<p>Many of the kids who get into the Ivy’s aren’t doing five hours of homework and five hours ECs everyday. I know because I’m the parent of one. He’s taken AP courses starting as a freshman. He does two school ECs that meet once a week and occassional Saturdays. He’s never done more than two or possibly three hours of homework a night, except right before a paper is due or a Latin test is scheduled. He’s got plenty of time for the things he considers fun, some of which did indeed look good on his application. (Various computer programming jobs and projects.) Perhaps part of the problem is that some kids are working harder than they need to.</p>
<p>NSM writes:
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<p>If parents and students would take this advice to heart, so much anxiety, unhappiness and stress would be eliminated. But it’s a message people don’t seem to hear, no matter how often it’s stated.</p>
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Emag: Are the ivies her dream?</p>
<p>Agree with mathmom. My daughter did not sacrifice one iota of her childhood or social life in the pre college years. She participated in ECs that she loved and moved up the ranks into leadership positions because thats who she is. She is now a freshman at a (non HYP) Ivy and is still very involved. She currently gives tours/sets up for school wide functions, joined a sorority and is very involved with a religious organization. She called me a couple of weeks ago and told me she is joining a womens leadership organization because she feels she is not doing enough. She believes that her classmates are all similar: it was always natural for her to plan social activities for her friends, lead any study group/class project, etc. When theres a group involved, I always just assume shes the leader. Shell sometimes correct me and say: Dad, here everybodys like me.</p>
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<p>Since D was admitted to college, shes said repeatedly that she is going to stop studying so hard because the grades do not matter any longer. Guess what, she still spends all nights studying for her finals and AP tests even though nobody will ever see the AP grades or final GPA. (She has scored 114 on the recent AP final - the highest grade out of two classes with many students failing the test). Amazingly, she is still very relaxed and spends lots of time socializing with friends, not to mention playing for two sport teams: traveling and varsity. I guess, she has already figured out who she is My point is that many students do not study just for the grades - she is not an exception.</p>
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D has said that at her college one feels like a slacker if one isn’t involved in something almost all the time. Motivation comes from within.</p>
<p>I’ve been reading this thread with a lot of interest. To state the obvious, each child is different, and what is the most wonderful thing about the Am system is that most of them can find their niche, whether Ivy or other. The danger, however, is that some bright kids cannot make the difference between their parents’ aspirations/phantasms and their own. You get the impression that they are pushing themselves when in fact they are trying subconsciously to live up to other people’s expectations. I’m speaking from painful personal experience. My eldest daughter won every prize in the book in high school, entered France’s most competitive School in Lib. Arts at 18, got her master’s degree at 20, and has recently abandoned her Ph. D. thesis, and her salary to move to Australia with a drop-out sax player and work as a waitress. You can imagine how I felt when she turned on us, saying that she had been trying throughout to fullfill our dream, and had never dared endevour to find her own. I never got the impression that I was pushing her, although I probably showed my pride in her achievements in an excessive manner. Did she equate her parents’ love with scholastic success? That’s what she now says.</p>
<p>I grew up with two parents who helped me try new things, but never pushed me into them. They both expect good things from me, but they have honestly told me numerous times that they will love me no matter where I go and what I do. I have essentially become completely self-motivated. My parents never have to ask me if I’m studying, never have to push me to work harder. I push myself far harder than they ever could, and I enjoy doing it. It is part of who I am. The lessen here is for parents. Do not push your child excessively. Extrinsic motivation is ineffective and will burn your child out. Let them know that they are in charge, that they are responsible for their own destinies.</p>
<p>I am sure I will feel the urge to push my kids to work as hard as I did in high school, but I guess the important thing is raising them with hard work in mind. I will tell them that they are special to me for who they are, not what they score on tests. They will grow to be the best they can, and that’s all I can ask of them. </p>
<p>This is not to bash parents who really expect performance from their kids, but instead it’s just a perspective from the other side.</p>
