A parent's cautionary tale – SWF- Northeast need not apply?

Parents Forum
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<p>"
Most kids grew up together since kindergarten, so there are ~12 years of seeing the same group of kids, and along the way, you tend to know a lot about who did what, not only in school, but in ECs. There are local weekly newspaper, monthly magazines, school bi-weekly newspaper, school semi-annually award ceremony, which cover not only in school achievement, but other things…My point is, there is a level of understanding of where kids stand, academically and EC wise."</p>

<p>You couldn’t be more wrong. I didn’t socialize with any of the parents at my kids’ school and my kids were introverts who stuck to their small groups of friends. All their classmates knew about them was that they were “generic” bright kids who were in the honors classes, along with a bunch of other kids in the honors classes. I guarantee that their names didn’t ring any bells among their classmates’ nosy parents who seemed to think that they knew everything about every kid. Each of my kids had an interesting, differentiating EC that was outside of school, and no one other than maybe their 3 closest friends knew about it. They had fantastic essays that were also both very risky and highly unusual in nature. </p>

<p>Sorry, I find the assertion that “kids just know” and “we as parents just know” highly arrogant and obnoxious. Frankly it’s that kind of nosiness that made me stay far, far away from that crowd of gossips.</p>

782

<p>" There is some reason that they worry there would not be a critical mass of African-American or Hispanic students admitted if they didn’t monitor the race percentages. Why? Times have changed. "</p>

<p>Because there wouldn’t be a critical mass of those students if they didn’t monitor the race percentages. And that would hamper their ability to get the super-duper African-American students, who don’t want to go to a place where they are the only black face. But you knew that answer already.</p>

<p>“The elite schools are increasingly on the radar for URM’s. Out of the thousands and thousands of applications to each elite school–which supposedly contain three entire classes full of well-qualified potential admits–wouldn’t there be enough great URM candidates that would get randomly selected due to their unique personal qualities and qualifications?”</p>

<p>I think saying that “the elite schools are increasingly on the radar for URM’s” is sort of a white-suburban-lady thing to say (I’m a white suburban lady myself). Don’t KID yourself that the average good-student URM thinks that the elite schools are in his possible consideration set. Why do you think places like Princeton reached out to the neighborhood Michelle Obama lived in, and why does U of Chicago do the same thing today in that kind of neighborhood? Because those kids think “I can’t afford those schools, they are for rich kids, they are out of my league.” And a lot of raw talent is lost.
Google Michael Tubbs, who used to be a CC participant - who came from a hard-scrabble background with a parent in jail, and went on to Stanford. He’s impressive. That’s the kind of kid every elite school wants.</p>

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<p>If you consider all of the colleges in the US as one giant college, then that is exactly what is happening. Some colleges might, through recruitment and admissions practices, pull some college-bound URMs away from other colleges to themselves (perhaps fulfilling their own goals at the expense of other colleges which have similar goals in that area), but such practices do not increase the overall pool of college-bound URMs by much.</p>

784

<p>“Most kids grew up together since kindergarten, so there are ~12 years of seeing the same group of kids, and along the way, you tend to know a lot about who did what, not only in school, but in ECs. There are local weekly newspaper, monthly magazines, school bi-weekly newspaper, school semi-annually award ceremony, which cover not only in school achievement, but other things…My point is, there is a level of understanding of where kids stand, academically and EC wise.”</p>

<p>I saw a newspaper article recently about a young woman who won a wheelchair 5K in our city, and the name rang a bell, so I asked my kids. Turns out I was right, this young woman went to my kids’ high school. She went to WashU and is studying biomedical engineering, presumably related to her disability. Here’s what my kids knew about her: She went to WashU and she is on crutches. There you have it. That’s all they know. </p>

<p>I think this is classic introvert vs extrovert Myers-Briggs rearing its head - extroverts cannot possibly understand that we introverts don’t keep little mental records of who won the science fair and who the national merit scholars are and who is the award winning dancer and artist and whatever. It’s too much for us. We simply don’t care, unless it’s our kids. </p>

<p>Here’s what I know about my D’s best friend who went to Notre Dame: She played soccer, piano and was active in her church organization. And she always got mentioned in whatever honor roll my kids got mentioned in. Lovely girl. The. End.</p>

<p>Here’s what I know about my S’s friends who are all at U of I: They are nice kids who talk nicely to Mrs. PG and they sure eat a lot of brownies and Oreos when they are at my house. The. End.</p>

