Great point @atomicPACMAN07.
Yes, @pizzagirl, and we know how that turned out. There were people who even used her lack of Ivy league pedigree against her.
My son did not get accepted to Harvard but I can honestly say that I was rather relieved. If he had been accepted I think he would have felt obligated to attend such a great school. I still think Harvard offers students an incredible opportunity but I am thankful he is not going there.
- I see a reason to send my child to one of the top-20 colleges (investment into the future).
- I see a reason to to send my child to an affordable state college
- i see a reason to send my child oversee, where education is much cheaper than in USA and it is merit-based.
To pay top dollars for private school and send your child to some regional no-name … I am not that rich. Not even close. Not my game.
My son is at Harvard and my older two children went to Dartmouth and Brown. We are from a middle class background and they attended a average high school. They enjoyed high school, worked hard, had friends and did not feel pressure to achieve. I remember very few late nights of homework. The Ivy league offers incredible financial aid which has been wonderful for our family. My older two are now in careers that they love. I know that graduating from these schools opened doors for them. My younger son who attends Harvard has had amazing opportunities offered to him that I know he wouldn’t have received otherwise.
Just another take on it.
@ams5796 You are right. Those are all great schools and provide many opportunities to those who attend. However, I think the point of the article is that there are a great number of other schools out there that will do the same thing. It’s just that we never hear about them nor do we celebrate them because the media is hyperfocused on the elite schools.
Cynically, this thread reinforces one thing from my broader life experience: we all, every single one of us, to greater and lesser degrees, justify our own platform.
That is, whatever we, and more importantly our kids, are doing was manifest destiny and the “best possible outcome.”
I have three. Two are at elite LACs. One was an athlete.
My third and youngest is a smart and very gifted athlete - soccer is her focus. I am hopeful that her rigorous high school curriculum, strong test score and recruitment will get her into a good school. For her, I think smaller is better, so on my advice she is focusing on LACs.
But I’m also going to be honest and say that her indifference toward school 9, 10 and part of this year, which has resulted in a fine, but not stellar, GPA, is disappointing. Athletically she should be playing D1 soccer and she’s smart enough to be at a academically competitive school. She won’t make it to that combination because of her choices. She will likely not make it to the upper end of D3 either. That was her choice despite our best efforts. She’s a late bloomer and I know she’ll be just fine.
But if I’m being honest, I look at this kid and objectively can and do say to myself, “If you had just gotten yourself together in 9th or at least 10th grade, you’d be playing for Dartmouth or Princeton.” She didn’t and she won’t. That’s ok, but I’m not going to spin this into some fairy tale happy ending that she’s going to go to the best place for her. This is a kid whose best place could have been better than the best place she’ll actually attend.
Just because she’s there doesn’t make it the best place. It makes it the best place available given her choices.
It is what it is. Like the kids say, “don’t hate the player, hate the game.”
Woodlandsmom, just curious why you are glad your son isn’t going to Harvard.
I support whatever fits the kid- and is most affordable. For some, an Ivy does fit, and for others, a small LAC, and for others community college followed by state university in the special admissions program, or by any other school. It is important for low income folks to know that Ivies have that incredible aid…as do a few other schools.
The media likes to concoct human interest stories. These stories are geared to low admission rates and a candidate who seems to have come behind to beat them. If admission rates are 40% OR the applicant isn’t perceived as coming from disadvantage, there is no story. That’s all.
Doesn’t have anything to do with the quality of the experience at the college itself.
THere is so much sour grapes stuff. Sure, we shouldn’t just concentrate on those who get into top universities, but why not aspire to them if they would be right for the student? While I respect life-changing experience - college certainly was like that for me, as many of my skills were under-developed - there are some students who would do best at places like Harvard. And you are dreaming if you think that their networks, their access to phenomenal resources (in particular their peers), and their high standards once within will not offer life-long decisive advantages.
You can get a great meal at a mom-and-pop Italian place that isn’t Mario Batali’s Del Posto in NYC, but no one wants to read about that in the New York Times.
A split level 3 bedroom with attached garage is a perfect place to raise 2 children but nobody wants to watch it toured on “MTV Cribs”
A Chevy Impala is an excellent car and a great choice for many families but will not sell a lot of copies on the cover of Motor Trend or get high ratings on Top Gear.
A family can have a minor disagreement about cleaning a bedroom but no one will watch that on “The Real Housewives Of A Suburb Of Albany”.
The Media is The Media and they need to cover what is fantastic to get clicks and ratings. It has absolutely no reflection on the lives and choices of their customers. No reason to be sick of it or angry about it or claim that it puts our kids in “The Hunger Games”. It doesn’t.