<p>Enjoyed reading the article and the follow-up comments here. Am probably a contemporary of the writer. I went to a top LAC and have several friends and family members that attended Harvard as well as other other top universities. I think many of us who were privileged to attend an elite college harbor the secret wish that our children may be able to enjoy a similar experience at our alma maters. However, I do believe that the intense competition for admission relegates the issue of legacy (unless one is a large donor) to a minor role in the admission process. Three of my four children have applied to my alma mater and certainly were “qualified” academically and on the basis of test scores. However, none were admitted. My brother, a Harvard alum, realizes it is unlikely that any of his children will attend there despite two generations of legacy. The children of two other close friends who graduated from Harvard recently were rejected. Nonetheless, such experiences have not tempered their or my own enthusiasm for my college (I still donate modestly like the writer, but faithfully) as I still appreciate the opportunity that I had to attend. On the other hand, as I have encouraged my kids to apply to a wider range of schools, I have seen excellence at many different places. The schools they ultimately decided upon have a strong academic focus and are a good fit for them socially and academically. Most importantly, they are enjoying their college experiences. I also realize, like the author and his sons, that there are many other good options on the road to a successful career and a meaningful life. </p>
<p>I also agree with NorthStar Mom’s comments on some students not being ready to attend an Ivy whether it be due to their own cultural experience. lack of 'worldliness or sophistication" for lack of better terms, temperment, self-confidence, or maturity. It is possible that such students may be better off at a state school where they are one of the top students academically or perhaps a smaller, less competitive college where they can get more attention. While I do not agree with a number of his positions, Shelby Steele has made a point that many students from disadvantaged backgrounds may start out at the bottom 10% initially at a place like MIT. It is a lot to expect such a student to overcome the culture shock of an elite university and also deal with the academic challenges starting from that position. He argues these students might actually be at the 90th percentile nationally and might have excelled in another environment (instead of someplace where virtually everyone else is at the 99th percentile). Perhaps with the self-confidence gained and support from their mentors, these students might do better going elsewhere first, and then going to a place like MIT later for grad school.</p>
<p>Last, I found the authors’ point on his kids realizing that there are many ways to succeed enlightening. Perhaps they saw too many adults trying to justify their lives by where they went to school, what job they had, what income they made. There is a need to have a balanced and signficant life beyond superficial labels. Also, I do agree that there are many academic routes to achievement. I have worked on the admissions committee at one of the Harvard professional schools. Students from state schools or little known colleges who excel academically and do well on the requiste standardized testing may stand out from a crowded group of similar applicants from an Ivy League school simply because they may be the only applicant from their school. Addtiionally, we always wanted to see whether a particular student took full advantage of whatever opportunities were available to him or her regardless of where they attended. Those are the students that will then take full advantage of the opportunities at our professional school. However, just as is the case for the talented h.s. kids from disadvantaged backgrounds, advisors at their colleges need to encourage talented students that top graduate and professional schools are within their reach.</p>
<p>Several thoughts (so many good ones already made!)</p>
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<li> That many wonderful kids not getting into Harvard and other top schools a la the NYT article does NOT mean that unqualified kids getting in, rather that there are X times as many qualified applicants as there are spaces.</li>
<li> Class is much more complicated than income level. Also, we (Americans in general) tend to conflate large class divisions as if they were all the same class level… multigenerational rurual or core urban poverty at the subsistence or welfare level is very different than the social structure of, say a suburban union working class family (just particular examples), just as “middle class” can mean a family with $40,000 in earnings or one with earnings in the mid six figures (as most people who earn their salaries and don’t have wealth will always consider themselves middle class!) Many of the posts point out many of the different challenges many kids with different types of non-middle class backgrounds face, some of whom will have more or less challenges than others.<br></li>
