What do you dislike about MIT?

<p>
[quote]
sakky, #36 is once again an obvious point. but then you jump from "useful" to "likely to increase future income" and the latter just isn't a good model of how the world works.</p>

<p>look, i understand how someone who is focused on careers (perhaps as a professional occupation) would see things in your way, and an ivory tower academic would see it in my way, and the truth is somewhere in between. but it's very clear that maximizing {money earned}/{hour of work} isn't everybody's goal, and neither is maximizing {hardcoreness of class load}. the truth is complicated and somewhere in between.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Again, nobody has ever argued that people are always out to maximize every single dollar that they will make. Ben, you're an economist, and so we both know that people don't actually do that, as the marginal utility of every dollar is a decreasing function. That is to say, once you have secured a middle-class lifestyle, earning a few thousand dollars more a year doesn't really matter very much. But certainly nobody wants to be below the poverty line. When you're at that level, extra money really matters.</p>

<p>Similarly, I have never stated that nobody ever values 'hardcoreness'. Like I've said throughout this thread, if you can handle rigorous topics, then by all means do so. I did. You did. But what I am asking is what about those people who can't handle it? These are like people below the 'poverty line'. For these people, some marginal decreases in 'hardcoreness' really matter, just like for poor people, a few thousand dollars more a year can really matter. </p>

<p>And that's precisely the point I've been making. I have never said that everybody should want to go to Sloan. In fact, I have specifically stated that this is not the case. What I have said is that some people, and in particular, those people who are failing in rigorous technical majors, will probably be better off in Sloan. In other words, if you're in course 6 in MIT and are doing well, good for you! Stay there! But my question is, what if you're not doing well?</p>

<p>
[quote]
sakky, I believe that the students that MIT accepts, on a a whole are capable of graduating in their chosen fields of interest.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>But some are not capable. That's the point. What happens to those people? </p>

<p>
[quote]
But if it is the field that they truly want, most students of the caliber that MIT accepts, can rise to the occasion and pass and graduate.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>The majority probably can. But not all. That's my point. </p>

<p>
[quote]
I know my kids would not change majors as an easier path toward graduating. They just would not. They are too interested in their fields.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I would argue that's because they never truly had to face the 'barrel of the gun', if you will. Look, it's very easy to say that you wouldn't do this-and-that if faced with a terrible choice. But actually following through is an entirely different matter.</p>

<p>I don't speak out of inexperience. I know quite a few people who flunked out of college or came close to it (i.e. landed on academic probation). Believe me, when placed under that kind of crisis, people's desires change quickly. </p>

<p>And besides, I think this topic is endogenous anyway. After all, let's be honest, people's interests in topics tend to be affected by how well they are performing. If you're constantly getting failing grades in that topic and having everybody constantly telling you that you're doing poorly and always being made to feel dumb, then you're almost certainly going to lose interest in that topic and want to study something else.</p>

<p>
[quote]
Then you are clearly in the minority for I think it has been shown that most parents - whether rightly or wrongly - do believe that certain schools do provide better career opportunities than do other schools. I doubt that that is surprising: look at the mania of parents trying to get their kids into top-ranked colleges

[/quote]
</p>

<p>My kids attend TOP colleges (one is at an Ivy and is heading to MIT for grad school) and one is at one of the top specialized programs in her field (with an acceptance rate of approx. 6%). However, they go to these schools because these schools were good fits for them. I do believe that their futures will be bright. I don't believe they will earn more money for having gone to these schools. I think they hopefully will have fine opportunities due to their backgrounds.</p>

<p>
[quote]
And to that, I think you are also clearly in the minority, or perhaps, you have the wealth and luxury to afford such a choice. But be honest - do you think most Americans can afford to be this generous? Or even want to be? Let's face it. Most Americans aren't exactly rich. In fact, you can even click through the various threads in CC in which people discuss whether they should take a full ride at some lower-ranked school over going into personal debt for a higher-ranked school, presumably because their parents couldn't or didn't want to pay.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I am not wealthy. My children are on financial aid and I will be paying the loans for their college and graduate schools for many years to come. I value education. I don't care WHAT college they attend....only that they are happy with their choices and that they get the most out of the experiences (and they have). </p>

