decal anxiety, linearity and washing away of identity development

Parents Forum
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<p>I’d like to raise a topic that I was already on to before joining here but which has been heightened by exposure to the site and participation in it. As a relatively new poster, I apologize to the extent this is going over old terrain.</p>

<p>Let me admit that I’ve had a decal on my car and just added one in recent days. I cannot help noticing them on my daily 45-60 minutes to work and then back. If there is some particularly elite combo (i.e. MIT, Yale, Wellesley) and/or unusual decal (i.e Rhodes, Whitman or Willamette when I am in MA), I have to think if I will take a glance or not when passing or passed. And in thinking about this I’ve realized that I rarely if ever noticed prior to my oldest being a high school soph or so.</p>

<p>Instead of arguing about whether there many of us are interested in where our kids go, preparing them for elite options, hoping for elite options, etc, for the sake of argument I am going to assume there is a lot of truth here. Particularly disturbing to me, which we see in many of the these comparison threads as kids are up against it to make a final choice, is how often even fairly elite options can be disparaged or relatively belittled in contrast to some allegedly superior choice. This of course feeds the beast and the overall zeitgeist about these matters that then feeds the anxiety and neurosis about desiring and getting in elite schools. I’ve seen this happen with schools of the ilk of Michigan, Vanderbilt, Tufts, Bowdoin, Amherst, Colgate, Colby, Kenyon, Northeastern, etc, etc, or even with Ivies pitted against each other or some other high level non-Ivy. </p>

<p>So just as I have seen in athletics with kids being pushed into college visits as early as 8th and 9th grade and pushed to think about majors by 9th or 10 grade, we see kids at younger and younger ages asking what schools are best for architecture or electrical engineering, or whatever. Even within the past couple of weeks I’ve seen 14 and 15 years asking for college lists (elite of course). The stuff about parents scheming for elite pre-schools is well-documented, so I won’t belabor all of that, but the game has become so difficult, and so LINEAR, that there is no breathing room to, well, be a kid, to explore, screw up, experiment with different paths and different strains of identity. As I write this, I know tons has been written about about all this, but apparently there has been no effect. I know this is the STEM age, but should 16 and 17 year olds already be declaring their very specific career paths and applying to particular units of particular schools (Ross, Stern, Tepper, COE, BME, etc, etc). It’s dizzying. I know there are some kids so talented that they can rise above, in spite of what I am talking about, and still be very specialized while also developing into incredible people. But again, I think this is in spite of…and MOST regular talented kids I fear can’t do that. </p>

<p>What are the alternatives? Well, the risk of not being caught up in the prestige, score and gpa enchancement, EC enhancement, laser focus, laser focus, private coaches, etc, etc is that you very well may be marginalized. If you’re not participating in the “language” of the prevailing culture here then you risk being outside entirely, not existing. So we’ve got an obsession that we are afraid not to participate in that is still eating us up. We’ve got kids applying to 25-30 schools, kids with 4.0s and 2400s actually not getting in their dream schools or even a handful of dream schools, and threads like Parents Using College Acceptances to Compete, parents parsing through data and marking a notch against schools if the 4 year grad rate is too low, etc.</p>

<p>And what is happening in high school is getting repeated in college. What should I do, where should I go, and what classes should I avoid to make sure I maintain or exceed the 3.8 I need to access med school. Strategizing and dodging, and perpetual resume focus dominate. There is no incentive to veer off the path. In fact, you will be punished harshly if you veer off the path, unless, you can explain that real or metaphorical 6 months off as somehow another notch in the belt for the resume.</p>

<p>So, sure, there’s a narcissistic element here. But there’s also a real fear…fear that not participating will result in not being relevant at all…ending up outside, on the sidelines of relevance.</p>

<p>I have no idea what the answers are. I just know it seems like it’s getting worse all the time and that the dynamic ultimately is carnivorous and unsustainable.</p>

<p>But cheers! Another round for all of us who snagged good to great results this year.</p>

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<p>The increase in consciousness of career paths in high school is the result of fear caused by a contracting economy. People are grasping for security. I just heard a talk this weekend by a post-doctorate fellow in biology who quoted Pasteur: “Chance favors the prepared mind.” She riffed on the quote by saying that there are a lot of prepared minds out there, but apparently far fewer chances.</p>

