I’m a kid, and I posted something similar a while ago. I don’t have the best grades, I’m not good at studying, and I have an LD. I’ve been feeling like total crap because I’m not in the top 10% of my graduating class. My SAT score turned out pretty good, but my school grades and subject tests and the stuff you have to study actual content for did not. I’ve gotten into all of my safety schools so far and I’m expecting mostly rejections from this point onwards. I’m trying to just accept that now. It’s nice to know I’m not the only one feeling like this
@Krenster I agree with your decision. Without waxing on too much, American family and academic culture allows numerous paths to success. I’ve been living and working in Asia for almost 5 years now and observed the effect of this extraordinarily competitive environment and communal culture on kids. The American approach to education, like your own, is more likely to produce a higher percentage of creative problem solvers and leaders. Notice - I speak of probabilities, not absolutes.
So many variables shape each individuals success … Parents aren’t clairvoyant. We can’t know future outcomes but none the less praise or second guess ourselves based on them. We can program computers, not our children. We just do the best we can with what we have and our circumstances.
@Alpha101 As much as I hate to say this, there really are some people whose academic potential is significantly lower than the mean. Even in the absence of learning disorders, there are going to be some kids who need to go over material twice to remember most of it, and others who only pick the key points up after reviewing the topic 5-6 times. Unfortunately for the latter group, there’s a limited number of hours in a day, and you can’t revise everything you learn in 6 subjects a half-dozen times while also finding time to sleep, eat, do homework, and live some sort of life beyond your schoolwork.
Hard work can move most people to the 75th percentile in almost any field. It’s no guarantee that they’ll begin to approach the 99th percentile. For just one counterexample to the idea that anyone can study and ace a test, see this article: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/03/03/big-score. Despite spending a year in search of the perfect SAT score (without high school to get in the way of studying), the woman this article focuses on didn’t get close to a 2400,
To your examples of students A, B, and C, I’ll add a few more. Student D has an exceptional memory, spends 30 minutes revising on the morning of a test, and scores a 90. Student E studies for an hour a day in the week leading up to a test, but struggles with test anxiety and gets a 70. On the other hand, student E can ski better than Student D would if he practiced for a decade. Neither fits your neat narrative (work=good grades, R-squared=0.99), but I’ve just described a couple of my classmates. People are strange that way - each of us has different strengths and weaknesses.
@Alpha101 - You do realize that all of the parents on here have also had the experience of being HS students (and raising HS students)? You do not have a unique perspective that we can’t understand because you are a student. You work hard, and you get good grades, and you should rightly be proud of that. But the world of ability is NOT as equal as you think that it is.
Do you also feel that all people are born with the same athletic abilities? Hard work can make most people decent athletes, but the top tier will always be those with innate abilities AND hard work. Academics is no different.
I know it is hard to imagine that not everyone can grasp things as quickly and easily as you can. Be very happy and grateful for that ability. Yes, more study could improve the scores of many, many students. But hour-for-hour study time is NOT equal for all academic abilities.
Re-read post #42. If you don’t believe it now, print it out and re-read it in 15 years.some excellent points were made and examples given.
OP - Hallelujah for your and your kids. They will be fine.
@NotVerySmart I can see where your coming from. But first off all the woman taking the SAT was 46. She had scored poorly even when she was high school. At that age she had probably forgotten all geometry and algebra skills, her reading comprehension was probably really bad unless she regularly read books as an adult, and she had probably forgotten common high school english grammar practices as well. A year of studying completely foreign material was a disadvantage for her…compared to high schoolers who have it fresh in their minds.
In your example with students D and E, I would very much argue that they are minority anomalies in a classroom. My example was given pertaining to the average student, not child geniuses or students with mental anxiety or disabilities.
I think I’ll just agree to disagree on this subject. I’m attacking more of the concept that students should be told that they are just more dumb than other kids. Not with the intention of babying them and keeping them from realizing reality, but more in the sense of not discouraging them from even trying to catch up. It kinda seems like the “you’ll never be as good…” statement to me. And from hanging with kids that seem to have this mindset I have determined it is completely detrimental to their well-being and motivation for success. I can’t really see what the appeal is in the “Why even bother” attitude.
Alpha101 - I think you are taking the OP’s “why bother?” statement a little too literally. No one, and I mean no one, on this site would argue that you shouldn’t work hard and aim high. However, this post was originally about the OP’s concern about the pressure on kids and parents from other kids and parents in the hyper-competitive world of college admissions. The OP was trying to figure out how to stay sane in a world where many people think getting into a college other than the Ivy League is a failure. One answer to that question is realizing that there are a whole lot of people who will do just fine in life even if they are not able to get into a top-20 school. Another answer is that obtaining that goal, if it is one that someone wants to pursue, is not as straightforward as one would think. And yet another answer is recognizing that getting into a top-20 college is not a guarantee of happiness or success, and no one should be fooled into thinking it is. If someone wants to aim for that upper echelon, plenty of people on here will tell you how to maximize your chances. But that is not what the OP asked for. And few will tell you that that is the be-all end-all.