<p>I don't need to click through various CC threads. I have been on CC for six years. I OBSERVE the way of thinking that you describe that SOME parents or students have and I cannot relate. Actually, I am a college counselor and I need to get back to work. I have some clients who only want "Ivy" and nothing else will do. My kids, nor we, can relate at all. I know what you are talking about but I am saying that I don't agree, nor feel as you do, and nor do my kids. Since you are talking about MIT and I read what Ben wrote about the typical MIT student, I am merely saying that my future MIT grad student fits Ben's description and not yours.</p>

<p>
[quote]
By the way, as far as post #36, we definitely encouraged skills with our kids that were not "useful" or were not "academic" in nature. We were and continue to be very very very into their extracurricular pursuits which I have to say have been lifelong passions of theirs. They continued these in college as well. We encourage that and those areas may not have any bearing on an eventual career. One of my kids actually turned her EC pursuits which began as a preschooler through high school graduation into her college major and career path in fact. Of course we also encouraged her academic achievements in the classroom but these other interests have become her lifelong passion and now her career pursuit.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I'll use the example from my own life again. When I was a kid, if left to my own devices, I would have played video games literally all day long, heck sometimes 24 hours straight without sleeping. That was my "EC". </p>

<p>Now, maybe you might be one of the few parents who might have actually encouraged your kids to do that. But my parents certainly did not. Nor were they exceptional: I think every kid on my block had an addiction to video games and had parents who were trying to stop or at least limit them. But hey, we were all improving our "hand-eye coordination", right? </p>

<p>What that shows is that most parents won't encourage just any old EC, they only encourage certain EC's that they think are useful, and my parents certainly did not think video games were useful at all. Maybe they were wrong - maybe right now I could be a professional video game player making millions in endorsements. I guess we'll never know. But it doesn't matter. What matters is that they, for whatever reason, didn't think it was useful.</p>

<p>
[quote]
My kids attend TOP colleges (one is at an Ivy and is heading to MIT for grad school) and one is at one of the top specialized programs in her field (with an acceptance rate of approx. 6%). However, they go to these schools because these schools were good fits for them. I do believe that their futures will be bright. I don't believe they will earn more money for having gone to these schools. I think they hopefully will have fine opportunities due to their backgrounds.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>And I think that you are an exception. YOU may do that. But, honestly, what do you think other parents are doing? </p>

<p>
[quote]
I am not wealthy. My children are on financial aid and I will be paying the loans for their college and graduate schools for many years to come. I value education. I don't care WHAT college they attend....only that they are happy with their choices and that they get the most out of the experiences (and they have).</p>

<p>I don't need to click through various CC threads. I have been on CC for six years. I OBSERVE the way of thinking that you describe that SOME parents or students have and I cannot relate. Actually, I am a college counselor and I need to get back to work. I have some clients who only want "Ivy" and nothing else will do. My kids, nor we, can relate at all. I know what you are talking about but I am saying that I don't agree, nor feel as you do, and nor do my kids. Since you are talking about MIT and I read what Ben wrote about the typical MIT student, I am merely saying that my future MIT grad student fits Ben's description and not yours.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>The real question is no what YOUR future student will do, but rather what most future students will do. And let's get down to brass tacks about what I mean by that:</p>

<p>I assert that</p>

<p>Most students will switch majors if the alternative is to flunk out entirely.
*Most students are interested in multiple subjects and hence would be perfectly happy in any one of a group of potential majors. Very few students are interested in one, and only one, topic and hate everything else.<br>
*Most students, and more importantly, most parents, care about future career opportunities. Note, that's not to say that that's the *only
thing they care about. But they do care about it.<br>
*Most parents tend to encourage skills in their children that they think are actually useful.
*Most parents would rather send their kids to top-ranked colleges vs. lower-ranked colleges.</p>

<p>I think all of these points are noncontroversial.</p>

<p>
[quote]
i don't know where this debate went off to. sakky was saying that caring about rigor in education is like caring about having the nicest pom-poms on the cheerleading team -- purely a social fad driven by peer pressure. i was saying that this is insane -- that many MIT students genuinely care more about getting a serious education than a high paying job. i think sakky has fundamental axioms that prevent him from entertaining this possibility.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Uh, I would argue that you have fundamental axioms that prevent you from entertaining the fact that social pressures do matter and, in particular, that most highly rigorous and driven students are that way because of parental influences and therefore is a socio-cultural feature. For example, why exactly do Asian-Americans seem to do so well in school? Don't you think it's because the high emphasis on education within the Asian-American community has something to do with it? </p>