<p>I know of kids who went to Ivy schools, had wonderful GPAs, internships, the lot. Many are graduating with no jobs. On some level this is frightening to me, but on another it is liberating. If these super-accomplished, super-polished kids are not getting jobs, then there is really absolutely nothing that the rest of us can do. There is no point in worrying about it. Go to college for the education and the experience. Don’t spend more than you can afford. That’s the only advice, really, that makes sense to me.</p>

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<p>In my opinion the big prize in America is still owning a good business. The truly relevant will own a business that provides good jobs to hundreds (maybe more). GL</p>

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<p>finalchild, I’m interested in what part of the country you live. I am assuming it is the northeast.
Being from Southern Caifornia- Los Angeles area specifically- I have to say that the anxiety you’re describing is only in small pockets of wealthier communities here. Perhaps the kids at Harvard Westlake and a few other prep schools (we don’t have many) as well as some of the publics in upscale neighborhoods are suffering in some of the ways you mention, but for the most part, I don’t think it affects the majority of students- the article written by the young woman for the Wall Street Journal last month, notwithstanding. If you look at where most of the kids at our local, coastal SoCal community thinks of as “dream schools”, we’re talking about a few schools: USC, UCLA, Berkeley, and for the cream of the crop, Stanford. Most kids here are still very Californiacentric. My Dd tutors for high school students all over the LA area, and listening to her experiences, these are their top choices.</p>

<p>I have never seen middle school kids talking about colleges in the way you describe. In fact, in general my experience is that there is far more interest and energy going into club and school sports than in thinking about college, careers, or anything academic at all. Maybe it’s just a California thing. </p>

<p>I will say there is some ethnic disparity in our area. The Asian American community is definitely more driven in terms of college and career focus than the rest of us, but because we have such strong public flagships, the pressure is lower. It’s just not that difficult for students with strong records to get into either UCLA or Berkeley. It’s not the crapshoot we think of compared to HYPMS, and until recently, they have been a bargain as well.</p>

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<p>Agree with moonchild. What you are talking about does not reflect my area. Most kids aspire to attend state schools, either in-state or surrounding states. The next largest group attend small schools within 200 miles or so, most not terribly selective. I don’t see much resume padding of EC’s. I had to beg my son to participate in one thing each year. My D’s were more involved, but only what they chose based on their interests. Yep, I have stickers on my car because I am proud of my kids and am happy to discuss their non-prestigious schools in the grocery store parking lot when someone has questions. Youngest D will be going to an ‘elite’ LAC, that’s where she feels she fits, and she is the only person from our HS to have applied there in recent memory. It’s not a competition in our school district.</p>

<p>There really are no answers; the only control I have is within my own family. The world here on CC is not our reality.</p>

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<p>Not such an issue in the southeast. There are programs starting at middle schools here to talk to “at risk” middle school students about college but that is about it. I hope those kids enter high school talking about college and career paths.</p>

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<p>Finalchild - I totally get where you are coming from (I am also in the Northeast.) I think it definitely is possible to stay at the fringe and refuse to engage with still good results but doing so feels like a gamble, because of the surrounding frenzy.</p>

<p>I also think the pressure starts earlier than middle school. I was walking by a 3rd grade (or so) girls softball game and heard a the dad-coach say, “We have to be aggressive! Do you know what ‘aggressive’ means?” And I am thinking “Do these cartwheel-turning kids really need to know this yet?” but at the same time knowing we put our own kids through the same type of thing at that age. So perhaps we’ll reflect once they are out of college that maybe the acceptance game was crazy too.</p>

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<p>I’m also in the northeast. When my kid was in kindergarten another mom told me the teacher had told her that her son needed to work on his coloring and so she was enrolling him in art class. I knew then the next 12 years were going to be a horror show. </p>

<p>We didn’t push anything but by middle school it was apparent that if he didn’t get his act together he’d be lucky to get into community college. Changed to a private school that gave detention that day if homework wasn’t turned in, so it wouldn’t be me nagging and giving the consequences. I just could not stomach 4 years like the previous 3. </p>

<p>Turned around in less than a week and came home telling us he had a goal - to make NHS. Fell off my chair. We did little after that to direct him. We barely discussed college with him until his junior year. He chose all his classes and all his EC’s. We basically just followed his lead, though we did get him a tutor for the SAT/ACT as his PSAT score was pretty dreadful. But we were only looking for decent. </p>