Thanks for the guffaw of the day, @Alpha101. Your sensitivity to the mental decay of this 46 year old is heart-warming. It’s a miracle I was even able to process your paragraph, but I did notice that in the first sentence your use of “your” was incorrect (try “you’re”) and “english” should have been capitalized.
OP, thank you for starting this post. It’s a wonderful discussion and I think your children will have great success in life and as human beings. Welcome to College Confidential!
Now I’m going to go insert my dentures, take my Geritol and get on with my day.
@GnochiB Lol, what??? Mental decay???
It’s called forgetting stuff. You know, something that every human being does. I was just stating one of the obvious reasons as why the woman may have scored badly, not trying to insult her. This is no way a mockery.
It’s pretty much just common sense that a person would forget. What exactly am I being insensitive to? Old age? The fact that a woman in her 40s probably forgot high school math?
@Alpha101 thanks for replying. I was teasing you for the “at her age” phrasing. :)>-
I will concede that I have forgotten a fair bit of my HS algebra, geometry, trig and calculus, but my thought is that reading comprehension would generally improve with age for most people with white-collar, professional desk jobs (to use a gross generalization). IIRC, the woman who wrote the book worked in publishing, so presumably the kind of reading comprehension testing appearing on the SAT would be a skill she used regularly in her daily life.
I also believe she scored nowhere close to a 1600 (the scale when she was in HS in the 1980s) as a college applicant, so wouldn’t the fact that she devoted a year to studying and still was not able to get close to a perfect score work against your argument that with enough work, anyone could score at the top of the test?
And you didn’t ask, but I was kidding about the Geritol and dentures. :))
To the OP: Kudos to you and your spouse for keeping it real. Well-adjusted, loving, responsible adults is the best goal we can have for our children; if they are those things, the rest will come naturally. I took/take a lot of flack in my circle when verbalizing that free time is as important, if not more important, than structured activities, and only allowed my kids to do two things each high school semester (and also required them to start working at 14). It starts when they are toddlers…with the ability to entertain themselves.
Hey OP: we love yellowstone!! and grand tetons.
found this board several years ago by googling PSAT scores. Then I got hooked on the financial aid and parents cafe forums. I’m basically trying to figure out how to pay for 4 kids through college as we havent saved much.
I agree with @happymomof1 in post #13 - financial forum is great!!
I’m midwest, middle income+. My eyes have been opened to the pressures that east coast students/parents must face with getting into top colleges. Thankfully, that’s not ingrained in our culture. My kids are/will be at affordable schools that seem like great fits. my only advice is to let them do what they want with ECs and try to keep up the GPA, have good test scores & take hard classes in HS.
There is so much support on CC for whatever type of college you might look at - don’t give up!
In response to the forgetting things because you get older. While my girls were preparing for their SATs I downloaded the SAT question of the day app. I rarely missed the critical reading questions but was abysmal at the math questions. I completed math through Calc 2 in college but haven’t used anything beyond basic algebra since then. I was sad when I was unable to really help my girls with their math homework by about the time they reached 7th grade. 
Thank you for the replies. I made the mistake of snooping around “Chance Me” threads again and started to feel an immense amount of regret and self-loathing because I wasn’t as good as these high rising seniors. Thankfully, this thread gave me the dose of reality I so desperately needed.
Yeah, these students with 2400’s and myriad EC’s dedicate most of their time toward academics (hopefully) because they love it. You say your sons/daughters will have a lot to offer in the future and that you are satisfied with them not attending a fancy ivy, I think that is a great way of thinking. Wishing you and your kids the best!
Off topic, but I am 51. I suck at math and literally can only do the basics. But I have just been hired as an ACT subject tutor for the English and Reading section. Guess I am not destined for the glue factory yet, lol!
I am over 40 and tried the PSAT practice test for fun, only missed 5 reading questions and 8 writing, don’t ask me how many math, lol. But I was never that strong in math and ran out of time as well.
But English is not my first language. I learned it in school starting in 5th grade but didn’t use it much until I met my husband when I was in my twenties. I’ve been living here in the US for 20+ years.
@Alpha101 - You aren’t being insensitive, you are just being 18. The difference in perspective of how old you think a 46 year old is is what we find funny. Math skills that are not used are indeed forgotten. But unless someone lives in a cave, we still all have to read! Nothing personal - I’m sure my mom doesn’t think 75 is as old as I think it is either.
@GnochiB and @calmom2016 I’m not sure if you glossed over it but I did indeed write “her reading comprehension was probably really bad UNLESS she regularly read books as an adult.” So that means according to my statement that if she did read books regularly then her reading comprehension would be fine. BUT because her score was described as really poor that means she scored badly in all three sections. Even If she scored at least a 700 on the english and reading (which I would argue is on the lower side for a person who writes articles and publishes) and got a 500 on math, she would have gotten a 1900 (which is a pretty good score). But that is not the case, so its either that her SAT english and reading skills were lacking or her skills in reading and english couldn’t be completely comprehended due to the format of the SAT test.
