<p>This is getting hijacked into a Pomona thread.</p>
<p>WRT to NSM’s posts, I fully agree that Paik set herself up for any critique, by publishing. Perhaps the other posters on CC don’t know about getting published.</p>
<p>I think that the integrity of journalism ,and good writing needs to be heartily protected, which is what NSM is doing. I love literature, and good journalism…my D is studying writing, and these matters are frequent dinner table conversations.</p>
<p>To reiterate, there is no * content* in Paik’s writing. To state that one reads Calvin and Hobbes and chases cats on Sundays does NOT illuminate one’s character. Nor does it make me think she is quirky, nor individualistic.</p>
<p>Compare her writing to the next blogger on “The Choice”…</p>
<p>“That’s when I heard the metallic sound of the gate outside signaling me that the mailman had arrived. I rushed outside and opened the mailbox without a moment to think. What did I find?..”</p>
<p>There is tension, and suspense in this one little sentence. The reader is put in the blogger’s shoes. Which reader among us has not had a sense of foreboding with the arrival of the postman? The writer won me over to his side with that one statement. That IS the power of good writing. Too bad he didn’t get to go to NYU, but that’s another story. </p>
<p>Now look through Paik’s writing…anything like that anywhere? Ok…let’s look at the Calvin and Hobbes reference…it might have had some meaning … but only to those who know of that comic strip…it’s not universally appealing, like the mailman sentence. Her writing is riddled with holes like these. </p>
<p>She needs to take a writing course. She’s lucky she didn’t get into HYPSM, they don’t offer remedial* anything.*…</p>
<p>"you’d expect there to be a more broadly defined and sophisticated mindset, not HYPSM or bust.
Ah, but that is the Harker mindset, because it is populated by mostly Asian families who can’t/ won’t look for colleges that aren’t “prestigious”. And POIH , like too many Asian families here in the US, bought into that way of thinking hook, line and sinker…</p>
It’s hard for me to read his posts without remembering his posts from last year. How embarrassing for his D, because he revealed her identity, his identity, and his wife’s identity, all in an unwitting manner.</p>
<p>Like you, I have no stake in “any Pomona fight” either, as I am neither a current student there nor did I apply there as a high school senior. I disagreed with POIH’s labeling of Pomona as a safety, but I despise “FOREIGNER!” remarks, regardless of who is receiving them.</p>
<p>You thought wrong. You’ve made a number of statements about numbers, but haven’t backed them up, with the exception of that Princeton number. You made some sweeping assertions which rely on some assumption of acceptance rate for students with a (superscored) 2300-2400 at Harvard, Yale, MIT and Stanford. Also, that data for Pomona. While you’re at it, you can also find that info for U of Chicago, JHU, and Amherst. </p>
<p>Without that data, your assertions are only opinions.</p>
<p>This is so far off the mark it’s laughable. The posters posting in favor of Pomona advocate sending children to schools that best meet their needs. For some, that will be an Ivy or other private research university, for some a state flagship, for some an LAC, for some a specialty school.</p>
<p>That only showed how un-educated but literal people on this forum who couldn’t resist to bring down someone by posting their identities and linking unrelated threads to me.</p>
<p>People who couldn’t resist to post personal attacks only show how poorly they were brought up. </p>
<p>My ethics and values stop me from posting negatively about any one personal life.</p>
<p>That’s crap. You just insulted me. The state flagship was my last choice for my daughter, nothing against our state flagship but she didn’t want to go there. It was very important to me to send her to a private college and being of middle class means that was not a small goal.</p>
<p>and people who make remarks like this
“The only good point about Pomona is that it has been used by large number of motion picture as shooting location.”
on a college specific public forum show how little they know about colleges that don’t start with HYPSM…</p>
<p>Hello – you just insulted everybody on this thread by saying we would question someone who chose to send their kid to an Ivy over a state flagship.</p>
<p>I personally know families who have sent their kids to Ivys, at great personal sacrifice. I have applauded their commitment to their kid’s education. When I was growing up I remember that my mother was instrumental in convincing our neighbors to send their talented daughter to Stanford over the state flagship. She convinced them they could afford it, which they could.</p>
<p>Ouch! My D would crucify me if I did that. As it is, just having moved from junior to member (gulp) may unloose the Furies if she sees it …</p>
<p>I don’t think Pomona requires any defense; on the other hand it is preferable to the nasty original direction of this thread.</p>
<p>So in that vein, how about this for a new direction: aren’t all these elite colleges that superscore fakes and frauds? Blew my mind when I learned they do that. I wonder what the “true count” colleges’ (and they do exist, UW-Madison as an example) stats would look like if they too were more concerned about prestige than truth.</p>
<p>Sigh. It’s the mentality of “there is no good place but HYPSM” and “HYPSM and only HYPSM are the only places that merit admiration” that is problematic. If the shoe doesn’t fit, don’t wear it. It has nothing to do with anyone’s background. It’s the mentality. It’s provincial, unsophisticated and the antithesis of true elite. I don’t care whether the person with such a mentality had relatives who came over on the Mayflower or just got here last year. It is about as hokey as believing that the only hotels worth going to are named the Ritz or Four Seasons.</p>
<p>you may be correct, but only about * certain* asian subgroups, and even then, in a generalized way of looking at things. People tend to think that Koreans ,Chinese, and Indians comprise all of the asian diaspora in the US…please let’s not forget the many others, many of whom have quite the opposite mindset…There is a Thai community nearby where I live, and the kids are happy to go to state universities, none are going to a top 50 USNWR school…the parents don’t obsessively talk about them. they’re happy, and they contribute to american society. …So, please don’t brand all asians in that way.Although we are all classified as asians, we don’t all think alike.</p>
<p>“It’s the mentality. It’s provincial and unsophisticated and not at all how the true elites feel about top universities.”
well said…
It is also lazy thinking IMO, because it takes far more time to try and find alternate colleges than to just look at the headline grabbing list of "top U’s “tauted” by USNWR, et al…</p>
<p>It’s not just laziness. Often these kids have parents who just immigrated, and all they’ve heard of over in their original country was HYP. people assume that those kids whose parents are immigrants have an entirely american outlook, and eschew the immigrant mentality. Not true. the kids will think like their parents, when it comes to colleges. If kids have non english native speakers as parents, who have no time or motivation to study the ways of american society, then these kids will turn out , at least, partially , like their parents.The parents are often too busy trying to put food on the table, and are often still living their former country’s lifestyle, meeting people of the same ethnicity since their communities may be socially isolated, to make sure their kids fully assimilate. Hence the poor college selection.</p>
<p>Or in another light, aren’t the Pomonas et al better off if they are in fact attracting true scholars over the prestige obsessed?</p>
<p>Watching the NCAA title game, you had to listen closely (it was only mentioned once), but there were two academic all americans on that floor, neither wearing a Duke jersey ;)</p>
<p>goblujays,
I’m referring , rather narrowly,to the HYPSM thinking that I am very familiar with at a particular private HS that POIH’s D went to. The parents there are not “just off the boat”. Many are highly educated, highly paid Silicon Valley engineers. </p>
<p>My apologies for painting with too broad a brush…</p>