<p>Also, the head orthopedic surgeon at Shriner’s Hospital who is on every list of the top-10 pediatric orthopedic surgeons, went to a college that I had genuinely never heard of- a pretty much graduate from high school and you are in state school. It was good enough to get him into med school at UPenn. </p>
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<p>Ditto. I enjoyed them, and my kids certainly enjoyed them. I will say that though both of my kids did pretty serious sports, and music, neither did/does it “for college” at all. It was/is for fun and some sports and activities have been dropped when they were no longer rewarding.</p>
<p>My kids never expected their EC’s to pay off in college options, but they did expect that taking all those tough classes would pay off in better admissions results. No matter how much you like learning in general or enjoy a particular subject, it’s not a barrel of laughs to do all those pesky homework assignments and group projects. They had plenty of good times, but sacrificed a lot of the casual hanging out sort of fun teenagers enjoy in order to do well in honors and AP courses.</p>
<p>About expecting admission to competitive colleges–Parents, driven to get their kids into what they view as prestigious colleges are instilling values that are the antithesis of what educators would like to see-and the results are terrible for higher education. Parents who encourage their children to participate in activities so they will get into a prestigious school are teaching their children that they are entitled to a pay off for the activities that they engage in. No, the payoff is the activity and it is something to be thankful to have the opportunity to do. See the parents have it backwards. So, please parents, please don’t send your child into my classroom if he or she was raised with the idea that they deserve something for learning. In fact, let’s simply give those students a degree at the start of their first semester so they don’t ruin the educational experience for real students. Real students are the ones that play instruments because they enjoy music. Real students are the ones who join the school newspaper because they enjoy journalism and want to develop excellent skills. I want those students in my class. i want the students who get revved up about a topic and then read everything they can about it-even though none of it is on a test or will earn them anything. That’s a student. I want that one in my class. I don’t want to deal with the students who can’t be bothered with reading something unless it earns them points on a test or who can’t be bothered to show up to class unless absence means they will miss something that will be the basis for a test question. Those are the ones brought up with the idea that if they will be paid for learning or rewarded for participating in activities (that they should be grateful to have an opportunity to do). Colleges should give them a degree without attending class so they don’t end up in my class to contaminate it with the entitlement mentality. Those are the ones with parents who told them to do this or that for college and who had their eye on prestigious colleges from 1st grade onward. </p>
<p>To the previous poster: I just learned about something called “Mastery vs. Performance Learning” and it explained so much for me!<br>
Here’s a link to a comparison of the two types of learning (also known as learning for its own sake vs. grade-grubbing):
<a href=“http://www.wou.edu/~girodm/100/mastery_vs_performance_goals.pdf”>http://www.wou.edu/~girodm/100/mastery_vs_performance_goals.pdf</a></p>
<p>You can’t totally blame the kids for their outlook, when grades and testing have become so important for everything from teacher pay to college scholarships. My intellectual kids would have loved to spend even more hours reading up on topics of interest, but too frequently homework–which is of course graded–got in the way. The day colleges minimize the importance of GPA and EC’s and instead ask students to document their hours spent exploring topics on their own, is the day students will feel free to do that more. In the meantime, that AP assignment and volunteer activity demand their attention.</p>
<p>Sockittoum Quote: "Parents, driven to get their kids into what they view as prestigious colleges are instilling values that are the antithesis of what educators would like to see-and the results are terrible for higher education. Parents who encourage their children to participate in activities so they will get into a prestigious school are teaching their children that they are entitled to a pay off for the activities that they engage in. No, the payoff is the activity and it is something to be thankful to have the opportunity to do. "</p>
<p>There is a lot of truth to this, but it really isn’t reasonable to blame the parents. Educators should realize that it is the behavior of their own college admissions office that the parents are reacting to. So if you don’t like the student behaviors you see in your college class, amble on over to your schools admissions office and put the blame where it belongs. Admissions offices drive the behaviors of parents, and it is the admissions office that hand-selected those students you are seeing, just for you. lol</p>
<p>Well, I can assure you that my kid was precisely the sort of intellectually-motivated non-grade grubber you want in your classroom. While he did fine in admissions, his friends who were grade-grubbers did even better. Talk to your admissions people about it.</p>
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<p>Of course many of the incentives are set up to encourage grade-grubbing (e.g. focus on GPA for medical and law school admissions, without regard for choosing harder versus easier courses (other than the pre-med courses for medical school)).</p>
<p>GFG Hard to believe the kid who was not admitted did not either mess up some part of the application, or apply too late to a rolling admissions schools. I would imagine if he is truly interested, he would be able to get in off the wait list. </p>
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<p>Wait list = reject for all intents and purposes. Colleges will only use the wait list if they get surprised by lower than expected yield of admitted students. Even then, many colleges have wait lists far larger than they are likely to use up even in a lower than expected yield situation.</p>
<p>The student indeed may have messed something up, of course, but I took the story seriously because I do personally know kids who were waitlisted at some of our directional state universities while being admitted to the more competitive flagship. That tells me that our state schools are handling acceptances differently this year–more like the yield management style of the privates. </p>
<p>“The day colleges minimize the importance of GPA and EC’s and instead ask students to document their hours spent exploring topics on their own, is the day students will feel free to do that more.”</p>
<p>Some (many?) high schools offer flex credit or independent study, for a grade.</p>
<p>A couple of years ago, the University of Michigan offered 14k+ students a spot on their wait list. 42 were ultimately accepted. As ucbalumnus said, the reality is that wait list = reject. </p>
<p>Had a HS classmate who was rejected from LIU despite having the stats/package to be admitted to 4 Ivies and a bunch of top 20 private colleges with great FA/scholarship packages. </p>
<p>Back in the early-mid-'90s, LIU was locally viewed as an academic safety for many NYC area students whose academic stats/package were such that lower-tiered local public/private colleges or ccollege were the only options. </p>
<p>He didn’t really care due to his admission results and his understanding LIU was trying to protect their yield/admission percentage stats to paint themselves in the best light. He applied there on a lark to add a safety and because the application fee was waived. </p>