Absolutely. It is probably not a coincidence my mother was an early childhood educator, and what she conveyed to me about age-appropriate developmental stages has always stuck with me. This came up recently in the Tiger Parenting thread, and in its own way trying to make sure your kid is developing well in all the many important areas is a lot!
My two cents is this is a huge blind spot in many of the online discussions of admissions to US colleges I have encountered, and if anything it is at least somewhat better here. And I don’t think it is always really the fault of the community–a kid or parent will ask a question like what courses should they be taking to optimize their chances at highly selective colleges, so they will get an answer to that specific question. And framed that way it is usually a pretty simple question to answer.
But if they had asked instead what should the kid should be doing to prepare for success in college, I think they would get much more interesting answers. And the frustrating thing to me is that this is actually the closer question to what they should be doing to prepare for college applications. Because if you actually spend a lot of time listening to AOs, it becomes clear they really, really want to enroll kids who are actually going to thrive at their college. And they know that involves a lot more than just checking off some list of HS courses. And holistic review in some sense is precisely about that question, what ELSE do you need to thrive at a college beyond just your basic academic preparation.
But unfortunately, I think a lot of kids/parents who show up in these sorts of discussions kinda just don’t want to hear about that. They want the formula: what classes, what activities, what application strategy, what concrete list of things can I check off to get into the most selective college possible.
Anyway, point being I think there are plenty of people around who would really love to talk about the care and feeding of your fish. But not so many people who want to hear about that.
As many have said it depends … on the student, their motivation, the school, etc.
Our experience was a Big Fish, Small Pond situation. Worked out great! Tons of leadership opportunities, felt challenged, lots of great experience totally prepared for rigorous professional degree. He went to a non-selective, not highly ranked mid size university known for his degree and professional school. Classes in those areas (and many other degrees were quite challenging, well taught (by professors), and the professors really got to know the students that made any effort to know them. He had no desire to be placed in a pressure cooker school and excelled at this school that motivated him. (4.0 undergrad and in professional school). Made lots of contacts too. He would not have enjoyed the small fish, big pond scenario or been as successful in it. In his work now (internship - he is big fish, big pond - and loves it).
So as I said it depends on your fish and your pond!
Not a “mental health crisis”, but my sister-in-law went from literally the #1 student in her region of a few hundred thousand people (based on competitive exams) to a struggling student at the top college in the country (drawing from many tens of millions of people). Other than giving her the opportunity to meet her spouse, she wishes she’d chosen differently.
I have mixed feelings about this because my older S despite being a stellar student has always flown under the radar somewhat beginning in elementary school. As the saying goes “the squeaky wheel gets the oil” and he was never one to speak up or advocate for himself preferring to go with the flow. He did have the advantage of having a very bright cohort of peers (at least starting in high school) and having a somewhat competitive disposition upped his game to keep up, but he was never going to be the one to “play the game” unless someone took him under their wing to mentor him and he was never fortunate to be able to do so. That also goes for his non-academic pursuits as he developed into a talented musician as well. Despite being relatively anonymous he did end up graduating as a top student in a specialty academic program in a rigorous top ranked public school. He chose to attend a very large highly ranked and selective university but not the highest ranked one he could have. During his 4 years of undergrad he made good friends, had fun, and took on a few leadership positions. He was also the top student in his relatively small program and was able to secure a few independent research experiences but nothing “flashy”, and only 1 of his supervisors took a more than cursory interest in his progress and invested any extra effort on his behalf (and that 1 professor was fortunately his senior thesis advisor who did more to help him advance his opportunities than anyone else and is probably responsible for S getting into the grad programs that he did). Despite being pretty much ignored by the faculty and his department, he managed to get admitted to the top ranked PhD program in the country in his field, but probably not the highest ranked globally he could have had he applied internationally.
Fundamentally his outcomes to date have been fantastic but most of that came from me advocating on his behalf when he was younger (and admittedly I dropped the ball on that during his elementary years) and his peers pushing him. Despite being an excellent student, talented, kind, interesting, and funny, he’s just too laid back to go through the song and dance to compete for attention. As successful as he’s been, I wonder how much more he could have accomplished if someone would have taken the time and effort to mentor him.
I usually had my kids as a small fish in a big pond, and hop it would make them to be a big fish in a big pond. I think they always learned more from other big fishes. It was the case in ballet and in school for them.
I have heard from some people who went top schools and regretted it because they never felt like they would good enough. I think it depends on personality.
But…I think with a really laid-back “mentee”, sometimes leading by example doesn’t provide sufficient scaffolding to ensure the mentoring is actually successful!
By mentor I was thinking of a faculty member who could take him under their wing to guide and advise, and maybe give him a little push out of his comfort zone (though I guess grad school will take care of that to some degree).
Helicoptering is what I try to do as a parent only to have him roll his eyes at me and ignore most of what I say lol.
I would think it all comes down to the child’s work ethic. Without one, they will struggle at a top school but probably could find success at a lesser school.