This seems to be getting into specifics too much. I’ll reiterate once again, and I quote (myself, lol) “I’m attacking more of the concept that students should be told that they are just more dumb than other kids. Not with the intention of babying them and keeping them from realizing reality, but more in the sense of not discouraging them from even trying to catch up. It kinda seems like the “you’ll never be as good…” statement to me. And from hanging with kids that seem to have this mindset I have determined it is completely detrimental to their well-being and motivation for success. I can’t really see what the appeal is in the “Why even bother” attitude.”
You guys still haven’t given me a tangible answer or argument as to why this viewpoint of mine is wrong. It’s been much more of getting at specifics, not focusing on the general argument of either side.
Trust me I have gotten my fair share of demoralization from reading pages and pages of College decision and Chance me threads. But according to the philosophy that it seems you guys are promoting, students should just accept that people are smarter than them, that they’ll never catch up, and that they should just not even bother working their ass off. In my opinion, that is totally not the way to go. Students should look at these threads and believe that they can do even better if they put their minds to it. Mentally, that’s pretty much the best route to take.
With some trepidation, I’m going to throw in here with what @Alpha101 is arguing.
My teeth itch when I hear someone like the OP say that her children are not “preternaturally bright, driven,” so it is better to opt out of the race before the OP’s children have even finished a year of high school. The OP is already deciding the outcome based on her largely nascent, unformed view that getting into good colleges is predetermined by IQ or genetics or money or legacy or crazy helicopter parents or whatever else is stirring around CC forums. It’s a cop-out, really, to say that this is a “game” that is tilted in someone else’s favor so why bother playing. Abundant educational attainment studies have supported the exact opposite–that hard work overcomes natural intelligence, that grit determines your outcome. Parents who have low expectations for their children will get exactly what they expect out of them. It sounds like the OP’s children are bright and driven enough to do well and there’s no better person to get that from them than their parent who can instill her strong work ethic, her ambition, and her obvious smarts in her offspring. Sorry, but I can’t play along with a parent announcing that she is giving up on her children getting into a good college and then hoping for people to high-five her for this wise decision.
Pardon, I didn’t read the OP’s post carefully enough. I may have missed the second to last paragraph. Although I still agree with my previous statement about prestige, I don’t support you opting out on a son/daughter. If you want your child to go to a good school and be successful like most parents wish, it will require effort from both sides. Do not cop-out. I concur with spayurpets on everything he’s written in the previous post. This is coming from me, whose parents still don’t know or care about the colleges their only child applied to, let alone their names.
“I’m not going to be That Parent; that I’d rather she has a great time learning and growing in high school.”
She’s going to have a great time working hard for her aspirations (be it academics and/or sports/music) while also expanding her horizons. I’d give anything to go back in time and have a personal counselor advise me as a naïve freshman.
Continue teaching them discipline, work ethic, responsibility and reasoning, don’t give up just yet despite whatever perception you have of your kids.
@Alpha101, @spayurpets and @Hamlin seem to be saying that yes, we SHOULD be tiger moms. Don’t give up, don’t opt out, students CAN do better. The thing is, maybe the OP shouldn’t be the one pushing her kids, because she doesn’t feel that she wants to be that kind of parent. If the OPs kids come to CC looking for advice, and her kids are the ones who don’t want to give up, who don’t want to opt out, who want to do better, that would be different. You are all giving your message to the wrong person. She doesn’t want to be that person, and so she shouldn’t.
I will confess that I was a tiger mom, for several years. From grades 3-10, I pushed my shy, quiet, intelligent kid. I wanted her to be the best she could be. I made her do all kinds of things that she didn’t like. I forced her to play violin for eight years, do volunteer work, join clubs, take the hardest classes, and arrange outings with friends. Then, I stopped, halfway through her sophomore year. I think I started feeling that it was wrong of me to keep making her do stuff she didn’t want to do, all the time. But maybe something else was happening, and I am only just thinking about it now. Because even though I stopped pushing, she carried on doing all that stuff I had made her do before. So maybe she realized that she didn’t actually mind all the things I made her do. I do know that she continued on with the hardest classes, even now as a senior, because she dislikes being in regular classes.
All parents do what they think is best for their kids at the time. I now regret having been so hard on her, but I can’t go back. I also see tangible results, because colleges have offered her big merit aid, and I truly feel that if she hadn’t worked as hard as she did, that would not have happened. She couldn’t have dreamed of applying to some of the colleges she has without the foundations in place, even though I am doubtful that she will be accpeted to some of her top choices. For a while though, I was THAT parent, and that is how things worked for us. It is also okay to not be that parent, and to choose to just let whatever happens, happen.