<p>Given the demands of applying to selective colleges in the last few years, do you think that the quest for demonstrable competitive achievement is obliterating the love of learning for its own sake among our children?</p>
<p>When I read threads about re-taking near perfect SATs or adding yet another AP course, I understand where these kids are coming from but it makes me a bit sad and a bit wi****l for the old ivory tower values…</p>
<p>“wi****l”?</p>
<p>There was a software glitch onCC–it wouldn’t let me type “wi*<strong><em>l”
…wi</em></strong>*l for the old ivory tower values…</p>
<p>What you say is true but I think it depends on the community you are in and if this competitive mentality is prevalent or not. Where we live, it is NOT. I have heard of it elsewhere but surely from reading CC forums over the years. The idea of “more AP” or retaking SAT’s scores that are already high, is not something that goes on here. “Competing” to be val…not a thought here. “Competing” with others from their school for the same colleges, didn’t happen.</p>
<p>I can just talk of my own kids but truly they love what they do and did whatever they did because they wanted to. They sought out opportunities for the opportunities themselves, not for a “leg up”. They didn’t pick summer programs to “look good for college” or ECs for that purpose either. Yes, they tried to do their best in school because they know that doing your best will lead to success with their goals. They took challenging courses because each of my kids is VERY unhappy when the courses are too easy. I read the GC reports and I recall my older D’s report commenting on how much this kid “loves learning” and how she was busy with so much on her plate but that she would not be happy to have it any other way. My other D had a prevalent theme that I observed in her essays about how theater was her passion, her raison d’etre. They were doing things out of the love of it. </p>
<p>As an upshot, I do believe colleges care about that. That’s not why they did things but my observation is that in things like interviews, recs, or essays, colleges take notice of kids who love to learn as opposed to who are doing things to simply get into college in a competitive world. </p>
<p>I must admit that when I hear stories of the “thinking” in some upscale suburban communities or even from posts on CC, I am grateful that my kids grew up where they did where this is not going on. Talk of who got into which college…NOT a big discussion here…maybe in May of senior year, it comes up as people are moving on. While my kids did not come out of a competitive school community, they still went on to very selective colleges or programs. College admissions is overwhelming enough without the competitive atmosphere…I can’t imagine what it must be like WITH it. </p>
<p>Susan</p>
<p>Help! do you all know which w… word I mean wist + ful</p>
<p>so what was that word? type it out like this…W- I -…etc.</p>
<p>hmmm, not sure why it filtered out the letters s-t-f-u…it filters spellings of inppropriate words like curse words but this does not spell any? but I get it now…you wrote W-i-s-t-f-u-l.
Susan</p>
<p>soozievt, it filters out those letters because they are a current shorthand for the phrase “shut the f— up”. An attempt to clean up the text of potty-mouthed teen typists, but as a universal replacement it messes up perfectly good words like w-i-s-t-f-u-l.</p>
<p>Mootmom…I MUST get with the program!! LOL…silly me…I could not figure out that shorthand acronym and knew it must stand for some foul language but it was not readily apparent which it was. </p>
<p>It kinda goes with my post on this topic thread though…I live in the middle of nowhere so just am not up on the latest! (am sure my kids would have known that one, though…plus both are in college now in cities!)</p>
<p>dirt and more dirt.</p>
<p>just want to see if d-i-r-t is filtered out.</p>
<p>Pyewacket, Mr. PuzzleMaster, you hit on a new thread idea!</p>
<p>Can you be boa****l on CC?</p>
<p>Pyewacket, In my family, the desire to apply to competitive colleges has increased the desire to learn for the love of it. When my daughter was a sophomore, I read in some admissions book or another that one girl was turned down for admission to Princeton, I think it was, because she had the opportunity to go to Europe one summer and spent the whole time just lying on a beach. We were planning a trip to Europe at the time, and I announced that we all were going to have to read up on the country we were going to visit. I didn’t care what was read–biographies, histories, books on architecture or art or culture, fiction–just that we went where we were going with a knowledge base. Since then, one of the best parts of travelling has been what we have learned about our destination before we left. My daughter’s intended major has grown out of some of the reading she did for that first trip. So, the competitive college admissions process acted as a spur for all of us.</p>
<p>pyewacket – I DO think a focus on a competitive end goal can harm an appreciation for learning opportunities along the way.</p>
<p>My child is not a stellar student and intellectual pursuits are not a big priority for my child.</p>
<p>I feel that if I had an iron fist about the need to compete with the best of them (we live in an achievement oriented suburb), it would put a damper on my children’s opportunity to learn what it is that really interests them.</p>
