<p>Re male and female interaction at Yale. My daughter had plenty of interactions, particularly at meals, working on ECs, etc., with both guys and girls while at Yale. </p>
<p>DD had no interest in secret societies and said if she could change one thing about Yale that would be it (to eliminate them), but it didn’t matter in terms of her experience. No one pressures you to join on if you’re not interested.</p>
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<p>We have very different approaches. </p>
<p>I couldn’t care less about the other parents / students in my kids’ school, other than a generic wishing-them-all-well-in-whatever-life-path-they-choose. I don’t even interact with them enough for them to tell me how clearly superior and brilliant my kids are to theirs, or for them to pout that my kids are going to better schools than theirs. I doubt they even appreciate how good my kids’ schools are. Oh well, not my problem. </p>
<p>And I certainly have no idea how smart any of their kids are (other than at the very general level) such that I’d be able to say that I know that little Suzie coulda been a contender but she dropped out of honors English. I don’t know what they did in the summers since it didn’t concern me, and I have no idea if they drove little Janie around to soccer or if they didn’t, what their rationale was. </p>
<p>I have to admit, it always bothers me when I perceive that parents “know” a lot about other kids in their kids’ schools, or that they “just can’t help” being at the receiving end of a lot of this kind of schtick. Sure you can. If you mind your own business, it’s really easy not to hear a lot of this stuff. What’s there to be sick and tired of?</p>
<p>GFG–</p>
<p>I can’t tell if that entire post was directed at me, or just the first part. If so, I can assure you I’m not envious of you or your children. My family has had enough good fortune that I should be down on my knees every day thanking the Universe. </p>
<p>I’m good with that. </p>
<p>Good luck to you.</p>
<p>TXArtemis, what a great post. I looked up science depts at USD to see the depth. I was leery to post my impression.</p>
<p>I am glad the OP made a decision. I wondered, throughout this whole thread, how my opinion would have changed if decision had been between Yale vs UCSD, UCB, or UCLA.</p>
<p>Just the first part, poetgrl. Sorry!</p>
<p>And PG, you’ve expressed the same views many times on this forum, as have I. I do see where you’re coming from. One reason for the difference is that, from what I recall, your kids tended to do things out in the community that people had no cause to know or care about. It’s harder to avoid the snarky comments and jealousy when your kid’s name shows up in the paper week after week for high school sports. As for how I know about others, well some kids I used to babysit so I observed some of their abilities, some kids played on teams in elementary school and middle school with my kids, some were in 4th, 5th and 6th grade advanced math with them, and some parents blab a lot about their children. It doesn’t require exceptional nosyness.</p>
<p>"It’s harder to avoid the snarky comments and jealousy when your kid’s name shows up in the paper week after week for high school sports. "</p>
<p>Sure, but it’s really easy to let those comments fall to the ground and never pick them up. I have no personal desire to have anyone be “jealous” of my kids, but if they were – that would be their problem, not mine. There would be no need to make it anything that I need concern myself with. So someone makes a comment to you to the effect that they’re jealous of your kid because she is talented in X sport / got into Elite School Y. That requires commentary from you, how? I know this sounds like I’m snarking at you and I’m really not – I’m just perplexed as to why other people’s opinions of your kid’s success (good, bad or indifferent) make a difference or need to be taken into account or impact your life. You know what they say about opinions and what they are like …</p>
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<p>Again, not using USNWR as the Bible, but IIRC, Berkeley and UCLA are somewhere in the 20’s or so. There’s a huge difference between comparing a Yale and a school in the 20’s, in which a fair case can be made that the differences aren’t so substantial that it’s worth serious debt, and a Yale and a school in the 90’s.</p>
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<p>GFG-- So now that I know which part of the post was directed at me, let me just say that I actually do consider this to be a character flaw. However, I will also add that kids today are growing up in such a hotbed of competition that if your biggest gift is, say, dancing, for example, you may not actually even have time to work hard enough to develop, say, a lesser talent for math…to the same degree.</p>
<p>All that said, I do not believe that the kid who develops the dancing talent, which is a gift that has an expiration date on it, has less character than the one who develops math, a gift which also has an expiration date on it (at the highest levels). So, some kids have to choose where to put in thier 50 hour work week. </p>
<p>Now, all that said, I have known some Nasty dancers, and I have known some completely amoral mathematicians. Not all, but some. YMMV</p>
<p>I agree, poetgirl. </p>
<p>And PizzaGirl–you and I and others discussed this at length already on another thread several years ago. I don’t plan on revisiting my previous explanations more than to say we live in community with other humans, and jealousy gets in the way of friendly relationships with people. This affects me even when I’m not playing the competition game myself.</p>
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<p>What about a dancer who is also a mathematician?</p>
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<p>LOL… 
Could happen. But, man, that would be one exhausted ballerina.</p>
<p>Actually, I do know ballerina mathmaticians who are very moral. ;)</p>
<p>D1 is a math major, and technically she is still a dancer. She is going into finance, and she is actually a very nice person (most people like her better than they like me).</p>
<p>You guys do realize I’m not picking on dancers or mathematicians. I’m sure your children are very nice. I’m sure not every dancer or mathematician they know is… This is true, too, in the areas where my kids excell.</p>
<p>My kids, of course, are gifted AND moral and genius and full of all sorts of character and talent rarely seen on earth. But, that’s just MY kids. ;)</p>
<p>Of course, we do.
What do your kids do, poetgrl? We’ll make sure we include them next time too.</p>
<p>One is an athlete who gave up ballet for her sport (this was an excruciating choice because she was being courted by the best in both). She was a horrible student until this year. Pull your hair out awful. I think she’d figured out it drove me nuts. :D</p>
<p>One is in the performing arts (not dancing. Her achilles heel. Pun intended) and quite gifted at Science and Math. (I dont actually even understand what the names of her courses mean anymore, but she loves it.) She is going to be up against it when it comes time to choose which to pursue. Though, these are pretty high class problems in the scheme of things.</p>
<p>Good luck to your daughter in finance. Lots of room for tough young women in that field! My H likens it to hockey with calculators…</p>
<p>Well, none of your daughters should move to my town. Excelling at two or three pursuits would really bring out the local green-eyed monsters, especially if one of those pursuits is math! For what it’s worth, my D does NOT excel in math. She recently told me her life was going well at college and things were falling into place nicely…all except for math class!</p>