<p>Do you know how obnoxious it would be for me to keep mental tallies on their GPA’s, SAT scores and the quality of their extracurriculars to “judge” whether these schools were the right ones, whether other schools screwed up by not admitting them, etc? Don’t those of you who think that “the kids all know” - aren’t some of you ashamed that your kids are remembering and monitoring other kids’ stats? </p>

<p>Who was the valedictorian? Beats me. Who were the other national merit scholars? Beats me. It wasn’t my high school experience so it wasn’t for me to know.</p>

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<p>Some people are so hung up on race that I wonder if they even realize what they write. </p>

786

<p>No I do not feel a bit ashamed of knowing the competition and measuring my kids’ progress with others’. Sports kids and parents do, competing artists musicians and parents do, and frankly if my child accepts the invitation to compete and if he doesn’t care who he cempetes with, their accomplishment, repertoire, their style, their teacher, etc, he has the tendency to underprepare ot not taking it seriously enough. </p>

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<p>No one here thinks that knowing some OTHER kid’s SAT scores is over the top? What possible business is it of yours in the least? Do you walk around asking other people their incomes, too?</p>

<p>My kids weren’t in “competitive” types of activities like sports or music where they were gunning for a spot on a team. They competed only with themselves. And sometimes that can be enough pressure in and of itself – god, without mom and dad also bringing up at the dinner table how so-and-so does better and how you should really get on the ball. That makes me shudder just thinking about it. It’s so incongruent with our value system.</p>

<p>Last year, H and I were taking a bike ride past a soccer field on a lovely day. Our path took us right beyond the parent-spectators and one particularly obnoxious parent was yelling at her kid to do, oh, whatever, who cares, it’s a stupid soccer game. We both spontaneously said out loud as we passed, “Lady, get a life!” LOL. That’s what I “hear” when I hear people talk about “monitoring” other kids. </p>

788

<p>“Have you noticed, however, that Caltech (a fine school, to be sure) is really a very niche school that doesn’t have broad popular appeal.”</p>

<p>Caltech’s niche is Engineering and Science, particularly computer science. Areas that most definitely have “broad popular appeal” and increasingly so in this technological world.</p>

<p>Niches can be expressed in various ways. Now a school such as say maybe a Wellesley (a fine school to be sure), well that is what I would consider a very niche school………………………….</p>

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<p>Should the students at San Jose State University be insulted by being called uninteresting, simply because San Jose State University considers only GPA, test scores, intended major, state residency, and local area residency, using a formula that can be trivially run by a simple computer program? The same applies to many other universities in the US.</p>

<p>Are three fourths of the students at the University of Texas uninteresting because they were admitted purely by having a top 7% class rank in a Texas high school?</p>

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<p>Many suburban public HSs in the NY tri-state area, a few private boarding schools, and public magnets like the ones I attended have campus cultures where one doesn’t need to ask to know a given classmate’s GPA/SAT. </p>

<p>It’s not unheard of in such HS cultures for students to share out their report cards among friends…whether to commiserate and provide moral support for crappy grades/conduct comments, cheer for each other’s successful grades, brag and show off one’s high grades for ego’s sake, do the same for one’s crappy/failing grades with jerky/harsh teachers and have a good laugh about it, etc. </p>

<p>The latter two along with jerky students stealing glances or somehow getting SAT scores from college guidance offices are some ways word of someone’s GPA/SAT stats gets around the HS grapevine. However, some savvy and rebellious students account for this by deliberately leaking false info* to known gossipers to show them up at graduation time. </p>

<p>It’s probably more a tri-state East Coast competitive academic culture thing as I know this practice is considered off in many other parts of the US and other parts of the world. </p>

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<li>Almost always pretending they’re barely keeping their heads above academic water and scoring subterranean SAT scores. A few…including yours truly even attempted to get the rumor mill to believe we ended up with SAT scores in the negative range just to see what the reactions would be from others. </li>
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<p>@Bearsgarden‌ - What competition? Again, I don’t understand this way of thinking. If your kid is deserving (i.e., meets the school’s criteria), he will get in to a great school. Maybe not the one YOU want. That depends on the administration. They will decide based on their criteria… so you are “competing” not even knowing the rules of the game. Seems silly to me. </p>