<p>Now, that's not to say that nobody can ever break the mold. Certainly, a few people can have retrograde parents yet become highly driven students anyway. But that's pretty rare. </p>

<p>Now, to your subpoint, I am not - nor have I ever said - that all MIT students are always out to get the absolute highest paying job they can ever get. That's not the point. After all, once you can pay for a roof over your head and food on the table (i.e. you're not in poverty) , then plus/minus a few thousand dollars here or there doesn't really matter. So sure, once you've satisfied those needs, then you can pursue your desires for rigor. But you gotta at least be able to put food on the table. I doubt that this is a controversial point.</p>

<p>Furthermore, I am saying that there is a point for some people where the rigor is simply too much. Rigor is great if you can take it. But what if you can't? What if you're going to flunk out? I think there is little dispute that switching to an less rigorous major is better than flunking out.</p>

<p>Sakky obviously has his own ideas and the rest of you have your own. I think that you should all agree to disagree and understand that people have different opinions. If you really have something original to say, than say it, but to continue responding to post after post is unnecessary.</p>

<p>sakky, in your original post, you said
[quote]
The emphasis on rigor might make some sense if it actually mattered from a real-world point of view. But the fact is, it probably doesn't.

[/quote]
everyone who has been arguing with you in this thread is pointing out that this betrays your means-to-an-end view of education. for a lot of people, education and rigor are not means to some end but ends in themselves. until you can concede that point, i don't think we have that much to discuss.</p>

<p>
[quote]
I am not wealthy. My children are on financial aid and I will be paying the loans for their college and graduate schools for many years to come. I value education. I don't care WHAT college they attend....only that they are happy with their choices and that they get the most out of the experiences (and they have).</p>

<p>I don't need to click through various CC threads. I have been on CC for six years. I OBSERVE the way of thinking that you describe that SOME parents or students have and I cannot relate. Actually, I am a college counselor and I need to get back to work. I have some clients who only want "Ivy" and nothing else will do. My kids, nor we, can relate at all.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Perhaps the following thought exercise will serve to elucidate my stance.</p>

<p>Ask yourself - why exactly do schools offer aid? And in particular, why do many of the relatively lower-ranked schools (compared to their self-selected peer schools) offer merit aid? After all, if students are always going to attend a particular school because of "fit", then it doesn't matter whether that school offers aid or not, because those students (or more accurately, their parents) will ultimately find a way to pay for it themselves, right? What that means is that schools have no reason to offer aid of any kind. Why should they, if their students are going to come regardless of financial concerns? Might as well always charge full price to everybody if demand is completely inelastic, as I'm sure Ben would agree. </p>

<p>The very fact that an aid system exists simply demonstrates that financial concerns do matter to many (almost certainly most) parents. Ben will love this example: my brother chose Caltech for one simple reason: Caltech offered him a full ride (through the President's Scholarship) and other schools didn't. In fact, I remember my brother saying that he wasn't sure if he'd be comfortable at Caltech, but he just couldn't turn down the money. In fact, Caltech isn't shy about why they offer these rides: it is precisely to increase yield. If they didn't offer these rides, then fewer people would choose Caltech. Similarly I know one girl who freely admitted that if she didn't get a full ride from Duke, she would have gone to Harvard instead. </p>

<p>That all strengthens the point that finances do influence where you go to school. People are not optimizing only 'personal fit'. Money also matters. I don't think that's a controversial point.</p>

<p>sakky,
About the video games. My kids never played them, but not because we didn't let them but because they were overly busy with extracurriculars that interested them more. They didn't have time to hang out. While I am not against video games, I don't consider this an EC in the sense that that term is usually used. I don't think colleges consider video games as ECs either. I think of video games as something someone does in their free time. I don't think too many kids get into elite colleges whose only EC is video games. Most have interests they pursue but those interests may not be "useful" or may not tie into a field of study or career. I highly valued my kids' EC pursuits. It was a HUGE part of their development and has been a HUGE part of the college experiences as well. Academics are not the only thing that matters to me or to them. </p>

<p>
[quote]
Most students will switch majors if the alternative is to flunk out entirely.
[quote]
</p>

