Hmm. I sense a minor backlash from the initial supportive responses to my original post, prompted mostly by the student who’s been accepted to Columbia (major congrats to you). Maybe I should expand upon my points.
My daughter goes to a private prep school – not one of the elite ones, but one that sends a significant portion of its graduates to the Ivies and the tier just below. We are struggling to afford the tuition, but we enrolled her in sixth grade when our financial situation was markedly different, and so now, when it’s extremely difficult, we are doing everything we can to keep her there, as pulling a kid in ninth grade and sending her to a mediocre public school (no possible other way to describe it) would have been a real wrenching change with major downsides.
I am by no means giving up on my kids. By opting out, I am forgoing one path I see before me that many, if not most, of her classmates are taking. My daughter has friends who can’t come over on weekends because they are required to study all day. She has friends who can’t come to camp in our woods (we have a large rural property) during the summer because they are at chemistry camp. She has classmates whose parents call the school to complain when their kid gets less than an A on a test. This is ninth grade, remember.
She also has classmates who will get BMWs on their 16th birthday; others go away on family jets to exotic vacations or hang out with celebrities. Their perfect lives are seemingly assured.
We can’t compete with that kind of lifestyle, and I am choosing not to put my kids through that kind of adolescence, one characterized by work to the exclusion of all else, one in which anything less than an Ivy acceptance is a failure. (Yes, a friend’s parent actually told me that.)
But she is getting a superior education, learning critical analysis and creativity and not spitting back standardized test answers to satisfy state mandates. She’s involved with a sport and also theater production and is passionate about them. She does her community service with vigor. She has a great group of friends; she loves outdoor activities; she’s growing up with a great set of experiences and ideas for the future.
She also took the SAT in eighth grade and did well enough to qualify for CTY, FWIW (not that we can afford anything they offer).
My other kid, bless his heart, is only in fifth grade but has already solemnly informed us he wants to go to a prep boarding school that requires an entrance exam, and then plans to attend Stanford for astronomy. Lofty plans; I won’t shoot them down at this stage but I’m realistic.
All of this is to say that I’m by no means letting my kids slack off in their rooms watching video games (but hey, they do that too). Nor are they the types to settle for that.
I’m just saying that a top school is probably out of reach. We don’t have the resources for endless enrichment camps, overseas volunteering projects, constant tutoring – all of which my daughter’s classmates are already employing. We are a white family with the benefits of an upper-middle-class income, but we’re in a fiercely competitive sector of the country, and all of this works against us in this particular situation.
My daughter works hard, Alpha101. She is already making a name for herself among her teachers with her leadership and maturity. Yes, she strives to do better, yes, I tell her she’s smart enough to do whatever she wants. I certainly don’t tell her she’s more dumb than other kids; good grief! Of course I want her to work her ass off, just as I did. But she is not an automaton; nor do I want her to be. So when she finishes in the top 30% or even 10% of her class, it’ll be with a stellar education and foundation. But it won’t get her into an Ivy. The competition is too far ahead of us.
