<p>Good one GA2012MOM! Try my response to oldfort.</p>
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<p>Here we go-
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<p>Who would argue with that?</p>
<p>:)</p>
<p>“The entire College Confidential forum amounts to many variations on the question, “which college is best?””</p>
<p>The above is from today by tk21769 on another thread.</p>
<p>Final, but I think you are wrong. There are kids at all of the elite schools who have non linear, non packageable elements to their lives. The fact that other people who know them, or read about them, or learn about them then decide that if their kids imitate their non linearity in some way to “prove” their elite school creds- well, you can’t blame the original “unique” kids for the legions of imitators.</p>
<p>There are also young adults enrolling at the elites who have done a tour of duty (or more) in Iraq or Afghanistan. At least in my neck of the Northeast, I don’t see hordes of kids enlisting as a way to game the admissions system, do you? Fantastic article last year about the veterans at Columbia-- and I think another one about what’s it like taking a class at Yale on Warfare and Violence sitting next to a man who is an infantry vet.</p>
<p>Chilling.</p>
<p>But I digress. Why does this bother you so much?</p>
<p>But SOG, to the extent that there is truth to either “knowing your major at age 8” or else being a “late bloomer,” do you find something objectionable about that bifurcation? And before a bunch jump in, these categories may seem extreme, so use them as analogies or metaphors. There actually is a narrowing of categories that folks can track on, so the more open-ended, more exploratory, let’s say more “liberal arts” journey is in jeopardy…so there is a fading in the degree of pining for a Reed and in the long run putting those types of institutions that I view as highly valuable to society at risk. or at least the risk if you do go that route of being viewed as a “late bloomer” (to borrow from SOG’s conceptualization).</p>
<p>blossom, I’m not bothered. I’m interested.</p>
<p>I’m a rare poster but I quite enjoyed the discussion when it stayed on OPs original topic. In IMHO it seems that if you don’t understand or are not interested in a thread…move on. My youngest D just made her college choice today and I look back on her journey with some sadness that there was not much room for non-linear exploration She (wholeheartedly) and we (against our better judgement) got somewhat sucked into the whole mid-atlantic agnst and her last two years of high school were too focused on “getting into the best college” …now she has made it into prestigious U and she won’t hear of taking a gap year to explore…too much effort in getting in, moving on with her friends, a kind of mindless inertia that is hard to combat… we worry she will never learn to pause, reflect, consider joining a commune, fantasize about traveling with backpack for a year or sailing the oceans…and sometimes going beyond fantasy to actually doing those things. Our older son is taking a semester to do a some self and geographic exploration but I think it should happen a little earlier before they get on the fast-track. I did quit a bit of lateral exploration (various degrees, change in direction, travels, jobs) and think that those deviations made me a better and happier person. I hope DD will slow down a little but the prevailing culture is hard to fight.</p>
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<p>This just isn’t true, imho.</p>
<p>I tutor kids at our local community college. Some of them are from an area of the county (our CCs are by county) where the schools are less well-funded and the SES is less than middle class, and others are upper middle class late bloomers.</p>
<p>In both cases, I have seen kids go off to very well regarded four year universities at the end of their two years at community college. </p>
<p>Also, my oldest daughter’s most brilliant friend was a big screw up in high school. This happens as we know. He went off to a state flagship in the mountain west, got a 4.0 GPA, did quite well on the GRE and is going into a funded PhD program. Also, another screw up went to a Southeastern flagship, not tough to get into, bright kid, never really worked hard in high school. She is starting a job with a fortune 100 as soon as she walks in graduation.</p>
<p>There are so many paths.</p>
<p>The only limit on the opportunities for these kids is imagination, research and the hard work they put in while they are in college. The one who went to the western flagship never even graduated high school, got his GED and is entering a PhD program that is very highly ranked.</p>
<p>I’d say there is plenty of room for the late bloomers, as far as I can see.</p>
<p>I had never heard of a ‘gap year’ before I came on CC. I also do not know anyone in real life who sent their children to boarding school. Those things are so removed from my reality that they were quite surprising when I saw them here… I don’t see the appeal of them, although I had a friend who worked a year to make money to pay for college. We didn’t call it a gap year, we called it working to make money to pay for college.</p>
<p>My child is going to an LAC, as are many of the students on the class of 2013 thread. She doesn’t know what she will major in, and I expect it to change over time.</p>
<p>^Which is the beauty of the LAC model. My son is a college freshman and has already changed his intended major three times. He is, and has always been, “non-linear” in his approach to life. He does what he likes as long as he likes it; then he moves on to other interests. Good thing he’s the kind of kid who would be happy living in a van down by the river…</p>
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<p>mambear1234, I’ve said on several threads to several young posters that a “gap year” isn’t a noun…it’s simply an expression to cover a gap between high school and starting college for whatever reason. I know I smile sometimes when “gap year” is elevated to some level of mysticism…as my friend whose D took a gap year to go somewhere and do something supposedly contributing to society said, “It was an expensive way for her to learn how to surf.” My friend graduated from an Ivy and prepped. It’s OK to chuckle at some posts. I’ve had 2 kids attend colleges with <2500 students and one heading off to a uni with > 40,000 students…and they do come out just fine at the end.</p>
<p>I cannot begin to say how much I have learned being in the CC community. I now pay attention to a college’s rules about drugs/alcohol use. I stated my views to his dad, a “professional adviser”, about sending his son to one such school. Sure enough, one beer in 'frig got him kicked out for a year.</p>