<p>Many many people switch majors for lots of reasons. I am all for switching majors. Many 18 year olds have no idea what they want to study until they have tried something or many things out. That is what college is for. You mention flunking out....well if you are flunking out, one must examine why. You either are not working hard enough or maybe the field doesn't interest you enough to pursue it....time to make some sort of change. Change majors, change colleges, don't go to college, take a year off, etc. What I was saying before is that my children would not change majors just because another major was easier just so they could graduate. I would not even want to spend money (let alone have them spend time on) studying something deeply that they had NO interest in. By the way, my kids are interested in MORE than one thing. But they would never major in something they are not passionate about. </p>

<p>
[quote]
*Most students are interested in multiple subjects and hence would be perfectly happy in any one of a group of potential majors. Very few students are interested in one, and only one, topic and hate everything else.

[/quote]

I have one kid in a liberal arts degree program. She is the epitome of "well rounded" as you can get. Even one of her college app essays focused on being well rounded and having a myriad of interests. She doesn't like only one top and hates everything else. She'd be the first to tell you that she likes many things. Even her major and intended graduate field of study is a very interdisciplinary field and that is one thing she likes about it. She highly valued a liberal arts education and in fact, in her field, she could have done a professional degree program as an undergraduate but didn't want to commit to or be limited to focus primarily on one thing for undergrad school. My other kid is in a highly focused program that is a specialized professional degree program for undergrads. She has known her passion from a very very young age. However, she is also interested in the liberal arts subjects she takes. But she has a deep seated passion in her field of study and I can't imagine her majoring in anything else. This field required a commitment to the major at the time of application. Her field of study is her life. But she is interested in other things. </p>

<p>
[quote]
*Most students, and more importantly, most parents, care about future career opportunities. Note, that's not to say that that's the only thing they care about. But they do care about it.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I care about my kids having a bright future full of happiness and opportunities that they may seek. I don't care what field they go into and I don't care how much money they earn. Both have chosen professions that are not high paying and I support them through and through.</p>

<p>
[quote]
*Most parents tend to encourage skills in their children that they think are actually useful.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>We encouraged always doing your best in school (they did....they happen to be internally motivated and so never were pushed). We also supported their pursuits of whatever EC passions they had. I don't care if their EC passions or skills are "useful." Actually, one passion of one of my kids is ski racing. She is not going to be a ski racer for her career. I can tell you that she drew parallels (no pun intended) to her life in ski racing to her graduate field/pursuit on her statement of purpose to get into grad schools (she got into many top ones in her field). I think there is a lot to be gained by immersion in many EC pursuits, even if the actual activity is not one that is in itself useful later on. </p>

<p>
[quote]
*Most parents would rather send their kids to top-ranked colleges vs. lower-ranked colleges.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Um....SOME parents feel that way....I see it on CC with lots of folks. But I do not agree that MOST feel that way. We definitely do not!!!! I wanted my kids to go to whatever college they wanted and am grateful they got into their favored schools and are happy there. I'd be happy if they had gone to lower ranked schools where they were a good fit and where they were happy. My kids have never read the rankings in US News and are unaware of where their schools are ranked. I am not even sure where their schools are ranked (I'd have to look it up as I don't pay much attention to US News rankings) but I just know that they have chosen good schools that are great fits for them. By the way, when my older D was picking where to attend college four years ago, she had to narrow it down to a few to revisit that April from among all her acceptances. She knocked out one Ivy she got into and was selected as one of 100 scholars at and chose two lower ranked schools she preferred over that Ivy to possibly attend and revisit. She went with best fit. For grad school.....my D has chosen MIT but had she chosen Syracuse, I'd have been just fine about it. Syracuse offered her lots of money and MIT did not. Some might say we are nuts to let her go to MIT but MIT is a better fit for what she wants. She cares (and we do too) about how the school fits what she wants. She went to visit all six grad schools she got into and didn't just say, "I got into MIT....I gotta go there.....it is ranked second in my field"....rather, she wanted to figure out which program was the best fit. Sorry, not all kids and not all parents feel as you described. Some do. I see some on CC. I run into some in my line of work as a college counselor. Also, my kids grew up in a rural area and went to an unknown public school and nobody here is caught up in the "gotta go to prestigious top school frenzy." For me, I want my kids to get into schools they like and I want them to be real happy once they get there. That's it. I am so thankful that this has happened for them.</p>