<p>Kids really are competing against their own potential. I’m really glad I know people outside of this board. So many people here seem SO set on a particular line of thinking that seems so backwards. </p>

<p>We all want the best for our kids… so I don’t begrudge anyone that! It’s just plain sad to see people essentially teaching to the course… i.e., arranging their ECs and live to fit some ivy league ideal. That will all be over soon, and what are you teaching your kid? That they should try and measure up to someone else’s ideal of what they SHOULD be… rather than finding their own way, their own voice. </p>

<p>Not my kid, thank you. </p>

792

<p>I think the point was, kids don’t know enough about college expectations, as a whole, to judge each other’s worthiness for particular colleges. And adults who know how various kids are doing-- well, as CC routinely proves, they don’t have a much better idea what’s going on, either. Hence all the cries for transparency and how darned unfair it all is and who do those incompetent adcoms think they are to mess with my Johnny’s mind? And the rest of it. And when someone does clue the in to some aspect, “no, no,” they say, “it isn’t like that.” So what do you really expect? </p>

<p>Psalcal, they can’t machine their ECs because they’re bass ackwards about what matters. </p>

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<p>Academic performance of each student (straigt A or not, honor roll or not), is published on newspaper and county website every quarter, and it’s posted outside of the main office. @pizzagirl, i say this because you made it sound like a select group of students or parents gossip to get that info. I suppose you will say that you don’t care, and I believe and respect that; but just because someone or some families have different opinion or prospective from yours, they are either obnoxious or should be ashamed? </p>

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<p>They don’t do that around here – but even if they did, why would you check those lists other than to see if your own kids and members of your extended family were on it? </p>

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<p>“Niches can be expressed in various ways. Now a school such as say maybe a Wellesley (a fine school to be sure), well that is what I would consider a very niche school…”</p>

<p>Yes, it is. It’s only going to appeal to a limited set of students who are even open to single-sex, and it’s going to be limited in terms of its knowledge among the general population. Oh well. Eliciting oohs and ahhs from the general population is of no interest to me, so its lack of broad brand awareness wouldn’t and didn’t stop me from sending my D there.</p>

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<p>“Academic performance of each student (straigt A or not, honor roll or not), is published on newspaper and county website every quarter, and it’s posted outside of the main office.”</p>

<p>Gee. Let’s see. It’s posted outside the main office? So what do you do, go there and study and memorize the performance of all 500 kids in the class so you can feel that you’re up on things? Why would you look up ANY kid other than your own – and ok, I"ll grant you, maybe a few of their friends? </p>

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<p>" probably more a tri-state East Coast competitive academic culture thing as I know this practice is considered off in many other parts of the US and other parts of the world."</p>

<p>Yes. You got it right. This practice is considered “off.” Normally, people might have a <em>general sense</em> of who the “smart kids are” (because they hear their names all the time), but they don’t monitor each other’s SAT’s and grades, nor do they spend all this time obsessing about how other students do. </p>

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<p>“They don’t do that around here – but even if they did, why would you check those lists other than to see if your own kids and members of your extended family were on it?”</p>

<p>Because you’re a busy-body? That’s the only reason I can think of. I think that’s the next new meme on CC – that it’s “normal” to know all the ins and outs and academic and EC successes of every kid in your kid’s high school. </p>

<p>I can sort of get it if it’s your kids’ closest friends - but even so, how many kids can that be?</p>

<p>See, this tells me that it’s all hearsay. It’s all “gosh, I always heard Johnny was so smart, and Princeton rejected him - they must not be thinking clearly!” </p>

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<p>Oh, they had about 40 in D1’s grad class and the school discouraged this sort of stratification. That didn’t stop some kids from blabbing or some parents. But it didn’t guarantee anything. That’s the little high school vortex. It’s more damaging to build hopes and dreams on that, than productive. Same as “Miss popularity.” Life happens and the savvy keep moving.</p>

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<p>“Yes, it is. It’s only going to appeal to a limited set of students who are even open to single-sex, and it’s going to be limited in terms of its knowledge among the general population. Oh well. Eliciting oohs and ahhs from the general population is of no interest to me, so its lack of broad brand awareness wouldn’t and didn’t stop me from sending my D there.”</p>

<p>EXACTLY. So substitute Engineering and Science for single-sex in your above post and the same can be said for Caltech. </p>

<p>So much for Caltech being a niche school that does not have board appeal.</p>