<p>then another of the worm’s friends had dreamed of Yale forever. i went over the stats with him, encouraged him to shift for his ED choice, and he got in there; the first from our HS to ever attend this college. (& full financial package)</p>
<p>I have another mom who believes her DD needs a large college with active sports teams to be happy. I’ve mentioned many LACs to her, which would be so much more supportive to her anxious DD.</p>
<p>In my early life (think 30’s), I visited most of the NE boarding schools and local colleges. CC has given me info on so many midwest and western schools. </p>
<p>In terms of linear routes, I thought the worm would end up in Silicon Valley since he was 8. He, however, has explored so many other possibilities (intellectual property law, NS, Medical research, IB); 18 years later, he is finally spending time out there. Now, I look at Countingdown’s examples of 1M homes, which look like shacks to me, and I just feel awful, wishing Google and others would move north to Oregon or Washington.</p>
<p>In sum, I love CC’s people, and I learn some new tidbit daily.</p>
<p>Before I came to CC I thought everyone saved money for their kids’ college education and they all wanted their kids to go to the best college possible, but CC opened my eyes. I now know there are some very cheap parents and there are some people who don’t care if their kids went to college.</p>
<p>blossom, thank you for #64. Made me think. Which is what I’m looking for. There’s a lot of supporting and attacking of positions/opinions here and not a ton of thinking IMHO. It’s nice when once in a while someone says, “gee, thanks, I hadn’t thought of that.” But I am not bothered or upset. No worries there.</p>
<p>And thank you fineartsmajormom. I am more cynical about PG years than gap years, because I see PG years as so strategic, sort of like cheating because a family can afford it and will keep going for whatever they feel entitled to until they get it. I wish my daughter would take a gap year. She’s young. It doesn’t have to be an incredible experience. Many kids are too young and again the trend is the other way…figuring out majors and stuff way before most kids should be worrying about that.</p>
<p>And blossom, I think I said in the initial post, I do believe there are those rare superstar kids…less than top 1%…or the kid our high school see maybe every 4-5 years, who can do it all, and have genuine non-linear experiences and still ace everything and who are genuinely interested in a variety of things…those handful of truly brilliant people you meet and are fortunate to be close to during a lifetime. But, again, I think they do what they do in spite of the current system and current trends, and not because of them.</p>
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<p>Unfortunately, finalchild, you have become one of the biggest “attackers” in the short time our paths have crossed. I, like most posters here, am happy to engage in discussion on various subjects that make us think, and I have done so over the years in many threads on this site. But when my opinion is selectively discounted as inauthentic, it tends to stifle conversation.</p>
<p>Never mind. In the spirit of your original post, I wanted to say that I tried very hard to observe window decals and license-plate holders on my way home from work tonight. I had to hunt to find just a handful of college-oriented ones among the hundreds of cars I saw on the highway and in town. (Again, possibly a regional difference.) I saw decals for Ripon and Marquette, a license-plate frame for Cal Poly, and a car with a Michigan sticker AND a frame. That’s it. What I saw far more of were political stickers (many for Obama; one for Romney) and the granola-belt staples of “COEXIST” and “my karma ran over my dogma” and the marriage-equality symbol. That’s what people seem to want to identify most with here–their beliefs.</p>
<p>Also, on a related tangent, I just saw a friend whose son is a graduating senior. Of all her son’s friends, very few seem to even be going to college in the fall. Many are taking gap years. One is going to a martial-arts camp in Asia. Another is doing NOLS. Another is hoping to get on the professional snowboard circuit. And these are kids with ambitious, high-achieving parents in academia or business–many of whom have “elite” degrees of their own. There are many paths. They all lead somewhere.</p>
<p>Actually, there’s a lot of thinking on CC. I’m pretty sure it is the “thinking” most of us continue to come back here for.</p>
<p>There’s no denying that the quest for ‘elite’ college admissions can take on an almost life or death urgency for some people, for a multitude of reasons. They might be found in higher concentrations on the east coast, but there are pockets and individuals with that mindset all over the country. They tend to converge here on CC, so that’s what we see. But in reality, it’s a very small segment of the entire population.</p>
<p>It’s like I tell my kids when they say, “But everyone is doing it…” No, not “everyone.” Just the people you’re hanging around with, so it only seems like everyone.</p>
<p>@Sally305 -I am not surprised you got the reaction you did. Your first response to this thread came across, to me, anyway, as quite condescending and critical rather than helpful. I am sure you did not mean it that way, but that is how it came across.</p>
<p>Wow. CC is not for the faint of heart. It offends me to think that because my kids attend two of the universities mentioned in the above posts - that it is automatically assumed that my kids were over-programmed, linear kids. If I weren’t scared to death about the need to space out my kid’s s c h o o l n a m e s for security reasons - I might reply with more details about our life that demonstrate that CC has a much more diverse following than you give it credit for. I’m curious. Where do your kids attend college?</p>
<p>LBowie, I am not surprised you say that. You have sided with the OP throughout this thread. I would encourage you to look as objectively as you can at his posts. I had tried my best to be diplomatic in my first post specifically for the goal of “coexisting” with someone who has demonstrated a desire to push buttons. I am sorry if my tone was not clear.</p>
<p>Kennedy: I believe I speak for most CC posters when I say good for you, and your kids! In fact, I would argue that the “linear,” programmed kids are the ones who are lately being shut out of elite schools, because they have nothing unique to offer and don’t demonstrate sincerity in their interests or motivations. Of course some of those play the game and “win,” but far more likely to succeed are the kids who get in via a certain “je ne sais quoi” that the adcoms seem very good at picking out of the crowd.</p>