I think it really depends on the kid. Leaving college decisions up to my son would have been a mistake. He just wasn’t mature or patient enough to be totally in charge of his own life choices when he was 17.
But my daughter actually has pretty much made all of her own decisions when it came to where to apply and when. Ditto, what classes to take and ECs to pursue in high school. That doesn’t mean she made those decisions in a vacuum. We do a lot of discussing in our household, and my husband and I have never been shy about telling her what we think about things. She listens, but she’s also not shy about tell us when she disagrees. We have made it clear from the beginning that this is her race to run. And, for the most part, she ran it well.
^ Slightly different twist. I could have been clearer that the extremes are for students who make the decisions when there are no parents to provide guidance or support. A student who makes the final decision based on analyzing the elements and benefit from parental involvement fall in the middle of my “classification” … where good things happen.
“Once at these elite private collegee, some of these public high school kids could adapt well in a short time but some could not.”
“Public high school” is not one size fits all. That encompasses New Trier High School and plenty of other high schools that rival privates, and that encompasses the one-room schoolhouse in Idaho and the crumbling building in the 'hood. There is no conclusion that can be drawn one way or the other about “public high school” as a whole.
In our town there are some kids that go away and then transfer back in-state. It can be for a variety of reasons. But that does not necessarily mean it was bad for them to go far home and give it a try. It’s better than wondering “what if” down the road.
helicopter parenting: my 13 year old described it kindly as “the parents don’t want the kids to be bored.” I think of it as “the parents don’t want the kids to do drugs.” Whichever way you define it, teens do benefit from parental involvement.
As it relates to Helicopter parenting, the needs of a young person are as individual as they are. Finding the right balance of parental involvement and allowing the young person the freedom to have their own experiences is a very subtle and evolving thing. I do believe that the vast majority of kids who are admitted to highly selective schools have had a significant amount of parental support, and my sense of that is positive. Loving them and supporting their interests is what I mean not being demanding and overbearing.
Ivybound17, I believe the point that is looking to be made by many parents is that it is what is inside the student that will define their lives and careers and that there are many excellent schools that provide a comparable educational experience.
Sure, it matters–for good or ill. But what has to be repeated ad nauseam on this board is that the Ivy League schools in particular do not offer qualities that are hugely superior to many other schools. And they may not be right for some kids in the first place.
Actually some of us who may seem “anti-Ivy”, in fact are not. Further, we have spent time, either undergrad or grad, on both Ivy and non-Ivy schools. I think what most people are saying is that there are a lot of excellent colleges and universities out there. Look beyond the 8, 12 or even 20 usual suspects. You may be surprised at what’s out there.
It may very well be that a specific Ivy is your best fit but it’s very hard to believe that these 8 schools provide the only best fit for everyone.
Fights between two different generations? Isn’t it usually the case that the younger generation would just roll their eyes and walk away instead of engaging in the fights due to their extreme impatience with anybody who looks slightly like their folks? (If you are parents, you should know this.)
I don’t expect this fight will be as heated as the parents’ fights.
If ■■■■■■■■17 is indeed 17 yo, we should give him (her?) some credits because he dares to step into the Parent Cafe where he might run the risk of being slaughtered (just like a parent stepping into the “college or high school life” might get slaughtered there.)
I must have been living under the rock. I do not know Shake Shack Burgers until now
Well said. We followed this way when DS applied to college.
Sometimes I feel some of us just try to “protect or even, god forbidden, shelter our young.” We may know better than our offsprings that the odds may be against them so we do not want them to run too much risk of “crash and burn”.
I’ve arrived at this thread late, but find it very interesting, especially the question about the “anti Ivy” bias. My spouse and I both graduated from an Ivy and both went on to a top 10 professional school (law/med). Here’s why I have somewhat of an anti Ivy bias:
From what I’ve seen in my life, I don’t believe that attending a less prestigious school negatively impacts success. If you define success by wealth, by far the wealthiest self-made people I know did not Ivy League schools (or even close). If you define success by contribution to society, I know many people doing incredible things who did not attend an Ivy. Finally, if I look at my smartest friends, almost of all them also did not attend an Ivy.
I’m not sure that students at Ivy League schools are smarter than students at other selective colleges and universities. I thought I would feel overwhelmed by the brain power around me at college and I just wasn’t. Now, that was many years ago, and I think my freshman dorm contained an unusual number of athletes and others who may have been valued for non-academic reasons, but I didn’t graduate feeling like I was in some rarified intellectual atmosphere that only could have happened in the hallowed halls of an Ivy League school.
Too many of my classes were larger than they should have been and too few of the professors were truly stellar. Again, today I think my alma mater does focus more on undergraduate teaching than it did, but it definitely makes me consider the value of a smaller LAC or one known to be committed to keeping class sizes down and research opportunities and professor access up.
When I was in law school, I was a teaching assistant for the 1L Legal Writing and Research class and what I saw astounded me. This was during a legal boom time and applications to top law schools were abundant. These were all students accepted at one of the best law schools in the country and yet a lot of them had deficient writing skills. Most of these students probably had graduated from an Ivy or another selective school and done exceptionally well, yet here they were, unable to craft a solid paper.
Having said all of the above, if I were applying today to college with the stats I had when I was in high school, I would not get into an Ivy (at least not the one I attended). I don’t want my children to spend their childhood preparing a college resume. If it turns out that one of them finds a passion that he or she pursues to elite status and that propels him into an Ivy or equivalent, then so be it, but I don’t think that the sacrifice that many kids now are making to chase that illusory goal is worth the cost. I also wonder what it is like at an Ivy these days. While I may have been a little under-impressed with the caliber of my classmates, I can’t even begin to imagine what kinds of kids attend these schools now, and I think I might find the intensity of the personalities unsettling.