It’s amazing how so many people can be utterly convinced that their children went to “the best place for him/her.” How on earth do you know that, since there’s no way to actually compare the experience they had with a hypothetical one they might have had?
D got into Harvard, but chose a different school. Since she never attended Harvard, we have no way of knowing if H would have been better in general and/or better for her. I do think she made a good choice given the facts and impressions we had at the time, but clearly one never possesses even close to all the facts one needs to determine what is definitively the best choice.
Three of my family members attended one of the CTCL The school was good, and worked out fine for them, but they would never claim their lives were dramatically changed due to that particular college, nor do they believe that a tiny college in rural Collegeville, PA offered them a better experience than they would have had at a world class university in Cambridge, MA or Palo Alto, CA. They would never claim it because, while they can’t know for sure, the probability of that being the case is pretty darn low. There’s no need to get ridiculous while on the “there are plenty of great colleges out there” soapbox. Harvard is still Harvard, and no other school carries the same cultural weight.
I spent yesterday getting a tour of the Supreme Court from a superstar former student who is now a law clerk to a justice. That was amazing. I’m proud to have played a small role in her education.
But the kids I’m proudest of are the ones who were expelled, convicted, in rehab, etc., and are currently successful students at good schools. Hands down. I live for that.
@Hanna I also love success stories about kids who took a “road less traveled by,” including sometimes a very bad road. Sometimes the sheer will to live, or to live right, drives people onto a good path. Sometimes it’s a circuitous path or sheer luck, but they have the good sense to take advantage of it.
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Hanna, please be very careful with these words. I know kids that believe that pregnancy, gang activity, and jail are great topics for college admission essay and that such gigs would help them to get admission to top colleges. I’ve heard more than once that pregnancy is easier than top GPA and accomplishes the same, in terms of college admission. Please, don’t reinforce the feeling that being expelled, convicted, and in rehab is cool.
I don’t understand #31’s point either. The kid who has always worked hard, controlled his/her impulses, and never got into trouble should be rewarded more. To have committed a crime, been on drugs or done something to be expelled is not behavior to be eventually rewarded over the kid who never put a foot wrong.
Actually the NYT writes about them too.
There’s a reason Harvard is Harvard. But yes, of course there are lots of other good schools too.
I completely understand this. Expectations are low for such students, so to see them succeed is perhaps more rewarding than seeing near-perfect kids succeed. I don’t think Hanna is suggesting kids do these things or write about them, just that she feels proud of whatever role she may have played in the turnaround, I’m guessing.
“I know kids that believe that pregnancy, gang activity, and jail are great topics for college admission essay and that such gigs would help them to get admission to top colleges.”
I’ve never met such a kid. I don’t know where you’re meeting them. I don’t see them even in my pro bono practice. Kids with the academic intellect for college do lots of dumb things, but in my experience they aren’t that stupid.
“I don’t understand #31’s point either.”
If you were a pediatrician, would you be proudest of the kid who met all his milestones and never got sick? Or would you be proudest of the kid who showed up in your office with cancer, fought through living hell, and made it to birthdays no one thought he would see? The first kid is still a good professional experience, but you can really know you made a difference to the second kid. It doesn’t mean that you’re in favor of cancer.
“To have committed a crime, been on drugs or done something to be expelled is not behavior to be eventually rewarded over the kid who never put a foot wrong.”
How are they rewarded OVER other kids? There’s plenty of room in US colleges for everyone who wants to go. It’s not an easy thing to help one of these kids get into Whoville State. They pay a steep price, and they know it.
If they do get into a selective school, that school decided that they’ve earned it on the merits. (Admissions officers aren’t stupid, either.) No one gets into college BECAUSE of their eating disorder, drug recovery, etc. They get into schools because of who they are today, and sometimes they fell on their face ten times while becoming that person. If flunking out of high school and getting a G.E.D. helped people get into Harvard, I wouldn’t be the only person in the world who’s done that…but as far as I know, I am. We screwups are not exactly running roughshod over the competition here. But some of us do manage to crawl out of the holes we’ve dug when adults make the effort to help us.
“I don’t understand #31’s point either. The kid who has always worked hard, controlled his/her impulses, and never got into trouble should be rewarded more. To have committed a crime, been on drugs or done something to be expelled is not behavior to be eventually rewarded over the kid who never put a foot wrong”
This tension between the rewards given to the redeemed wrong-doer vs the one who never went wrong in the first place is the exactly the scenario addressed in the Bible in the Parable of the Prodigal Son:
I attended Catholic school, but I always thought that the father made the wrong decision. Not in terms of welcoming the son back, but in terms of holding a celebration. Never did have the courage to say so to the the nuns and priests though.