100% agree with this. The deceleration makes no sense, especially at highly ranked private schools.
This raises an interesting question to me.
Our HS has an associated middle school, but at least half (I think it is a bit more now) of the 9th graders come from a different K-8 system.
Then the Math department definitely has the option to “decelerate” (although I am not sure they would agree to call it that). There are at least two junctures–once when placing into one of two Trig classes (only one can lead to BC), which would happen for +2 students in 10th grade, and the other when placing into AB/BC–even from the more advanced Trig class, you can get sent to BC or instead AB first, and from the less advanced Trig class you can be sent to either AB or a non-AP Calculus (which is actually a DE-type Business Calculus course).
Anyway, my question is whether it is notably more common for kids not from the associated middle school to get “decelerated”, meaning start on the track where you could get to BC in 11th, but then end up at AB or non-AP Calculus in 11th instead. I have no idea, actually, if there is any sort of pattern.
I remember Bay Area before it got crazy. It’s sad really. Our friends (both pediatricians) left the state recently and took their children to Midwest. She told me the rates of depression and anxiety she has witnessed among her young patients was very alarming and the school environment so toxic they wouldn’t consider putting their own kids in local schools there.
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There is always a shaping (one might say “distortion”) of student interests by external forces.
The explosion of interest in Computer Science in colleges, for instance, did not arise because a vast number of students suddenly heard the call deep within their souls and discovered a burning intellectual passion for the subject, like some sort of secular Great Awakening.
So it goes also with summertime interest in advanced math study.
Some of those kids no doubt hear the call to be mathematicians: “this is what I love.” Many others hear another kind of voice, from their parents or from some internalized authority, that says “you’d better do it or else.”
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Are private schools in the Bay Area so much more relaxed? If so, why?
What is it about the students that led to him feel this way?
They moved out of state, not to local privates.
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I’m glad that I truly loved math, engineering and medicine and that my parents (physician father) didn’t push me into it. I was offered a highly accelerated math track at local flagship U in middle school and turned it down as I didn’t want to stick out. Dad actually somewhat discouraged me from medicine. I took the “standard advanced” curriculum at my small town public school and pursued my love of music. Got into a top 10 for engineering and music. Worked as an engineer for a few years and then went into medicine. My S24 has little interest in STEM although excelled in those subjects. I had no interest in tiger parenting him into a STEM field just for prestige or projected job security - I would have been miserable an engineer or physician if I didn’t truly love it. I’m afraid there may be a growing number of computer science and engineering grads who don’t really love the field.
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I think you are right, although I gather even more kids are starting in such programs for the $$$, but then graduating with a different degree for various reasons. And probably better sooner than later.
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Privates are often just as bad, or worse - we should remember the Sidwell Friends school story - parents were calling college admissions offices anonymously to trash kids in the children’s graduating class.
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I went to an admissions event with several top LACs and one of the officers said this happens every year now, with both parents and kids calling up and saying some other applicant lied on their application. She also said they have to investigate each claim.
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That’s downright depressing from every angle.
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It’s downright horrible and bizarre - what a strange way to live life.
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I honestly don’t even know how these kids even know what’s on other kids’ applications. Seems odd.
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They don’t actually know, it’s based an second hand knowledge from their own kid, or they base it on some noteworthy of the target kid, which the kid is likely to have on their application. So the parent of another kid will write an anonymous email claiming that the kid is lying about whatever it is. The claims are almost always false, so the parent doesn’t actually know anything, they are just making up things. A parent doesn’t need to know what’s on a kid’s application to claim that the kid is cheating on their exams.
It’s just so sleazy and sordid. These parents, in my opinion, are far far worse than the parents in the Varsity Blue scandal or any of the parents dealing in shenanigans that fake their own kid’s achievements, need levels. It’s all just because the parent thinks that having their kid attend a T-50 college, rather than a T-20 is a Fate Worse Than Death (for the parent). I mean, if their kid has a profile that makes them competitive for a “top” LAC, and that parents can afford it, there are a long list of of colleges for which this kid is competitive.
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They could just say no, we aren’t going to investigate rumors. Tell the caller that they only consider notifications from GC or principals or maybe from the LOR writers.
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A senior admission person handles all of these calls/emails at the school where I read apps. This person is very busy investigating the various claims, which continue to increase each year. Apps have definitely been removed from the pool for certain offenses.
Ive told this story before, but in D19s class, a student applied EA to Gtown and ED to another highly rejective and told classmates. By the end of the next day, the apps at both schools were pulled because parents and students called both schools to make them aware of the sitch.
They investigate ‘rumors’ because they can be true. To take one example, many districts (and even states) do not allow disciplinary actions to be put on transcripts or written about in a counselor LoR. So, if news of a suspension comes in via other means, it has to be investigated (if those things are important to a given school.)
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This phenomenon is a by-product of a lot of Tigerish trends.
Your kid claims on the application to have started their own non-profit to raise money to “cure” pediatric cancers (a ludicrous claim in and of itself). Kid brags constantly to his/her friends about how much money kid raised “all by myself”. Kids parents did all the legwork and paperwork, and the kids contribution was to call all the parents friends and acquaintances asking for money.
It stands to reason then that one of those parents (who might resent being treated like an ATM machine by their friends children) would alert XYZ college that the nonprofit in question was started by the parents with “casual” involvement by the kid.
Would I do it? No. Can I criticize a parent who has had enough of this tomfoolery? No.
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We have heard similar stories about the academic culture in Japan, especially related to their university entrance exam. But then, the Koreans refer to the Japanese as “the lazy people”.
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My guess is there are a couple drivers at work here. First, the very high salaries commanded by CompSci grads, especially compared to liberal arts students with bachelors degrees, has fueled the rush into the field in recent years. Second, over the past 20 - 30 years humanities and social science departments at many universities have lost sight of their mission to educate, and have become to some degree indoctrination mills. Parents see this and refuse to pay for degrees that not only fail to result in good paying jobs, but actually result in the students becoming more closed minded. (I know this will trigger some on CC; let’s save everyone a lot of heated comments and agree to disagree.)
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