I’ve been here about a year or so and have found it very useful but honestly today I am thinking about leaving.
I don’t know what possesses people to shame kids who are obviously hurting. Didn’t you make any bad decisions when you were 17? Why is it so important to point out the mistakes when it is too late to fix anything? Why do you get pleasure from it? It’s like you’ve all been sharpening your teeth waiting for Ivy Day to dump all over children. We are supposed to be the parents here!
Posters are also making accusations that children are from a privileged socioeconomic class and therefore deluded and getting just deserts. (With no facts to back that up…) I don’t understand what motivates people to do that. Your own lives must so miserable and empty that you need to share the joy (see how that feels)?
I am not the boss of the internet, and I have no authority… but if this is going to be a place where shaming people for their posts is acceptable, then I will respond in kind:
Posts are read by other students too. Sometimes, kids need a gentle reminder that the schools they’re complaining about are some other student’s dream schools. Posting the equivalent of “I got into an Ivy and it’s affordable but I can do better” isn’t a pleasant sentiment, and posting it on the day thousands and thousands of other kids are getting outright rejected or waitlisted is tone deaf.
I agree that there’s never an excuse to be mean to children, but there are times when children need to be gently reminded to take others’ feelings into consideration too. We can’t control what people post, but if you stay you can provide guidance and balance. The forum would benefit from both.
All? A lot of generalization going on here. I’m sure many of us here don’t know what you’re talking about. I guess I’m rather pedestrian, I don’t even know what “Ivy Day” is. I agree that people should not be unkind, particularly to kids who are hurting.
Sorry for any confusion, @busdriver11 , but I was using “all” rhetorically, when I intended to refer to a specific subset of anonymous posters who are otherwise not grouped. My bad!
When I read some of the posts directed at high schoolers by parents I think to myself " if they speak to these kids this way, think of how they speak to their own children who they encounter every day and whose mistakes are more personal to them."
I guess I missed the boat, I’m not even sure who is doing what, here.
But I hope that postmodern doesn’t leave because of this. Most of the interaction (at least here on the café, that I follow) is positive. It is very rare that you read a post that is intentionally unkind.
I read the thread OP is talking about (well, one or two of them anyway), and some responses are certainly more harsh than I would ever post, especially right as the wounds of these kids are fresh.
However, I didn’t see any that were intentionally vicious or cruel. Even if they were, starting a finger wagging thread to shame people into submission is NOT going to work with those types. As long as they don’t violate TOS, they are allowed to speak their minds, and they will do so regardless of what any of us think. If their post violates TOS, by all means report it to the mods. They are good about keeping these forums “clean.”
These kinds of threads pop up every year, and eventually everyone gets over it and calms down. They will continue to be an annual occurrence at this time of year.
Some of th kids rejected from the Ivies are distraught. When they say things like killing themselves, all their hard work wasted, some people chime in to say they can be successful from other schools. When somebody said they were rejected everywhere, a parent wrote that on another post, they had been accepted to X&Y, both top 25 colleges. The parent was congratulatory.
I do think kids get depressed, as they’ve based their self esteem on what college accepts them. I’ve heard of kids not going to school for a week, as they are grieving. Perhaps the kids posting want to vent. They want reassurances, but perhaps are not yet ready to take positive thoughts are in. I don’t recall snarky posts. One person asked a kid if they had any safeties, and the reply was just state schools. Nobody said anything like, why didn’t you have matches? I might be thinking that, but it is too late to say. If I can’t contribute something positive, I keep quiet.
Well…I’m not one of the posters, @STEM2017, but it doesn’t take much to figure out who @Postmodern is talking about. Just look at the list of threads he posted in. I agree with him; the posts are vicious, just plain vicious. There is no excuse for ANYONE to say the sorts of things PARENTS were saying in that thread.
Schadenfreude and perhaps jealousy. Same reason why people watch RHWofXXXX and My 600lb life. They want to feel better about themselves or their children.
Thank you @Postmodern I cringe at some of the letters posted here…almost cruel…not acknowledging that its okay to feel terrible for a week…that’s human…somebody will post that they’re devastated that they didn’t get into the college that’s been their dream and that they worked their butts off to get into and the abuse is sometimes crazy with people criticizing them for feeling terrible and not being over it yet. I don’t get it. What’s wrong with having an emotional response to bad news?
@postmodern, I checked the posts you have reported, and we have acted on every one of them. Please be sure to report any other ones you think violate the TOS.
Thanks, @MaineLonghorn . The ones I reported were really nasty and I appreciate you removing them… but with this thread I meant others also, who are not in violation of the terms of service and completely within their rights of expression of their thoughts… yet really negative and likely to drive away young people who might otherwise find the information to avoid a similar result when it is their turn.
Not looking for any rational thought to be censored, ever, except by their own reconsidered positions and consciences.