<li> All that said, I often think that some of the advantages middle class families have (however one defines it) in the college race have is TIME. Having represented poor people most of our lives, hardly a week goes by when my H and I don’t mention to each other that we don’t know how our clients would have even begun to have managed the weekly parental responsibilities and life crises we face and can manage together with our full time jobs… car break downs, parent-teacher conferences, printing the common application, postage for transcripts, alumni interviews, making copies… our clients had mandatory “community service” with no time off for these things and lost their benefits if they didn’t show up, they had no extra money to buy stamps or make copies… if they worked their employers would fire them if they made copies or printed something on office paper or called in sick to attend a parent teacher conference… and so on…</li>
<li> Kudos to the poster who so eloquently stated that some kids manage to do what they love and almost accidentally become the perfect applicant for a particular college… I’ve known kids like that… they really are special!</li>
<li> We do put our kids on a strange treadmill tied to a strict time table… our entire school system operates this way! Who says every kid must learn algebra in exactly 9 months or be considered a math failure? What if a kid can learn algebra perfectly well in 14 months and geometry in 11? We fail that kid after 9 months and start all over again, or worse… we say the kid is a math failure. Some kids just don’t blossom fully in time for a perfect college application! My son started flute lessons when he was in 4th grade… my best friend from childhood is a flutist… demented me, I pictured him, like her, first flute in the county orchestra… then, world famous… and his teachers told me he was… talented, gifted… alas, he wasn’t passionate… he hated to perform… but he has stuck with it for the fun of it … and we eventually realized that PLAYING A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT FOR PERSONAL SATISFACTION WAS A GOOD THING, the heck with impressing other people. And, you know what? He wound up talking about flute in some of his applications … because it had become part of who he was… even though he never performs … or competes… (he does juries just so he can get feedback) and we think it rounded out his application, and along with advanced math and sciences and social sciences helped him get into the liberal arts type schools and programs he wanted. Had we PUSHED him (as we wanted to do so many times!) to stay in band more than one year in middle school, to go to music camp (OK, we begged, but we didn’t require!) it would have been wrong for him…
(I only tell this story about my son to show how he is NOT like a different kid might be… one more passionate about an instrument… like a friend of his on the violin who practiced hours and hours because he loved it so much, and played with a regional orchestra, and toured over the summers… you can’t MAKE a kid be like that!)
6.We have a saying in my house (one I need to remind myself of frequently, I am afrain) – you can’t change reality. I’ve banged my head against the wall a few too many times over the fact that the college application world is different now than it was when I (and I suspect many of you) applied in the early 70’s. You can’t change reality… there are a LOT of talented, smart, hard working, accomplished kids out there… not every one of them can go to an Ivy (leaving aside the question of whether that would be a good thing for those kids) … There are a lot of families with a lot of disposable income willing to spend it making their kids more attractive and more competitive for those schools… and the ranking systems distort the application processes… and we are the parents living at this historical moment… and you can’t change reality… and college is f&^%ing expensive and we all lived through the bust of the 80’s (or was it the 90’s?)… and the loss of the defined benefit pension system… and you can’t change reality… and as someone said, in 20 years, when our kids are mid career, all the grownups will have lived through THIS reality and it won’t be a big deal to them… having an ivy degree will just mean they were one of the LUCKY smart, successful, accomplished youth, but everyone will know that those kind of youth went to school EVERYWHERE… so you’ll be judging people, as we always do (really) on what they actually accomplish in life… and… I’d like to think… on their integrety, character and humanity.</li>
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<p>I thought the article was great. It reminded me of my Yale interviewer. He was very impressed with me and told me that he would like to keep in touch with for years to come and maybe even have drinks in the future. Well I was deffered from Yale and then rejected. Now i’m going to emory. I think its for the best. I can get better grades and more attention from professors.</p>
<p>In addition, quite a few people in my school got into Harvard and I have to say I only find one of them exceptionally smart. But to tell you the truth none of them have perfect sats or do anything unbelievable. So ya, i just don’t understand how colleges choose students at all.</p>