<p>He surpassed all of our expectations and we couldn’t be prouder of him. And his college’s decal is on my car.</p>

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<p>This may be more a northeast issue, but we in the northeast are not insane. If we want our children to study a reasonable distance from home, the competition is horrific. The public universities often aren’t stellar (I’ve taught at 2 in 2 mid atlantic states), and the costs of privates make the middle class desperate for scholarships and merit money.</p>

<p>For years I tried very hard not to enter into the insanity, but then I started looking closely at schools in New England. I plan to retire in New England, so it would be an ideal area for her development and support. However, even the Tier 2 or 3 schools I attended are barely matches, even schools that only meet 75% of need are barely matches. I’m starting to look at her 6th grade sister and thinking SAT prep :-></p>

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<p>My D and I were recently talking about how the craziness in the NE sometimes starts in kindergarten, especially in NYC (she being grateful that she has survived all of this). I remember it becoming a process just to get into kindergarten; you tested for private schools and prayed that if you lived in a neighborhood with a great public school, that you could get into your own zoned school (too many kids, not enough seats). </p>

<p>I also remembered feeling crazed with keeping up as the conversations about middle school started in kindergarten. At out elementary school, if you were going to stay in public school, it was pretty much implied that if your child kid not attend one of 4 schools, then you were pretty much a failure as a parent (in reality it was one of it was two schools, because the SP program at the other two schools would have to do, if you did not get into the two “top” programs which our elementary school fed into). I recently spoke with a co-worker who has a child going through the middle school process and it seems like not much has changed.</p>

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<p>@mamalion – I am not sure I agree that the competition is horrific, but then I am in New England, not mid-Atlantic so it is probably different. There are so many schools around here, both public and private, large and small I actually think there is a lot of choice, and I don’t think the New England universities (UNH, UMass, for example) are awful at all. They just have the misfortune of being in the same states as so many good private universities, I think they get a bum rap. But depending on the community where you live, there can be a lot of frenzy and competition.</p>

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<p>In the NE, NYC and then suburb, more specifically. Our kids went through private schools from K-12. According to other parents, their school was known for being very competitive and demanding. Our kids really didn’t have much of comparison because they only went to one school, except for D2 when we moved to another country for 2 years, they just coped with it and were very happy at their school. They normally went out one night a week, Sat was for ECs (dance or sports), and Sun was reserved for homework. They went to bed by 10 or 11 most nights, never pulled an all nighter while in high school or college. They both danced about 15+ hours/week. I remember junior year was the killer year because of SATs and APs, but other than SAT tutoring, we never had tutoring for them or summer schools. My kids were pretty much the norm at their school and they all coped.</p>

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<p>Some of the “job awareness”, “prestige awareness” has ramped up in our high school over the past 7 years, but I think much of the angst is contained in the NE and perhaps in a few urban or cultural pockets nationally. But again, in the midwest the public flagships are very strong, competitive options that attract kids from all over the country so many high achievers are headed for their state flagship. The option to go to an LAC is more often the desire of a particular student not to go to a huge university with 40,000 students and not necessarily a perception that private is “better” than public.</p>

<p>Car stickers and license plates abound, but more often than not they are to proclaim allegiance to a particular flagship.</p>

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<p>Come to the plains (where NE stands for Nebraska). Your only private high school option is parochial, catholic or off the charts conservative Christian, and those schools are tiny. The bumper stickers are for the two big state schools or a local college. Friend of mine went to Pomona. Most people hadn’t ever heard it.</p>

<p>I’d invite you to step off the crazy train. It is terrible that we’re pushing kids to have their futures all planned out by sophomore year. It is terrible that they feel like failures if they don’t go to recognizable (at least to northeasterners) and ranked school.</p>

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<p>@ordinarylives – wouldn’t it be interesting to do an exchange program within the US so the high school students could see for themselves what it’s like to live in other kinds of communities? I think it would go far not only to see different futures for each of them but I would also help people understand one another better on a bigger scale.</p>

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<p>The idea of a childhood free of future financial pressure is a dream that existed for only a short while.</p>

<p>Early in our history crops failed, mills closed. Life was grim.</p>

<p>We had a lovely bubble in the middle of the twentieth century when the economy was expanding, jobs were plentiful, and wealth was fairly evenly distributed.</p>

