Like it’s not normal for a 17 year old to be disappointed with bad news??? Why do these parents expect a 17 year old to react to disappointment with the same emotional maturity we might have at 45 or 50? And would they want someone to talk to their own child in that manner?
And another thing…my kid was rejected (well, waitlisted) from his 2 top schools in the past 48 hours…i feel TERRIBLE about it…really crummy…yes, I’m old enough to realize that I’m going to feel a better in a week…he has other choices…but, man, it’s a real blow to spend a year on these applications and visiting and checking in and then hear a No. It just is. And having people leap on me (and I have perspective!) would be pretty darn terrible. I can’t even imagine the 17-year-old Me hearing this.
SouthernHope, so sorry your kid was WL,[ i.e. rejected]! It DOES feel bad!
I wish there was a way to better prepare kids, in advance,[ to “gird their loins” ,so to speak] for the statistical likelihood of receiving rejections at colleges that DO have to reject 90%+ applicants, simply because they dont have room to take all the fantastic students who apply.
Kids who put all their hopes on getting into “dream” colleges are setting themselves up for probable disappointment .
I missed the horrible postings (Thank God!). Please kids who didn’t get in know this: You will soar on your own, in whatever you work hard to accomplish. Parents…last time I checked this is NOT your career, your life and your sadness. If an your are an adult lording it over children who didn’t “make it” you are pathetic.
I think we are doing a terrible job of conveying to our kids that there are SO MANY paths to success that don’t necessarily involve a list of 20 schools (in a country that has literally thousands of schools).
Some of these threads from disappointed kids contain some disturbing posts (and I don’t mean from parents), as they go WAY beyond predictable and normal disappointment. I really fear for some of these kids.
I think many of the think about statistics this way: I was the top 10% of kids in my school. Ivy takes 10%. Therefore I will probably get in even if it is only 10%. Then if I apply to all of them, it increases my odd that at least one will accept me.
They know it’s not true or accurate logic…but it sinks in. Just like a kid who gets a 26 on the ACT shooting for Ivies bc people tell them they scored in the top 5% on the ACT…
Re #25
Perhaps AP statistics teachers can use that as a real world example of faulty statistical reasoning?
I have seen vicious posts between parents as well, far too many people take the college admissions process as a game, kind of like 'hah hah my team won, yours lost, hah hah" and the like…and the kids of these types of parents have been brought up to think that if they don’t get into HYP or whatnot, they ‘aren’t as good’, think about the kids of the parents who public the harsh posting…Even when the kid is obnoxious, we have to remember they are kids, have probably been shaped by parents who are obnoxious, and try and find a way to try and help them without reacting, and it isn’t easy, and to me the real importance isn’t just that kid, but for other kids who might be reading the posts and get the idea that they can’t express their feelings. I haven’t seen that as much on the music boards I tend to be on (though I have been accused of destroying kids dreams or being elitist when kids ask about the realities of music school admissions or ‘making it’, which is another thread entirely), but I have heard it plenty of other cases, kids who post crap that I know isn’t true and it is really hard to keep it civil, specifically the kids who post things like “I got a full ride at Juilliard auditioning on the violin, and the audition panel told me I played like Heifetz”, which anyone who knows the school would know was utter BS, or the ones who say “If you don’t get a full ride like I did getting into music school, you must not be very good” (which is fallacy on several grounds, one the kid got into a music school that at best would be considered third tier so not exactly that hard to get merit there, and second the top levels of music school generally uses financial need with merit awards as well with UG).
The only kind of parent I can think of who would get down on a kid for being down about where they didn’t get in is someone who gets their jollies off making others feel bad, or someone of the ‘don’t be a baby, man up and take it school’ of thought, and that is pretty pathetic.
Music school and who gets in and why: My husband’s father was in the music business. He was VERY successful, as a musician/composer/arranger. Everyone here “knows” his music. Did he go to college? Nope. Did he finish high school…maybe not. Music is very personal. Universities are run by human beings…who have diverse tastes. Mr. Ellebud is not in the business, so I think I can speak more openly. Learn theory, genres, different instruments…and see where life leads.
And since music is a young person’s business…if the kid can’t support him/herself by 40…find something else.