My two cents is you have to be REALLY careful with this sort of reasoning. It depends a bit on what you mean by “lesser school”, but the students getting the best grades at a wide variety of schools are generally smart, diligent students who ended up not going to “top” schools for a variety of reasons, including financial reasons, locational reasons, special programs like honors or particularly interesting majors, some large disruption in their academic history that is now resolved, and so on.
So I think a lot of smart kids who got by in their high school with relatively poor time management and minimal effort get to a solid but not “top” college, expect it to be more of the same, and find it no longer works for them in that new context.
All that said, I do believe if you come into college with very good time management skills and other good academic habits, and you find the right area for you, even very selective colleges might not seem particularly overwhelming to you, at least most of the time. Indeed, I think for some kids the often faster pace and more specialized material actually makes it easier for them to stay focused and enjoy school.
I think this is not accurate and is a bit offensive, though I’m sure you did not mean it that way. My D25 attended a magnet high school that accepts the top 3% of 8th graders from each of 15 surrounding counties/cities. The stress of going from being the top kid out of 300 8th graders in her rural county (where there is an extremely broad range in abilities) to being one of many smart kids in a class made up of the top 300 kids in the entire region is enormous. It has absolutely nothing to do with her work ethic. Going from big fish in a small pond to small-to-medium fish in a ginormous pond is not for the faint of heart and takes a big adjustment for any kid (or adult).
She struggled but persevered and is successful (though not the valedictorian by any stretch). Many struggle and decide it is not worth the stress, anxiety and sleeplessness. That decision oftentimes has nothing to do with a child’s work ethic, period.
No, I really disagree with this. Just because a school is less competitive for admission it doesn’t mean that it’s an easier school. Doesn’t Yale give like 80% As? Also, you can only work to the limits of your ability.
To answer the OPs question. I was probably in the lower half of kids accepted to the LAC that I attended. I was shocked by how bright everyone was. I had attended a boarding school and done well and frankly went into college with a swollen ego. I was knocked down pretty quickly! I managed to keep my head above water for 4 years although I was not getting into grad school with my grades. Overall though I received a great education for which I am grateful.
The saddest story I know on this topic is one of my very good friends from college who was there on a full scholarship. He had been valedictorian, star athlete, prom king, and all round Captain America in his small industrial NE town. The paper wrote a front page story about him when he was awarded the scholarship to attend our LAC.
He managed OK in college, I think it was small enough that was able to get the help he needed to do pretty well but he always felt like he was being treated unfairly. After school he was unable to hold down a job or a relationship. He felt he was too important to fax and copy things, he didn’t know the social cues of the white collar world, didn’t dress right, made bad jokes, etc. He got fired a lot, moved back to his hometown, started drinking and unfortunately passed away before we were 40.
Sorry, that story’s a bummer. I have no idea if what college he attended mattered in the end. Had he gone to his local state school would he have been more comfortable, had more realistic expectations for a Journalism major? Or was it the responsibility of our LAC to prepare him for the realities of the working world that were completely foreign to him? I don’t know the answers but I’m sad that my friend’s life turned out the way it did.
I am so sorry to hear of that story. That is tragic.
I believe that universities could do a better job of teaching kids “the rules of the workplace.” It would not take long (not even a full class) and it would be so valuable.
The other thing is that kids get admitted to college based mostly on IQ. Things like EQ or social intelligence are not truly measured/assessed in the same way.
When I was hiring young people, I would see lots of talented kids come in who had zero knowledge of workplace expectations (or who had low EQ/social acumen) who paid terrible prices before they figured these things out.
Yes, he just didn’t know. He was a super charming guy and probably could have figured it all out with a little guidance. But how to dress, how to behave in an office, what to expect when you’re an entry level employee, those are things that many of us took in from our surroundings our whole lives and not all kids have that benefit.
Academically, my kid was top 25% going into her small LAC, and when she graduated. It was great for her. The LAC was rigorous and she felt she was among like minded peers. It was the perfect environment and experience for her, as she felt encouraged to do her best. It set her up well for both work and grad school.
I commented above (post #34 in the thread) about how a rigorous HS made a big difference in my D’s confidence when starting college. I will add that I think a very competitive pool in HS creates a more realistic view of one’s capabilities. My D was a strong student in her (private) HS, but so was everyone else. Most students were A/A- students (with the occasional B+ or B), with 25-75% SAT scores of 1360 - 1530 (or thereabouts). So it was hard to to distinguish yourself academically, which gave it a “Big Pond” feel even though the school itself was fairly small.
What I observed was that while nearly all students were very strong overall, they often had areas of particular strength. And this had the effect of giving students a sense of how they stack up in a competitive and talented group of students. If you were a standout in a given subject, you were probably exceptional in that area. If you were good relative the general population, you might have been in the bottom 25% of the class, which made you realize that you were good, but not great.
I think this made my D aware of her actual strengths going into college. Grades were hard-earned at her HS so she was accustomed to working hard, but more importantly was the subtle awareness of what it really looks like to be “great at math” or a “terrific writer”. In some ways, I think her sense of what was “average” was skewed to the right, so when she got to college, the “big fish” feeling boosted her confidence.