level of achievement, the disparities are so negligible that a school would be crazy to privilege the slight numeric difference over other institutional needs, and of course, as others have mentioned, it is possible that the hooked student in that case had other qualities that would have gained him or her admission over the val even absent the hook.</p>

<p>On the other hand, if the valedictorian is passed over, and the hooked candidate is pretty clearly outside of that group of top students, I think anger is natural. In my hometown), I recall anger a few years back when the only student admitted to Harvard from a particular area school was a good but not great student (mostly As in some combination of advanced and regular classes) with SATs just under 2000 - but whose parents happened to be multi-billionaires. Now, we could turn off our basic reasoning ability, assume the utter infallibility and impartiality of Harvard adcoms, and say “wow, I guess he must have had some amazing essays, or a remarkable talent that he’s been hiding from the rest of us,” or we can conclude, as his classmates and their parents did, that the billionaire parents might have helped. And I don’t blame them for being angry (even though I don’t necessarily blame Harvard for accepting him either). </p>

<p>That disappointment and anger, however, needs to be leavened with a sense of perspective. If someone carries on as if attending their safety is a tragedy of epic proportions, or can’t acknowledge that getting into Cornell is a huge privilege and honor even as they shed some initial tears over the rejection from several other Ivies, or acts as if Affirmative Action is an injustice on the level of Jim Crow, then I lose patience pretty quickly. </p>

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<p>"I’ve seen Asian immigrant kids distraught because they genuinely appreciate what their parents have sacrificed for their sake and feel that they have failed their families when they don’t get into a top college. And, yes, some of the parents do think their kids must have done something wrong if they don’t get the prize.
"</p>

<p>Yes. I feel sorry for these kids when I see them on CC, and sorrier still that there is apparently no network that ever tells these parents - hey, this isn’t like your home country, prestige doesn’t matter the way you think it does. </p>

<p>“I’ve seen kids who have been dragged to every homecoming football game for their parents’ elite alma mater since the day they were born and as a result can’t see themselves anyplace else. (In many cases, there are also older sibs who went to the alma mater.)”</p>

<p>It’s funny you say this, because I have a college acquaintance - who married someone else from there - they have 3 sons, the oldest 2 are at Ye Olde Alma Mater and it makes me a little nervous thinking about kid #3, who has been sort of primed to go there - heaven forbid he gets rejected, kwim?</p>

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<p>While that’s true, the prestige and the social capital which could be derived from it does meaningfully matter more for them. </p>

<p>Especially those from lower SES backgrounds precisely because they lack the social capital they have in this country most multi-generational American families…especially those from the higher SES tend to take for granted. </p>

<p>One could make a similar point for URMs and those from under-represented geographic regions with less optimal local K-12 systems…whether public or private. </p>

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<p>"While that’s true, the prestige and the social capital which could be derived from it does meaningfully matter more for them.</p>

<p>Especially those from lower SES backgrounds precisely because they lack the social capital they have in this country most multi-generational American families…especially those from the higher SES tend to take for granted."</p>

<p>They may THINK that it does, but in the reality of America of 2014, it is not as though a student who goes to (let’s say) Tufts or USC is <em>really</em> at any meaningful disadvantage to a kid who went to (let’s say) Brown or Dartmouth. The Tufts and the USC kids have thousands of opportunities open to them. Maybe the Brown and Dartmouth kids have a few hundred more, but so what? You can only take advantage of a handful. </p>

<p>You keep talking about social capital, but it’s irrelevant here. The kid who winds up at Tufts / USC doesn’t have any “social capital” disadvantages versus a kid who is a little bit higher on the food chain.</p>

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<p>@pizzagirl: The differences between those schools are swamped out by the differences between their individual majors. The IR major from Tufts is better off than the IR major from Dartmouth or Brown (do they even have IR at both those schools?), but the future MBA is best off at Dartmouth. I think USC is the only one of those schools that offers marketing, and Tufts is the only one with ABET-accredited environmental and civil engineering majors. The student who wants to be on the west coast would be best off at USC. Et cetera. </p>

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<p>You’re correct, Aries - I was speaking conceptually, not about any specific major. </p>

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<p>IR is one of Brown’s strongest concentrations. <a href=“http://watson.brown.edu/”>http://watson.brown.edu/&lt;/a&gt; </p>

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<p>The title should read: “Tips on whom to be mad at”</p>

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<p>“While that’s true, the prestige and the social capital which could be derived from it does meaningfully matter more for them.”</p>

<p>We need to deal in reality, though. Just because the immigrant family THINKS that Harvard = everyone bows down when the kid passes by and Tufts = hang your head in shame and prepare to flip burgers doesn’t actually mean that that’s the truth out there. They simply aren’t good judges of social capital in the US. </p>

<p>I could say that getting into schools with two syllable names is more prestigious than getting into schools with a one syllable name but that’s equally as nonsense. </p>

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<p>Oh whatEVER - leave it to CC to not be able to use schools as hypotheticals for conceptual purposes without every booster jumping in. </p>

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<ol>
<li>Be mad at the creation and adoption of the common application which increases the number of applications to each school that it drives down the acceptance rates at each school</li>
</ol>

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<p>I understand all the posts telling people that they shouldn’t be mad. Perhaps my thread title should have been blander, like maybe “Is anyone really to blame?” But my point, which I still think holds, is that many people are inevitably going to feel strong emotions when they (and their children) don’t get something they really, really hoped to get. it’s pointless to tell them now that they shouldn’t have hoped for it so much. What I was hoping to help with was channeling those emotions in ways that don’t cause resentment against other people–especially other students. So, I continue to think the best approach for those emotions is to say, “Forget Harvard! Who needs Harvard, anyway? If they don’t want my kid, they obviously don’t know a good thing when it’s staring them in the face.” Of course, you have to get over this, too–but I still think it’s a lot healthier than blaming the other kid from your high school who “stole your spot.”</p>

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<p>Completely agree with you, Hunt. “Their loss, not yours - and they aren’t even worth talking about any more.”</p>

<p>But this vitriol aimed at the hypothetical kid down the block who stole your spot (and you believe you know exactly WHY he got in) is immature and unhealthy.</p>

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<p>It seems, though, that the key needs to be getting past is somehow and moving on. My neighbor kid (very high stats) was not accepted at Cornell and he got his mind so set on it that he’s having trouble moving on. He has other acceptances, but is spinning his wheels on visits and planning because he is so wrapped up in the one that got away. He’s also mad at his parents for not allowing him to apply ED because of finances. He was rejected not waitlisted so I have to believe that ED wouldn’t have mattered, but since they are currently to blame it makes all their input on what to do next suspect. In the short term at least maybe blaming the kid whole “stole” your spot would be better. </p>

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<p>I think that kid should blame Cornell for stupidly rejecting him. It might be sour grapes, but it would at least let you move on to another place.</p>

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<p>You know, Hunt, in this case I think I agree with you. I don’t generally like the idea of being mad at someone RE super selective admissions because it implies entitlement. In this case, for whatever reason the kid thought it was in the bag and it wasn’t. How that came to pass is water under the bridge at this point so if it help him to get unstuck to blame Cornell then go for it. I’m thinking of the bad breakup analogy here . . . she was no good anyway, you’ll be better off without her. I think that people accept that for what it is - part of the grieving process and not supposed to make sense exactly or be a true analysis. Ha! And since he wasn’t waitlisted there’s none of that ever present parental fear that you’ll dis the ex then they’ll get back together ;)</p>

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<p>“And as for those who do not receive you, as you go out from that city, shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them.”</p>