<p>
[quote]
everyone who has been arguing with you in this thread is pointing out that this betrays your means-to-an-end view of education. for a lot of people, education is more of an end in itself than a means to an end. until you can concede that point, i don't think we have that much to discuss.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Uh, I concede precisely nothing because the facts bear me out. When I say "real-world", you and I both know that I am talking about marketability, and the fact is, employers don't really pay a premium for 'rigor'. I wish they did. Sadly, they do not. After all, compare the salaries of the engineers coming out of (relatively relaxed) Stanford vs. those coming out of (rigorous) MIT or Caltech. The difference is miniscule. </p>

<p>Now, if you say that some people pursue rigor for its own sake, I have always agreed that this is true. But what is inescapable is that there is probably going to be no real-world, that is to say, no tangible market, benefit. In other words, you would pursue rigor because you value it for its own sake, not because you actually think it will translate into an advantage in the market. </p>

<p>Again, I doubt that this is a controversial point.</p>

<p>sakky, regarding financial aid....again everyone thinks differently about that too. I agree that some pick a school based on the best financial offer. Guess what? Not in my family. Yes, we very very much need the aid. But my husband and I value education and feel our kids have worked hard to get to where they are at and we want them to go to wherever they feel best fits them. </p>

<p>Case in point....older D got into almost all of her colleges four years ago. She had a full ride at one. Two other schools offered merit aid. Her other schools were only need based schools. We let her pick her current college and it was far from the best FA offer as well as does not offer merit aid (is an Ivy). </p>

<p>My other child is attending the most expensive college on her list and one of the most expensive in the country. She did get a nice scholarship but we would have let her go to one of her schools that offered much smaller scholarships if she had preferred those. We let them pick their schools no matter the FA package offered and were grateful for any aid they received. </p>

<p>Another case in point...my oldest got into six grad schools (professional degree programs, not PhD). Almost all offered substantial scholarships and fellowships. The only one that didn't is MIT. She has chosen MIT. We will be in large debt. For us, it was worth it. In our family, we did optimize "fit".</p>

<p>Right....some students prefer to attend rigorous programs for their own sake and not for any perceived financial benefit down the road.</p>

<p>
[quote]
About the video games. My kids never played them, but not because we didn't let them but because they were overly busy with extracurriculars that interested them more. They didn't have time to hang out. While I am not against video games, I don't consider this an EC in the sense that that term is usually used. I don't think colleges consider video games as ECs either. I think of video games as something someone does in their free time. I don't think too many kids get into elite colleges whose only EC is video games.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>But ask yourself - why not? After all, why are video games inherently less valuable than, say, football? Or any other sport? </p>

<p>
[quote]
You mention flunking out....well if you are flunking out, one must examine why. You either are not working hard enough or maybe the field doesn't interest you enough to pursue it....time to make some sort of change

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Or the field is simply too hard for you. Either way, I agree, time to make a change. </p>

<p>
[quote]
hat I was saying before is that my children would not change majors just because another major was easier just so they could graduate.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>So they would actually prefer to flunk out? If so, they are clearly in the distinct minority. </p>

<p>
[quote]
I would not even want to spend money (let alone have them spend time on) studying something deeply that they had NO interest in. By the way, my kids are interested in MORE than one thing. But they would never major in something they are not passionate about.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>And, again, I would argue endogeneity. It's pretty darn hard to be passionate about a subject in which you are constantly getting F's. After all, nobody enjoys doing poorly. </p>

<p>
[quote]
I have one kid in a liberal arts degree program. She is the epitome of "well rounded" as you can get. Even one of her college app essays focused on being well rounded and having a myriad of interests. She doesn't like only one top and hates everything else. She'd be the first to tell you that she likes many things. Even her major and intended graduate field of study is a very interdisciplinary field and that is one thing she likes about it. She highly valued a liberal arts education and in fact, in her field, she could have done a professional degree program as an undergraduate but didn't want to commit to or be limited to focus primarily on one thing for undergrad school. My other kid is in a highly focused program that is a specialized professional degree program for undergrads. She has known her passion from a very very young age. However, she is also interested in the liberal arts subjects she takes. But she has a deep seated passion in her field of study and I can't imagine her majoring in anything else. This field required a commitment to the major at the time of application. Her field of study is her life. But she is interested in other things.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Speaking specifically about Sloan, I would argue that Sloan is a highly wide-ranging and holistic, almost interdisciplinary major. After all, you can go pure 'quant' and be an operations research guy, almost like a math major. You can go 'soft' and specialize in topics like leadership or communications. You can do grand strategy. You can do marketing. You can do finance. You can do information technology. You can do a wide variety of things.</p>

