<p>I thought it was a bit personal for barrons. Wait to set the bait barrons. Good one. Right on par with SNL.</p>
<p>Barrons, the posts in The Onion and the like are outlandish – strange. You posted concern over a set of circumstances that is mundane – definitely a much more typical outcome here in my corner of working class suburbia where very few kids “go away” to college. So it isn’t sarcasm and it isn’t a joke. </p>
<p>Maybe you are so rich and privileged that you think it is – ha, ha - but there is nothing to “get” because what you posted was neither unusual nor funny. It’s life as usual for a lot of families.</p>
<p>Actually many of the Onion stories are totally mundane with a slight twist if any. U Minn dropout is the twist as they are the chief UW rival and we like to poke fun at them.</p>
<p><a href=“The Onion | America's Finest News Source.”>The Onion | America's Finest News Source.;
<p>Of course the only thing funnier than Minn is South Dakota</p>
<p><a href=“The Onion | America's Finest News Source.”>The Onion | America's Finest News Source.;
<p>And what do you think was your “twist”? The part about the JC or the cross-country trip??</p>
<p>Do you know why I am on these boards? It’s because 90% of the people I know or run into with kids aged 18-24 have kids who are still at home and attending the local cc… or else the kids have moved out and are attending the local cc. I run into my kid’s high school friends all the time working at the local supermarket or department store. So I know that no one really wants to hear about my kid at Barnard – it sounds elitist and stuck-up if I talk too much about it, and I think most people around here would think I was nuts if I told them what I was paying to keep her there – and that’s with financial aid that is close to full tuition.</p>
<p>Calmom,</p>
<p>You’ve nailed it. There’s an air of unreality here about what it means for most people in the US to go to college at all, coupled with an extremely wide definition of what it means to be middle-class.</p>
<p>Yes because nobody here really talks much about the regular kids that dominate the malls and sometimes aimlessly fill the JC classes and drive the streets at night looking for some fun. So I was mocking the uber serious super achievement super sensitive to my child’s every need classic CC posters.</p>
<p>Well, barrons, for whatever it’s worth, I thought your OP was funny, and a good reminder that we breathe pretty rarefied air here on CC. And for whatever else it’s worth, I was the loser dropout kid in a high-achieving family and ended up as the CC dream child in the long run (after collecting my degrees and getting a fancy job, I moved back to my hometown to be near my parents 
). I think it’s worth recalling that whatever your kid may appear to be at age 18 – be it slacker or Ivy-bound golden child or something in between – they may be a completely different person in ten years, or in two. So don’t tear your hair out…my parents lost theirs for nothing.</p>
<p>Hanna,
I’m with you on the importance of taking the long view. These discussions remind me, in a funny way, of the great deal of attention paid 17 years ago to the birth process with much less attention to what it meant to care for an infant. Not to sound like a commencement speech, but getting into college is really just a moment in a lifetime and there’s lots more to come. Not getting into a particular school (or dropping out for a bit) is certainly not make or break for one’s life.</p>
<p>Awwwwwww, barrons, don’t feel badly. Some of us got it. 
This forum is truly a lesson in contradictions. When cur posted a “joke” about his D running off with a marine and not finishing college, those who were taking offense were told that his comment was funny and not ill-intended and to lighten up. What’s good for the goose… :)</p>
<p>OK<em>JOKING</em>. All the sincere angst in the “dealing with disappointment” thread kinda made my need for some sarcasm buzzer go off.</p>
<p>you need more sarcasm in your life…
You would perhaps a teenager, like to borrow?</p>
<p>Actually, I am <em>disappointed</em> that this is not a serious thread. I would hope we all love our children no matter whether they follow the path we hoped for them. Doesn’t mean they don’t make disappointing choices sometimes. Check the Second Semester Blues thread, a terrifically helpful one. Some of that was about kids facing difficult circumstances, just having a “down” time. Some was about kids making disappointing choices and how to handle that as parents. </p>
<p>Sometimes this board is too much about the “angst” of choosing between Harvard and Princeton.</p>
<p>While watching “Shalom in the Home” last night I said to my wife I feel for anyone with a 15 year old daughter. They are much better at pushing buttons and drama than boys.</p>
<p>I have tried to get threads other going on ‘underachievers’. No success. I have been a Prof. now for nearly three decades; I was in the bottom fifth of my HS class and never broke 1100 on the SAT, and I graduated from a sixth-tier college. But I now wear my poor credentials with pride; before, it was a source of embarassment. Now I brag - sorry. My greatest act of ‘kynicism’ was getting a job offer from an Ivy. CCers need to lighten-up. Instead of buying into the system, we might spend some time disrupting and changing it.