<p>There was an example of this in the book, “Doing School.” One of the students was very intent on getting into Princeton, and lived the life of a grind to attain her goal. Then, when she got to Princeton, she joined the pre-med grind. </p>
<p>She was focused first on the happy life she would live, once she got to Princeton, then, once at Princeton, she was focused on the happy life she would have once she got into medical school.</p>
<p>Because of her competitive goals, she didn’t have time to enjoy the life she was living at the time.</p>
<p>We have no shortage of B-O-A-S-T-F-U-L parents on CC, as is clear from another thread in this forum…</p>
<p>Word games aside, I must agree with the initial thread. How many “chances” threads are there that read like cookie cutter versions of the same thing? Decent grades, decent SATs, traditional ECs, but no real sense of who the individual is.</p>
<p>My D is a senior at an arts HS, takes all honors and AP classes and has done very well in both visual arts and academics. I assumed she would go to a LAC or university, continue her art, then perhaps get a fine arts MFA.</p>
<p>When she announced her intention to apply to fine arts colleges only for visual arts, I was intitially taken aback. The more I considered it, the more I realized her art is what makes her who she is. It is her passion, and she does it well. The thirst for knowledge from an academic sense is raw material for her art.</p>
<p>Her vision of success was different from mine, and from most parents on here. Took some getting used to, but I am fine with it now and fully supportive.</p>
<p>To me nurturing that passion is my job as a parent…</p>
<p>m&sdad…join the club! I have a daughter like yours…excels at academics but is pursuing a BFA in her passion, Musical Theater. I don’t mind one bit. We fully support her in her specialized education and future goals. It is who she is. Just like your daughter. She did choose a university, however, that while she is in a conservatory style BFA program, ALSO has liberal arts as a component, though it is not the same as being in a BA program. Perhaps your D’s art schools will have some on the list that offer SOME liberal arts as she pursues her passion. My D likes having a bit of that too as she still wanted to be educated broadly to some degree even though her focus is on her passion and the training in her field. No matter what, your D and mine, will still have a college degree and that IS an education in itself and will never go to waste. </p>
<p>Susan</p>
<p>My community sounds like that of the other Susan in many ways. Very few kids go on to selective colleges, and that competitiveness is just not present. National Merit scholars are rare, and most of the kids who take AP classes don’t bother to take the AP tests. The vast majority of kids either go straight into the working world after high school or go on to community college. In fact most of those kids would probably laugh at the idea that they should have a “love of learning.” For many, high school is just something to get through so you can start living. So any desire to take top classes and outside activities generally comes from the students themselves, rather than from peer pressure or competition for top colleges.</p>
<p>I know I personally have a competitive streak in me, and some of that has been passed down to my boys. But I have tried to step back and let them decide what was important in their lives and what classes and outside activities they wanted to take. Each of them has gone in a different direction with that, as each has discovered his special gift/passion and followed it. Neither of my sons had a resume as impressive as those I see posted on the “chances” threads, and yet each got into the college he wanted, one that is truly a good fit for him. And they did it without losing their love of learning–or at least their love of learning when it involves their passions. (I’m afraid my younger son’s love of learning tends to be limited to the area of music…)</p>
<p>So I, too, think it depends upon where you live and the type of community in which you are involved.</p>
<p>m&sdad and Susan,
My son also fits your descriptions of your children. He is pursuing a BM in music performance. However, he is at a university, rather than a conservatory, so he, too, will also have to take some liberal arts courses. His trumpet teacher and his favorite high school teacher are both trying to get him to take as many liberal arts courses as he can fit in, to have a broader education. But he knows his passion, so I just have to support him in what he does. (But, yes, I am glad he didn’t get into a conservatory, because I do like the availability of other courses, too.)</p>
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</p>
<p>I suspect that this obsession is a product of the greater stress on merit today as opposed to the old system that was associated with ivory tower values but depended much more on legacy status than do colleges today. I don’t believe that the majority of students who attended college in an earlier age were any more committed to these ivory tower values than the majority of students today. The gentleman’s C (a telling label in its own right) could be earned with a minimum of effort and little commitment to the life of the mind.