<p>Hence, it's hard for me to come up with a scenario in which somebody at MIT would hate everything that Sloan has to offer. There are not that many requirements, you are largely free to piece together your own curricula, and the courses generally give you the freedom to work on projects that you like. Plus, like I said, you don't have to really worry about flunking out, the way you do in the hard-core tech majors. What's not to like? </p>

<p>
[quote]
I care about my kids having a bright future full of happiness and opportunities that they may seek. I don't care what field they go into and I don't care how much money they earn.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Come now. You would care if they couldn't even afford food to eat. You would care if they were in true poverty. And certainly you would care if they just moved back home and couldn't or didn't want to get a job and decided to sponge off you for the rest of their lives. No parent wants that. </p>

<p>That's the point I've been making. Sure, you don't really care about getting absolutely every single last dollar. But you care about your kids at least reaching some basic threshold of financial self-sufficiency. </p>

<p>
[quote]
She is not going to be a ski racer for her career. I can tell you that she drew parallels (no pun intended) to her life in ski racing to her graduate field/pursuit on her statement of purpose to get into grad schools (she got into many top ones in her field). I think there is a lot to be gained by immersion in many EC pursuits, even if the actual activity is not one that is in itself useful later on.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Then maybe you could have told my parents to lay off me if I felt I wanted to play video games for 24 hours straight. Of course, I shudder to think of where I would be if that happened. {Then again, maybe I'd be a millionaire pro video game player.}</p>

<p>
[quote]
Um....SOME parents feel that way....I see it on CC with lots of folks. But I do not agree that MOST feel that way.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Oh, I disagree. It's clearly MOST. Look at the craze of rich parents to get their kids into even private kindergartens as a way to get their kids a leg up in the college race. Heck, look at how many copies the USNews ranking sells - it is by far the top selling USNews issue every year, in fact, I think by an order of magnitude. </p>

<p>But what you are talking about is a 'frenzy'. I never stated it that way, and certainly not to the point where it overrides everything else. I simply said that it was a simple preference even if a small one. For example, given the choice between sending their kid to Harvard and some no-name school, all else equal, including the price and the preferences of the kid himself, the parents are almost certainly going to prefer Harvard, even if by just a little bit.</p>

<p>
[quote]
sakky, regarding financial aid....again everyone thinks differently about that too. I agree that some pick a school based on the best financial offer. Guess what? Not in my family. Yes, we very very much need the aid. But my husband and I value education and feel our kids have worked hard to get to where they are at and we want them to go to wherever they feel best fits them.</p>

<p>Case in point....older D got into almost all of her colleges four years ago. She had a full ride at one. Two other schools offered merit aid. Her other schools were only need based schools. We let her pick her current college and it was far from the best FA offer as well as does not offer merit aid (is an Ivy).</p>

<p>My other child is attending the most expensive college on her list and one of the most expensive in the country. She did get a nice scholarship but we would have let her go to one of her schools that offered much smaller scholarships if she had preferred those. We let them pick their schools no matter the FA package offered and were grateful for any aid they received.</p>

<p>Another case in point...my oldest got into six grad schools (professional degree programs, not PhD). Almost all offered substantial scholarships and fellowships. The only one that didn't is MIT. She has chosen MIT. We will be in large debt. For us, it was worth it. In our family, we did optimize "fit"

[/quote]
</p>

<p>And you are clearly in the minority, because like I said, if every parent thought like you (or even if the majority did), then schools would have little incentive to even offer aid in the first place. Why do it, if people don't consider money to be important anyway? Might as well charge full price to everybody all the time, right?</p>

<p>sakky -- </p>

<p>
[quote]
When I say "real-world", you and I both know that I am talking about marketability

[/quote]
</p>

<p>this is precisely why I said your view of the real world is impoverished! if this is all the "real world" is for you, then you win. :).</p>

<p>
[quote]
Right....some students prefer to attend rigorous programs for their own sake and not for any perceived financial benefit down the road.