Now its personal; my son is entering the search; another HS underacheiver. I am less Kynic-al than barrons, but appreciate his jests. As a father, I remind myself of a few things. First, the purpose of the 25th HS reunion is to personally validate that HS GPA and SAT/ACT scores predict little. Second, the college/university make their student selection decisions based on the most dismal of sciences. Third, there is a difference between being bright and interesting and being well-schooled. Finally, colleges take themselves far too seriously. They need to apply their so-called reflexive competency to themselves and they need to lighten-up. Perhaps they should agree to refuse to submit data to the rankers. Alas, this would hurt those institutions that have established their brand ID.</p>
<p>Teenage sons make you want to kill them. Teenage daughters make you want to kill yourself.</p>
<p>Yes, young male stupidity is pretty predictable and you know if they make it to adulthood they will probably be lovable. I think girls are less forgiving and hold grudges much longer. They also will verbalize everything wrong with you and do things just to vex you. Boys do stupid things because it seems like fun at the time.</p>
<p>“Teenage sons make you want to kill them. Teenage daughters make you want to kill yourself.”</p>
<p>Wow!</p>
<p>Disappointment usually is a direct result of expectations which don’t match results. Perhaps it is unreasonable to expect every single child to rise to the challenge of schoolwork as a teen, and to compete for top college admissions spots. I am raising four kids and see how different they are, and how they develop at different times. It’s hard not to be disappointed.</p>
<p>Easier is to be proud of the great and wonderful person that your child is. There must be areas of humanity in which you can be proud of your child. I’ll give you an example: I have one child who is a late reader. He does not read as well as the other kids his own age. But this kid is ALL HEART. Sweet and compassionate. You might never meet an 8 year old boy who is as caring. </p>
<p>Whenever I begin to have negative thoughts and feelings about the achievements of one of my children, I list all the areas where they excel. That shows me, in black and white, that they are not disappointing as human beings.</p>
<p>Anyway, it’s also possible that a kid who doesn’t seem interested in college at 17 may decide later (24? 30?) to go back to school after working. That is admirable, too.</p>
<p>Two kids. One studies and studies. Aces all the tests and spends a good bit of time prepping for the SAT. The other kid; my kid and the many like him. For the past three weeks he is attending practices for the school musical from 4-9:30 PM. Three days a week gets up at 5:30 to lift for football. His grades are crashing and there is little time and energy left over to prep for the SAT. The colleges give lip service to ECs, but their rankings wil go down if they accept a kid who is not in the top percentile (GPA/SAT). The well-schooled kid gets the offers, but which kid is more interesting? The former will get into a top-tier LAC while the latter will go to a second or third tier. The investment banking, consulting firms, as well as the law schools, etc. go to the top-tier colleges because they assume the ‘human capital’ is there, but also because they market themselves to their clients according to where their employees graduated from (i.e., see the Bain, McKinsey, etc. marketing brochures).
The research universities are in the best position to study this process. Alas, they conveniently repress their own managerial processes and their powerful role in partitioning status and, to a lesser extent(thankfully), long-term earnings. Most students and parents accept the system ‘as is’, which is understandable, given that there is little that one can do; I do my thing on CC and I am writing two books that relate to the hidden power of the university (it’s not the ideology/PC issue).
By the way, the original original meaning of the word ‘slacker’ is ‘studied cynicism’. I prefer slacker to ‘underachiever’ because, as a parent, it gives me some hope (though also perhaps a necessary illusion) that there is more insight there than we assume.</p>
<p>Post 33 is priceless. </p>
<p>To me, the most pernicious aspect of the ‘academic rat-race’ in general (which includes its manifestation in high school) is how it can distort the efforts at self-discovery. </p>
<p>My younger child is “disappointing” not because she naturally now and then wants to melt down from all the pressure and slack off. Quite the opposite. She’s internally driven, but the messages she’s getting from her private elite high school (peers) is that only the intellectuals matter. She will never win that game, and shouldn’t. Her gifts are elsewhere, and the enormous, overarching academic determinism which defines many of these schools, makes it extremely hard to differentiate oneself, let alone celebrate that self. You have no idea how hard it is to get her to focus on the colleges and environments right for <em>her</em>, and in which her particular creative perception & vision will illuminate & energize a college campus. If it’s not “name-brand,” forget it. If there’s not at least one student in the top 10% applying to that same college, forget it.</p>
<p>The high school and I are competing for the volume channel every day.</p>
<p>Where’s the disappointment thread that this thread riffs off of? I can’t find it.</p>
<p>Im the opposite of disappointed right now–I’m thrilled with the schools that accepted my daughter and I have to say that for us the process worked very well. She did not get into her ultra reach schools–She has two terrific choices–two schools with fabulous reputations for developing good people, although they are lower 'ranked" than the tippy-top schools.</p>
<p>Before she heard from her reachiest schools, she was gravitating toward ND and was asking me how you choose–I thought about all of the things that happen to you as life unfolds, and I told her that the best choice was probably the school that develops you emotionally and spiritually as well as academically. Any college can probably prepare you for a career, but the relationships you develop in college and the inner resources that mature are what will sustain you when life throws you a curve ball.</p>