<p>Maia's mom:</p>
<p>Thanks for explaining. It does explain much better than the linked article why Maia was an attractive applicant.</p>
<p>This is Maia again: Prostitute college was some term I came up a while ago on my blog lamenting and fretting (which my mother hates) that I will not even go to a community college but instead a prostitute college. I got interested in Russian by accident. When I was 13 or 14 I wanted to take German because after reading Ruth Gruber's books (a former foreign correspondent during WWII and in post-war Israel), I felt the need to learn the language to understand Yiddish, Goethe in the original etc. But a scheduling conflict came up at Bev Hills Lingual Institute. So my second choice was Russian because ever since I was little I read "Russian Fairytales" and the folklore and culture appealed to me. The intro course was too short and I wanted to take more so after going to Russian camp a year later, and a few community college classes, I am determined to excel in it. I am sixteen going on seventeen, and last year I was a sophomore and now I'm enrolled as a twelfth grader. So I skipped my jr year.
My mom herself was reluctant to let me go to college so early. But I was very pushy in getting my way--to give you an example, I took AP English in eighth grade after a lot of pushiness on my part, and it counted as sophomore high school english for me. Yeah I can be obnoxious.
My mom would have been happy to have me home for an extra year going to community college and then going to USC as a junior...skipping another year. But I was not a fan of sacrificing dorm life for that and luckily I got into UCSD.</p>
<p>Calmom - no problems here - UCSB was one of my son's "top 3" - and UCSD wasn't. There was no way he would have gone to SD if he'd gotten into SB, instead of vice-versa. (The SD app was a tip of the hat to the random aspect of UC admissions.) So things worked out fine for us. </p>
<p>Maia - let me add my congratulations! (Ignore my son - he's an ignorant boy. UCSD is a terrific school.)</p>
<p>Maia--okay, I am now convinced!</p>
<p>BTW, my daughter (16 yr old) has a book of Russian fairytales (in English) and loves them.</p>
<p>Thanks kluge! I just realized something cool--if you unscramble your name it spells kugel!</p>
<p>Really! Is the editor of it Alexander something?</p>
<p>Mstee, I'm sure that my mom didn't want me going off at 16 either, but it worked out well for us. </p>
<p>When my daughter was 16, I put her on a plane to go to Russia to live with strangers in a town I never heard of until 2 weeks before she left. Such are the vagaries of foreign exchange programs - you have to take a lot on faith. (I know from experience on this end that the lining up of host families can be a very last-minute thing). The reason I never heard of the town - which is about 80 miles from Moscow - is that it is a part of Russia that was closed to western travelers until the fall of Communism; there is an aircraft factory in the town so it was not a place that where outsiders were welcome to snoop around. The people there were very friendly, but most had never met an American before. </p>
<p>Anyway, sending a kid to college at 16 is actually a lot less scary than sending one off to a foreign country. (Especially when terrorists decide to shoot down planes there the same day your daughter is arriving - but that's another story entirely). Some kids are very self-reliant and they manage very well. On the other hand, I wouldn't recommend Russia as a destination for any parent who would shudder at the thought of their 16 year old drinking Vodka. As Maia's mom says, there are many ways of doing things in the world.</p>
<p>"Xiggi, there is no such thing as an SAT II for Russian language and the AP exam for Russia is essentially being beta-tested this year -- whether it will stick or not is anyone's guess. But there's no loophole and no advantage whatsoever for native speakers since it there is no way to get credit for it. Studying Russian and going to Russia put my daughter at a distinct disadvantage for the SAT IIs -- she could not take a foreign language exam and she had not yet taken courses in most of the subject areas offered. So she opted for SAT II literature and US History before she actually took the history class. </p>
<p>Russian is a difficult language to study -- probably not as difficult as Chinese or Arabic, but far more difficult than Spanish or French, which are the most common high school offerings. Its nothing to make fun of -- any English-speaking kid who has spent a significant amount of time studying Russian has definitely stretched their intellect along the way to mastering the nuances of grammer. The cyrillic alphabet is easy, however -- totally phonetic."</p>
<p>Calmom, I will reply because I believe that you misconstrued my comments. </p>
<p>I did not make fun of one's attempt to learn Russian. I also know very well that there is no SAT Subject Test for Russian. It is because of this that I added the comment about how we did end up with such an abomination as the Korean SAT Subject Test. I have repeated many times that the SAT Subject Tests are meant to represent the HIGH school knowledge of american students in US high schools and should NOT be offered in foreign languages that are scarcely taught in our schools. This is different from the AP offerings that provide the opportunity to establish one's mastery from sources that include subjects not frequently taught in HS. </p>
<p>Inasmuch as I believe that the Korean and Chinese SAT Subject Tests provide huge loopholes, my comment about Russian being a loophole was entirely sarcastic. On the other hand, I stand by my comment about the different level of courses at a community college and a full fledged language department at a selective college.</p>
<p>"How many languages have you studied? You seem to have a dismissive attitude, which leads me to suspect that you have little appreciation for the nuances of learning a language with a significantly different grammatical structure than English."</p>
<p>The answer to that question might surprise you!</p>
<p>I'll bite, Ziggi. How many languages?</p>
<p>Now that Maia is corresponding on this forum, and many of you know more about her and her background and how interesting she is ...are you willing to perhaps give her some congratulations and best wishes for her college career instead of beating her down and predicting her failure for not fitting into the science/math/preprofessional mold/mindset?
