<p>I’m pleased that my daughter had the opportunity to attend an elite college, and happy that she chose to do so. When I graduated high school in 1969, the doors of most east coast elites were closed to women- or just cracking open. So bravo to her, and all of the young women today who have so many more options than we did. Run with it!</p>
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<p>I agree completely. My state flagship when I was in high school was Mizzou. Sorry, but that describes a lot of the kids headed there and that’s why I knew I didn’t want any part of that, at all. They all headed off to Mizzou, roomed with their high school BFF’s, came back to St. Louis and moved back into the same neighborhoods, and that was that. <em>I</em> would have been miserable if I’d gone there. Perhaps that’s a weakness or snobbery on my part, but so be it. I won’t apologize for wanting to go to a better school with more academically minded students.</p>
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<p>excellent.</p>
<p>GFG, my D fits the description of your second group of kids. Yet she did watch Jersey Shore-and laughed and threw orange peels at them. But watch it she did, and I got sucked in too, albeit shaking my head and groaning most of the time. ;)</p>
<p>poetgirl, my D was a Tarheel too! I noticed once on her Facebook she had “Interests: rooting for whomever is playing Duke.” I’m presuming the rivalry is all in fun, but what do I know? :p</p>
<p>When I was in high school, in that small town in Pennsylvania, probably 60% of those who went to college, went to Penn State or another state school. I could count on the fingers of one hand the kids who left the state in my class. I chose Smith, not because it was “elite”–if I had heard of it at all it was in books–but because it had excellent programs in both English and Theater, and I could double-major, and I didn’t have to take gym. I didn’t want to go to Penn State because I didn’t want to go to college with the kids from my high school, or kids like them. It wasn’t that I didn’t like them, they were perfectly nice people, but I was tired of being “the smart one.” As Hunt says, being surrounded by really smart people all the time is just fabulous. And yes, there are smart people everywhere; I was certainly not the smartest kid at Smith, either; but Smith fit me. If there really were brilliant, highly-motivated students in vast numbers at Penn State when I graduated from high school, they weren’t from my high school, or at least they weren’t the kind of kids I met at Smith. </p>
<p>You know, the point of all this is not, and should not be, “this is the choice I made and it is therefore the choice that is best for everybody,” but if people are asking the question, what makes going to a top school “worth” it, and I say, “this is what made it worth it for me,” I don’t think it is reasonable to turn around and say, “those reasons are false/inadequate/deluded.” I’m not saying they’re reasons for anyone else to make that choice, and I’m not saying they outweigh all other considerations someone else might have–they were my reasons. This whole thing is like going to a restaurant and being told by the person you’re having dinner with, that you shouldn’t get the seafood risotto because your dining companion doesn’t like it, thinks the burgers are cheaper and better for you, and by the way, risotto is just a snotty way of saying rice.</p>
<p>Perhaps I’m the minority (goodness a another minority group I’m in) that are able to party with friends, stay up late doing questionably stupid things, but then still wake up the next day and learn about quantum physics.</p>
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<p>So why did you make a special effort to get into an honors college, if it’s no big deal?</p>
<p>People want to feel on a continuum somewhere between OK to comfortable to bursting with pride when the name of your kid’s school rolls out of your mouth. The tipping point for this depends on the family and perhaps to some degree on personality and level of evolvement, but for the very vast majority there IS a tipping point.</p>
<p>For some the state flagship will sound to them and their peer families like Harvard…and I mean any and all state flagships (not just the public Ivies).</p>
<p>At the other end, if a kid comes from 3 generations of Ivy grads, and that level of school has been the general expectation in that family context, then fine schools like Gettysburg, F&M, Trinity, Richmond, etc, etc are not going to roll out as easily.</p>
<p>I’m more on the “prestige” end, but I think the argument about ease of finding kindred academic souls is a bit of a red herring, unless we’re really talking about kindred souls in a broader context inclusive of “refinement”, “taste,” “sophistication,” etc. If you’re in an honors college at a pretty decent flagship and you can find your way to your honors residential housing you should be just fine (but you probably won’t see the name of your school immortalized in a movie…which probably 362 out of 365 days of the year is just fine).</p>
<p>FWIW, I think that all of this really depends on the kid. I think that my parents will discuss me going to MIT with as much pride as they’ll discuss my brother going to either a local, non-flagship state U or a community college…we are VASTLY different people and there is no pressure on him at all to perform the way I did academically or in college admissions.</p>
