<p>You can protest all you want. Most women want to marry up and not down. That’s the way real life works. It is true that most 19 year olds will not stay with their 19 year old boy / girlfriends, but the chances of your daughter’s relationship lasting given their differences is virtually nil. That is a fact.</p>
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<p>But according to you, you would be perfectly happy with a boyfriend not as smart as you. I’m curious, I know you are young, but do you maybe see a little inconsistency in your assertions here? I’m also curious, what is it about your conversations with your “peers” that makes you feel like you are the smartest person in the room. Is this something you decided for yourself, or something somebody told you?</p>
<p>YES Jia28. I’m sure there are kids who push themselves. I have no doubt, and yes, I have seen my share of tyrannical parents in the ice skating world. Some kids are like that. But lots are pushed into it.</p>
<p>Why only women? Why doesn’t everyone just marry up? That way everyone’s spouse makes more money than them, we all win! ;)</p>
<p>Seriously, though, this is an outdated way of thinking. Most of the high-achieving girls that I know are more than willing to “marry down.” I mean, I’m planning on entering a fairly lucrative field where I’ll probably end up making 150-200k. Where do I marry up from there? My options seem pretty limited…and if I’m making good money on my own, why should I care what my husband makes? We’re financially set.</p>
<p>Personally, I’d be more than happy to work long days and make lots of money while my husband raises the kids. If that’s our skill distribution I don’t see the problem, and I don’t think I’m a minority anymore.</p>
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<p>I said I consider him my near-equal intellectually. He’s in community college for financial reasons.</p>
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<p>In my school career, I’ve completely changed the way I speak in school because when I used my full vocabulary and said expressed the things I think, nobody understood me. I’d have to explain words or ideas, or I’d have to slowly retrace my logic in order to have someone understand what I was saying. It became easier to simply say things that I knew my fellow students would understand.</p>
<p>Edit: I also gained a lot more friends when I started dumbing myself down to communicate. Odd. Wonder why I’d want to be around a more intellectual group in college?</p>
<p>If you have to ask yourself whether going to a certain college that happens to be classified as elite or prestigious is worth the extra money for the prestige alone, the answer is probably “no.” That said, there is a reason that some colleges become prestigious over time, and it isn’t just down to good marketing and snobbery. </p>
<p>The best thing ever said about this subject is Eastcoastcrazy’s criterion:</p>
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<p>I think the “Flop Sweat rule” should be right up there with “love thy safety.”</p>
<p>You mean, you are so smart that you developed a vocabulary far superior to others in your school? Or do you mean you simply have trouble communicating your ideas to other people so that they understand you.</p>
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<p>Okay, get back to me in ten or so years will you please? </p>
<p>By the way, you will find that many hard charging career women do in fact have trouble finding men who can meet their expectations. It is a crises some women approaching their thirties, unmarried, go through. You of course don’t have to worry about that right now. You have time :-)</p>
<p>The former. If she goes to a smaller, less resourced high school, it is plausible to well nigh on probable that she has only two or there intellectual peers.</p>
<p>Primarily the former. I read a lot and always have so my vocabulary is good, and found quickly that if I spoke naturally to my peers the same way I do to my parents and other adults, I receive a lot of blank stares and have to do lots of explaining. Also, to some extent, the latter, because I interpret things much faster and to a greater extent than most kids in my school. I realize I probably sound arrogant and self-centered, but I am just trying to be frank…I go to a small public school in a blue-collar town in CT, so yes, I have few intellectual peers – many of the bright kids in middle school transferred to private schools.</p>
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<p>I doubt it will change. My mother is the primary breadwinner in the family and my father has always made less $$ than her, and even raised us at home as infants when she was commuting. So it’s a very natural setup for me.</p>
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<p>I’ll be the judge of what’s wrong with my relationship.</p>
<p>"
Please define what a “good” school is. Do you think a school has to be “elite” to be good?"</p>
<p>Oh good grief. Here’s what you want to hear - yes, there are only 8 good schools in the country. All graduates of them are perfect people who go on to have perfect lives. Anyone who goes anywhere else is a blithering idiot who will never accomplish anything beyond “do you want fries with that?”</p>
<p>Are you happy now? Why ask stupid questions?</p>
<p>Luisarose, you keep missing the point of my post. I am not saying you have problems with your boyfriend that you need to worry about. Given your abilities, you need to take the time to read what is before you, to comprehend, rather than jumping to conclusions. If you got into MIT, I would think you have good reading comprehension ability.</p>
<p>You essentially said that you are thrilled about going to MIT and being around smart people you can relate to. You also absolutely implied that your boyfriend is not nearly as smart as you, although he is highly intelligent in other areas, like music. </p>
<p>I simply said that there is an inconsistency in your wanting to be around “smart people” and your also believing you can make a relationship work with a boyfriend, who you as much as said is not that smart, at least in the analytical way you portray yourself as being smart.</p>
<p>Some of your quotes are below. You cant have it both ways. You cant want to be around only smart people but expect to have a long term relationship with a guy you do not consider smart. Its not going to work. In fact, I would guess your relationship will not last past your freshman year, unless of course your boyfriend is a musical prodigy and is going to be a star. At any rate, maybe I should keep my mouth shut, but I thought the inconsistency of your post was interesting if not amusing.</p>