@bevhills:
Music is a very wide category, and in your father’s generation the business was very different. Self taught musican/composers/arrangers were not uncommon, plus the kind of music he was in also makes a difference. These days even in ‘popular’ music, a lot of the people are going to college for it, and with classical music it is a very very different game. Back in his day studios had their own orchestras, and the film industry spent a lot on music, these days much of the music for soundtracks is done overseas, especially in Eastern Europe, where the labor is cheap. Your husband’s dad would likely have a very different experience today, and it likely would be nowhere near as successful.
I hear much the same story in the classical world, of people who picked up a violin in high school, got into a really good conservatory and had a good career as a musician", in this generation that person would almost assuredly go nowhere, when kids are coming into conservatories and such playing at a level a generation ago they were playing getting out of music school. Even in the non classical areas, like Jazz and pop and such, you are seeing a lot of people who go to music schools for it, maybe the pop star didn’t go to music school, but the person writing the music, the sound engineer, the producer, often did.
I find it quite ironic that those parent posters, several of who are on this thread find it quite acceptable to chastise (shame) parent posters who they deem are shaming or bullying student posters in the same way. It is often a long fall from a high horse.
OP says in the initial post “you people are horrible and should be ashamed.” How is that any better than what you are pissing about?
I think the difference is that the OP is addressing adults. There is in my mind a big difference between calling out another adult and piling on a 17 year old who is struggling with processing disappointment. Perhaps the student did not have adults in his or her life that prepared them adequately for the rejection.
First, not only is it not different, it is admittedly the same, and that was the point.
from my OP :
Responding in kind. Meaning I am not claiming it is different.
However, I will point out that my post was about parents shaming kids, so if it is better, that is where.
If you want to play metaphor tennis, then I agree… however it is much nicer up here on the high horse than down there in the mud.
In the bubble where I live, criticizing peers (in this case other parents) is seen as much different than criticizing teens. Teens are still learning and we are supposed to be their models and teachers. We are supposed to help them and support them. It is an unequal relationship. Adults generally have a whole lot more power, just because they have more education and life experience. In my bubble, our first instinct is to protect our young, not tear them down.
Crossposted
IMO, it is one thing when parents duke it out among themselves, but it is a whole different game when parents pile on a kid.
(Thank goodness I have not seen that nastiness.)
The consistent bashing of any student who has the temerity to aspire to top schools by some people here is beyond tiresome to me. It never ceases. It is always assumed that the student is chasing empty prestige. It is always assumed that a student couldn’t possibly like different things about different schools: no, the kid must have assembled a random, prestige-driven list, because no student could possibly be interested in a all of those places.
Then we have the crowd that is absolutely convinced that no kid chooses to take AP classes because they prefer the challenge and the more uniformly invested classmates, and are frankly bored otherwise. Nope, You must be trying to show off or motivated solely by competition. (And, of course, working yourself to death.)
A stellar performance on the SAT is never the result of 12 or more years of voracious reading and intellectual engagement. Nope, it’s just “one Saturday morning” and it’s unfair to everyone else that it is even considered.
It is, of course, ALWAYS acceptable to apply to 10 midwestern LACs in hopes of getting merit money, but applying to 10 schools where one might get the needs-based full ride one needs is obnoxious, annoying, shallow, prestige-driven, delusional, etc.
It is also always acceptable to aspire to Stanford and the top tech schools. No prestige hounds there. 8-|
@musicprnt, unless you know who @bevhills’ late FIL was–and I certainly don’t–it is very presumptuous to tell her that he would not have succeeded today.
Of course it is worse when it is an adult/teen interaction but that doesn’t excuse the same behavior when it is adult to adult. What, grown ups don’t have feelings?
I never did see the posts in question, and now they are gone, but playing thread police is not going to affect the behavior of other adults. Reporting the posts and allowing the mods to do their job is the way to go about it. If someone is truly vile, they are not going to stop being vile just because Postmodern ordered them to stop.
If we all keep saying it tho, maybe they will…?
I am A-okay with holding adults responsible for bullying behavior on an anonymous message board. I’m not seeing postmodern as any kind of bully here. Unless we think calling out bullies makes one a bully?
Even on an anonymous board, posters tend to adjust their behavior to what others find acceptable.