Students who are not shoo-in to elite colleges by virtue of their legacy status or as a result of being the children of prospective donors are the ones most likely to polish their resumes through multiple SATs, and more and more APs.
What is making the situation seem more stressful is the combination of demographic growth in general, the growth in proportion of the population which aspires to attend college, the democratization of colleges that were once the preserve of the rich and connected and the lack of commensurate expansion in the number of available spots at the self-same colleges.
Nonetheless, students who value learning for its own sake will continue to do so. Some take many APs because they want to challenge themselves rather than because they want to impress colleges. Some will opt for an arts education. I don’t know if the situation has changed dramatically except that there are far more college-educated Americans today than there were a generation ago.</p>
<p>The high school from which my daughter graduated was pretty competitive. A 3.6 uw / 4.1 w GPA was just barely enough to make the top 25% last year. Val/sal are always based on who can put together the schedule with the most AP and honors courses because 10% of the kids in the school will never get less than an A in their entire career. The average SAT scores are known to three decimal places by the local real estate agents, who use the strength of the high school as a big selling point.</p>
<p>That school does indeed produce a lot of hyper-competitive types who will retake a standardized test until they achieve a perfect score. It also produces a lot of kids who show passion in a particular area of study and are content to let the others play the academic numbers game, and who choose their classes by interest rather than by potential contribution to weighted GPA.</p>
<p>It is interesting to me that, while nearly everyone from this school goes on to college, the two most popular destinations every year are the local county college (by a wide margin) and our flagship state university, Rutgers, which accepts nearly anyone from this high school with at least a 3.3 weighted GPA. I am not disparaging either of those choices; my son may himself be headed for the county college or, if he pulls things together, the state U. My point is that, even in fairly competitive schools, it is usually a minority of students who buy into all the hype.</p>
<p>I think that many parents are sensitized to this issue and are concerned about “burn out” with their own kids. I know I am, but I am more sensitized to what I perceive as the downside of holding kids back when they want to take on these challenges. </p>
<p>My D has always taken classes that she wants to take because she wanted to take them, never thinking about accelerated/honors/AP status, just that they might be fun. All of her classes happened to be in those categories, but not for purposes of later applying to colleges. She often has to defend herself to parents and some teachers because they ASSUME she signs up for these classes to stack her transcript and resume. The mother of the Student Council President (a nice and smart boy with B+ GPA and a few AP) accosted me at a recent school function: First she wanted to know what “prep courses” and how much we’d paid that resulted in my D’s excellent ACT scores (I told her none and zero dollars…my D wouldn’t be bothered with that malarkey), then she wanted to know her SAT scores (???)…and wouldn’t believe me when I told her my D didn’t take the SAT and wasn’t going to…this woman was sure that the “good” schools (like U Chicago her son is applying to) required the SAT. Then…“I hear your D is graduating with XX # of APs. Why in heaven’s name would she do this to the other students? Doesn’t she realize she’s making it harder for everyone else?” And she just refused to accept that the “AP” designation just isn’t in my D’s lexicon…she’s just taking the classes she wants to take…and on the flip side, not taking the classes she doesn’t want to take (e.g., more history). Look, fortunately, some kids just love to learn. And I’d like to think that my kid had this modelled for her by her mom and dad who love to learn new things, too.</p>