<p>I think you should marry whoever you dang well want no matter his intelligence, his education, where he went to school or what salary he makes. If he makes you happy, that puts you ahead of a whole lot of folks on the life satisfaction meter. </p>
<p>There is nothing wrong with making 150-200k a year-that’s more than I could ever make in my career (nursing). But that’s really far from being top of the heap if we’re just talking numbers, so there are a whole lot of grades of “moving up” in a pure financial sense. And being “set” at that salary? Just depends on not only what you want out of life, but on what happens to you during it. Don’t even get me started on how much of that nice salary will go to taxes and insurance. :mad: Even with insurance, a catastrophic illness in the family can take that “set” and chew it all to pieces. Save, save, and save some more. ;)</p>
<p>You’re optimistic, have good self esteem, and you’ll probably do well not only in your education, but your career and family life. You’re a little naive, I think, but who wasn’t at your age? Good luck in college and in life!</p>
<p>Just to defend Luisarose: I have spent much of my life having to either consciously choose simpler words than come naturally to mind, or define them if I use more complicated terms. It gets old. And, what is worse, it makes people dislike and resent you, as if you’re putting on airs if you use big words, so you are constantly aware of your “audience,” as it were. If you do not have a large vocabulary, this may not seem a problem, but if you do, and if words are a natural extension of your personality, it is. Words are your expression, your outlet to your self; if you have to chop and change them, it is like putting on a small jacket before going out to exercise–every movement is circumscribed. When I had kids, I enjoyed using words they didn’t know, just because they learned words without limits, naturally; if they didn’t know what I meant, they just asked, I told them, and we went on. I like words, and I like using words that are exact, and I appreciate being with people who either know what I mean, or who aren’t bothered by asking what a word means. It’s not that I had trouble communicating, it’s that communicating was made more cumbrous by having to sift it through a limited vocabulary. Most of the time, I keep my vocabulary on a leash; it is unkind and even rude to use words people can’t be expected to know. But wow, being let off that leash is great.</p>
<p>I agree completely! That’s what I’m saying. And you’re right about me being naive, and I’m sure costs will make whatever income I have feel like it’s not enough, but my point was really that I think I’ll get by without a wealthy husband ;)</p>
<p>And @truthseeker, I don’t feel that my boyfriend is less intelligent than me. I can freely use my full vocabulary with him without fear that he won’t understand, and if he does ask about a word I know it’s because he wants a fuller idea of what it means. Knowledge is as important to him as it is to me. He is less academically inclined than I am but he far outweighs me when it comes to common sense, living skills, musicality, etc. Him being less academic than me means very little; he is one of the few people I can have high-level conversations with, regardless of whether he took AP classes in high school.</p>
<p>The other factor here is that I do want to be friends with people like me (academically focused, typical smart kids). I don’t necessarily want to date someone like me. We tend to be difficult :-P</p>
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<p>Yeah! Exactly. It’s frustrating, I always felt like I was embarrassing either others or myself by speaking naturally. It always felt like I was being a nerd/suck-up or they were just uncomfortable.</p>
<p>Regarding communication skills, there are at least four modes of communication that you are likely to engage in:</p>
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<li>As an expert in the subject, communicating to other experts or advanced level students in the subject.</li>
<li>As an expert in the subject, communicating to the general public or beginner level students.</li>
<li>As a non-expert in the subject, communicating to experts in the subject (typically as the student).</li>
<li>As a non-expert in the subject, communicating to other non-experts in the subject.</li>
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<p>Note that “expert” in this case means that your knowledge of the subject is greater than that of those you are interacting with, while “student” means that your knowledge of the subject is less. A college junior would be considered an “expert” in his/her major compared to college juniors in unrelated majors, but a “non-expert” compared to the faculty.</p>
<p>It looks like your high school experience gave you mostly practice in communicating to non-experts, while your college experience will give you more practice in communicating to experts.</p>
<p>ucbalumnus: vocabulary is different from communication. If I use the word soteriology, it’s because I expect people to understand what it means; if I use the term Catholic soteriology, as opposed to Calvinist soteriology, it’s because I expect my audience to understand the difference in a pretty subtle concept. One is a simple definition, and the other requires the understanding of complex theological concepts. There are lots of vocabulary words that do not require a graduate-level comprehension to use.</p>
<p>I’m sure she can take. Like many 17 year olds, she already thinks she knows far more than she does.</p>
<p>Communicating is an art, not a science. People should know their audiences. There is no reason an adult should talk over another person’s head. It is very off putting and smacks of arrogance.</p>
<p>I’m also going to speak up for luisarose. While it’s far from being the worst problem you can have, it is a problem to be the “brain” in your high school. Anybody who has been in this situation knows it, and so does everybody else in the high school. It’s a drag, especially in the classroom. You get tired of hearing stuff explained over and over, you get tired of asking for extra work so you won’t be bored, you get tired of people resenting you for messing up the curve and always knowing the answers. If you’re lucky enough to go someplace like CTY, or one of the Governor’s Schools in the summer, you get a taste of what it would be like to not have to deal with that, and that’s what you want in college. And of course, people don’t like to hear about this, because it’s somehow rude to think you’re smarter than others, even if it’s obvious. Those same people would understand perfectly if, say, you were looking for a better soccer team because you felt that the weak players on your current team were holding you back.</p>
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