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<p>But that's not what we're arguing. Like I have always said, rigor is great if you can handle it. But what if you can't? What if the rigor is too much for you? Then these people would be better off with a less rigorous choice. </p>

<p>Seems to me that nobody cares about those people who can't handle the rigor. But why not? These are human beings too.</p>

<p>
[quote]
this is precisely why I said your view of the real world is impoverished! if this is all the "real world" is for you, then you win

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<p>Let me put it to you this way. I STILL enjoy playing video games (although not as much as I did in the past). I play them for my own sake. But I know full well that there is no "real-world" benefit from me doing so, and in fact, plenty of "real-world" costs (i.e. they cause me to waste ridiculously massive amounts of time that I probably should be spending on writing publications).</p>

<p>Now, maybe that internal psychological enjoyment of my video game playing is actually a "real-world" benefit. I don't know. But all I know is that it certainly doesn't help me in doing what I ought to be spending my time doing. And certainly, I doubt that I will earn a higher salary just because of all my gaming.</p>

<p>Similarly, embarking on rigor for its own sake probably does create some internal psychological enjoyment for some people, but probably isn't going to be rewarded in terms of a higher salary. That's what I mean.</p>

<p>and i mean, okay! nobody was confused about that.</p>

<p>
[quote]
Now, maybe that internal psychological enjoyment of my video game playing is actually a "real-world" benefit. I don't know. But all I know is that it certainly doesn't help me in doing what I ought to be spending my time doing. And certainly, I doubt that I will earn a higher salary just because of all my gaming.

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<p>Ya see, I don't think one should only do what one "ought" to be doing. And one should not only do things or learn things that will earn them more money. The inherent value in the ECs my kids did were so numerous, even if they never ever pursue studies in or careers related to these endeavors.....examples of ECs they were heavily involved in their entire lives.....ski racing, soccer, tennis, musical theater, dance (many forms), instrumental music, voice, student government, travel. We felt they ought to be doing those things. They pushed us to do them and we were behind them all the way. They continue doing many of these in college. </p>

<p>
[quote]
So they would actually prefer to flunk out? If so, they are clearly in the distinct minority.

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<p>Um, no of course they do not prefer to flunk out. But they NEVER would flunk out because it is their nature to achieve and they would not be satisfied with doing poorly. And I think if the college accepted them, they are capable of the work. I suppose if a school were too difficult, they may need to change schools. If they are failing in a major, it can't be only that it is too hard but that they are not into it enough to at least pass. What I was saying earlier is that there is no way they would do a major in which they were not deeply interested just so they could pass and graduate college. The alternative to that is not flunking out, however.</p>

<p>
[quote]
It's pretty darn hard to be passionate about a subject in which you are constantly getting F's. After all, nobody enjoys doing poorly.

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<p>If you are getting F's, it may not be because it is too difficult but because you are not passionate enough and motivated enough to at least get a passing grade in that subject. Again, if you are not passionate about a subject, pick a different one you ARE passionate about. You mentioned picking an easier major whether that was a major passion or not but just to graduate. I don't relate to that and neither do my kids. I do believe in changing majors if the current one is not the one for you and I imagine if you are failing, you are not that keen on it in the first place enough to pass. If you were admitted to the school and work your butt off, you should be able to at least pass...maybe not with A's, but pass.</p>

<p>
[quote]
Similarly, embarking on rigor for its own sake probably does create some internal psychological enjoyment for some people, but probably isn't going to be rewarded in terms of a higher salary. That's what I mean.

[/quote]
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<p>Who cares if rigor is rewarded in terms of a higher salary? That's the point (Ben has made it too). SOME students crave rigor and crave challenge and would not be content in courses or colleges that are too easy for THEM. My kids are of this nature. They do not enjoy what is easy. None of this is related to earning money in their eventual careers, however.</p>

<p>About Sloan...I never said someone would HATE everything it offers but there is no way my kids would choose a major just because it is there and because it is easier, even if they didn't hate the subject. </p>

<p>Regarding the crazed parents...I acknowledge....they DO exist. Some are even on CC. They do not represent what you refer to as "most parents"....perhaps most in your social circle or community or many who frequent CC....but there are many many many across this country whom you do not come in contact with who are not caught up in that frame of thinking. You will meet very very few in my community for instance.</p>