Maia I wish you the best of luck..you sound like a great kid and I admire you for not coming here and "blasting" your naysayers.</p>
<p>Good for Maia and Maia's mom for coming on this board. I say a big congrats to you both. I am certain that Maia will do well at UCSD (I went to a UC school, too -- I'm an native Californian -- and now my nieces and nephews go to UC's). </p>
<p>Don't listen to the naysayers here. They all think everyone needs to have 700+ on each SAT part in order to be successful in good colleges. That just isn't true. My gut tells me that you'll do remarkably well in your chosen major and career! God Bless!!! </p>
<p>P.S. I <3 NR (I'm sure that comes to no surprise to OhDad who already thinks I'm an ultra-right wing conservative Catholic nutjob! ;)</p>
<p>Thanks you guys! Man, now I have another problem: addiction to CC. Collegeconfidentialitis.</p>
<p>"I admire you for not coming here and "blasting" your naysayers."</p>
<p>Sorry, but you can't rewrite history. </p>
<p>The blasting and bashing was indeed done, but by the reporting party.. Every student who earns an acceptance deserves accolades, and almost always ... gets them on College Confidential. The problematic issue was the utter LACK of graciousness in accepting the rejections. One does not become a naysayer for reacting to such tasteless displays. Attacking the "system" and attempting to discredit the people who made hard decisions also directly discredits the students who were admitted under the same conditions. </p>
<p>We always like to cheer for the underdogs but also hope to see them as gracious winners when emerging from a tough fight. </p>
<p>PS It is also incorrect to describe the majority of CC as test score obsessed. Inasmuch as there are many reports of stellar applicants with stratospheric scores, there are many stories of "angular" students who fared well, if not better than students with higher scores. Actually, anyone who pays attention in the next coming month should be able to witness a vast undercurrent of reports of students lamenting they did NOT make it despite perfect scores.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Inasmuch as I believe that the Korean and Chinese SAT Subject Tests provide huge loopholes...
[/quote]
</p>
<p>xiggi - can you please elaborate? My sons both take Mandarin (and are the only Causcasian students in each of their classes), so I'm very curious what you meant about a "loophole" in Chinese SAT subject tests.</p>
<p>Russian Fairy Tales, collected by Aleksandr Avanas'ev, translated by Norbert Guterman, Folkloristic commentary by Roman Jakobson--</p>
<p>Is that the one?</p>
<p>Agree, Xiggi, that publicly trashing the schools one does not get into does not give a good impression. Esp., if it happens to be the one you are attending or are a graduate of. :(.</p>
<p>"xiggi - can you please elaborate? My sons both take Mandarin (and are the only Causcasian students in each of their classes), so I'm very curious what you meant about a "loophole" in Chinese SAT subject tests."</p>
<p>The Subject Tests should be testing the knowledge and mastery of subjects learned in high school. Because of their inherent difficulty and lack of high schools teaching Chinese or Korean, the tests are both very difficult for non-native speakers and entirely trivial for native speakers. For instance, native speakers have said that the tests represent a second or third grade level of difficulty. As a result, the curves for Korean and Chinese are totally skewed because of the large number of native speaking students taking the test. Because the UC system uses a numerical scale that rewards SAT Subject Tests, this situation is especially troublesome in California and is obviously detrimental to non native speakers who desire to test their accomplishments.</p>
<p>Over my son's spring break, we had a couple of his friends over for movies and discussion. Son is a first year at U of Chicago. One of his friends is attending community college for financial reasons, the other is attending because of the LD support offered. Oddly enough, these young people, attending what might be described as a 'prostitute college' in this thread, were not unhappy or poorly served by their institution, or bewailing their lot in life. They are both very bright and creative, and will be well-prepared for four-year institutions in the future.</p>
<p>would you have observed a sense of "entitlement" had the author been a contributor to, oh, say, The Nation? Just asking.</p>
<p>I took the article. As a completely clueless mom. Just like me. I'm trying to learn, though, and could have written a column about my own mistakes and I'm sure it would have offended someone.</p>