<p>That ship has sailed.</p>

<p>I do think there are some remedies. We have to keep telling them that flexibility, ingenuity, talent, hard work are worth more than the pedigree of their schools, that there are second acts when people make mistakes, and that there are many paths to success, which sometimes simply results from being in the right place at the right time.</p>

<p>And yes, as corny as it sounds, enjoy the journey.</p>

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<p>Thanks for all the responses. I am genuinely curious about whether we are missing each other to some extent in communication and/or whether the regional differences really are that strong.</p>

<p>Yes, I’m in New England. But at least in this CC community I see a lot of focus on elite schools, how to get there, and whether one rates as an applicant, the “lottery” aspect, and threads like the 2013/2017 one with an impressive running list that reads like a Who’s Who of the best schools in the country. The NYC stuff about pre-schools is true. There have been many articles and even books about it. Anyone read The Overchievers or the book chronicling Wesleyan admissions? I don’t thinking I’m making up that admits rates keep dropping to insane levels and that many (at least that come on this site) have kids applying to 10+ schools with regularity and some 20+. With club sports like soccer, especially for girls, the recruiting is getting pushed back into soph and frosh years of high school. There are 9th graders on this site (or their parents) asking about special colleges programs. In New England, there is some increased pressure I feel because the “elites” around here want less Massachusetts kids rather than more. They want to get rid of that “20 minutes outside Boston” rap. Do you know how many (especially girls) ar walking around with close to 4.0s with 6-9 AP classes and 2050-2150. A lot. And a lot wo aren’t savvy to the whole process are getting shut out because they don’t realize how ordinary they are (in the “elite” category). Even a good number of 2200+, 4.0s find themselves shut out if they don’t apply to right mix of schools.</p>

<p>Yes, in terms of the general population, even in New England, most are not caught up in the craze. Out of 350 students at our large public, probably not more than 10-12 kids did the kind of circuits of college visits that is commonplace for folks on this site, and most of them I think could care less and I’m sure fare just fine. I realize that a 2100 puts a kid in the 95th or 96th percentile, but when you’re out there trying to get in these really good schools (and I’m not even talking about the Ivies or top 7-8 LACs), it’s rough out there. It feels like from living in New England and being on this site that the 2100s and 3.85s and above with the usual outstanding EC profiles are a dime a dozen. And of course it feels even more that way when the rejections and waitlists starting rolling in :slight_smile: Isn’t that what all the support and commiseration threads are all about here (or at least to some extent, with all the sweating things out, last minute hurried trips to see the finalists again or for the first time, the celebrating, exhaling, etc)? I don’t know about you guys, but in our home junior year especially and even the first 2/3 of senior year have been pressurized, a whirlwind, and frenetic with not much reflection time or free time period. There certainly was not time to veer off track for 2 months in anything resembling an exploratory mode.</p>

<p>I think the economy comment is a big factor in the early specialization. No matter how many LAC presidents write articles about how the best preparation for careers and changing landscapes is the liberal arts education teaching how to think and being creative about thinking, writing skills, etc, it seems that most don’t really believe them. So there seems to be some push to be ever more specialized and at younger and younger ages.</p>

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<p>I am all for LBowie’s idea of helping high schoolers learn more about other areas of the country.</p>

<p>I have had several memorable occasions in which someone assumed that I am racist because I live in the south. I chose not to use a particular realtor in New England because she gave me a brief lecture on school desegregation, a topic about which she clearly knew little! I decided that we could not work together. The event showed more about her ignorance than about my alleged racism.</p>

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<p>I think the regional differences ARE that strong.</p>

<p>I grew up in the south, worked for a while in the NE, and currently live in the Midwest. At least in my little corner of the world, there is very little ivy fever (and yes, I do know kids who applied and were admitted to the ivies, but I know many more kids who were equally smart and equally driven who were thrilled to attend our flagship. Granted, it’s a wonderful flagship…)</p>

<p>Most of the car decals I see are flagship U and directional Us. Lots of kids I know here who graduated from directional Us still manage to find jobs.</p>

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<p>I see no evidence of that here. And this comment makes me sad.</p>

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<p>I must be hallucinating everything I think I’m seeing just on this site alone :)</p>

<p>In just the chance and comparison posts, there aren’t just one school vs other schools, but very specific programs at particular schools vs very specfic programs at other schools. And I see a lot of angst about college admissions and decisions, and how to go about maximizing chances for admittances.</p>