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Who said I had to make a special effort? I didn’t even write an essay for USF.</p>
<p>They offered me a spot. I accepted it.</p>
<p>GO BULLS!</p>
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<p>I know of a student who is the first in his family to be rejected from Stanford. He was absolutely devastated, and the family was as well. I don’t know if his feelings were due to feeling embarrassed at the rejection or if he really wanted to go there that badly. At any rate, he ended up at our state flagship, where I hear is doing very well and is incredibly happy. I wonder if his parents had a hard time getting that school to roll of their tongues or if they had the same pride in him they would have had if he’d gone with the family tradition. I haven’t seen them lately to know.</p>
<p>“Well, in my part of the south, Wash U, Northwestern, Chicago, the Claremont colleges, Grinnell, Carleton, etc., might as well have been on Mars.”</p>
<p>But at least you knew that when they got to Mars they would be appropriately impressed 
Mystery prestige can be as good or better than instant/familiarity prestige.</p>
<p>I can’t imagine choosing my friends on the basis of my perception of their intellectual capacity. That’s the epitome of shallowness.</p>
<p>Sent from my SCH-R760 using CC</p>
<p>Well, riprorin, do you feel better now? That wasn’t, of course, what anyone was saying, but I’m sure you’d like to think that it was, because you want to think that anyone who went to a top school did so out of a combination of snobbery, narcissism, intellectual pretension and gullibility. You started this thread out of a desire to have your choices validated, and so you’ll find reasons to validate your choice, if you have to make them up yourself. Now, if you’d gone to some elitist bastion of privilege, you’d know that making up stuff to fit your theory is not intellectually honest, but that’s just us pretentious snobs talking.</p>
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<p>Is it? I would think shallow would be choosing friends based on their looks, the quality of their wardrobe, or if they are wealthy. </p>
<p>I think people choose friends based on if they feel a mental/emotional connection. It seems logical that really smart kids would be drawn to other kids who are also smart. They would probably have more in common with them than with kids who have no interest in intellectual pursuits.</p>
<p>Nrsb4-- the rivalry is all in good fun and deadly serious. ;)</p>
<p>ETA: Yes, daughter’s best friend is beside herself with enthusiasm for Yale. I think she wears the t-shirt to bed every single night. And why shouldn’t she be? She is standout brilliant in a school full of brilliant kids and she gets to go be “normal” for a while. I think she actually “needs” this, personally. She is a world class nice kid, too.</p>
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<p>Existing charities are not enough. 16y olds with burning desire to establish new charities. I am sure these are international charities. Then accidentally getting into Ivy as suggested above. This is priceless.</p>
<p>Nrds b4, obviously, choosimg friends on the basis of the characteristics you mentioned would be shallow too.</p>
<p>I’m attracted to people who are kind, generous, thoughtful, forgiving, compasionate, honest, trustworthy, etc. My have friends who run the gamut of intellectual capability but they all share these qualities.</p>
<p>Sent from my SCH-R760 using CC</p>
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<p>I think of it as child abuse. I want my kid to be normal and well rounded. Not out there at sixteen starting charities. That’s ridiculous. Plenty of time for that when they are adults I also want my kid to understand that there is more to life than academic excellence. My kids have competed nationally and internationally in figure skating and in dance. My one daughter just got back from Spain where she missed a week of school because of an international figure skating competition. Hey, if it effects her final grade, so be it.</p>
<p>I had a friend long ago whose parents pushed him to achieve and achieve and achieve. The poor guy ended up committing suicide. Personally, I don’t believe in child abuse. And that’s what it is when Kids are led to believe that they have to attend the elite schools to be special. And I do not believe for a second normal kids think that way unless greatly influenced by their parents to be that way.</p>
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<p>I wonder why she would think that after reading this and other threads like this.</p>
<p>I’m sure we don’t WANT to be saying that…but…there’s SOMETHING there. When we’re talking about preferring (for us and/or our kids) an environment flooded with other people of a certain level of excellence, with allusions to dating pools, which gets us in the arena of gene pools…well, maybe there’s something there.</p>
<p>I try not to choose my friends based on where they got their degree, and I have some very close friends who didn’t go beyond high school graduation. But they ARE smart…and funny…and easy to be around. Just as there are “elites” who I find insufferable and “stupid” and to be avoided like the plague. That said, when someone does make a reference to where he/she went to school I notice and there is an impression that washes over me that is immediate and doesn’t feel volitional. Based on that impression, I may then more consciously adjust or ignore the first wave reaction.</p>