The Lost Boys

Parent Cafe
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<p>It’s just that more girls are applying to college in higher numbers.<<</p>

<p>Thanks for this, tenisghs. So, if that’s the case, then it sounds like the education establishment needs to consider what it has done for the girls that has been so successful and try to duplicate that with boys. But if they do, will the feminists allow it? </p>

<p>The conventional wisdom is that girls are disadvantaged when it comes to college preparation. Clearly that isn’t true anymore, but I wonder if those who have fought for women’s rights will be able to step back and see that it’s good for all of us if the boys get some special help, too.</p>

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<p>tenisghs ~ could you post your source for your quote? Are there some numbers available rather than the weak percentages that we have been wondering about?</p>

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<p>Reasonabledad,
I agree with you about the 3 groups of homeschoolers. I might add a 4th though, “free-spirited, organic-food-eating, flower children types”. :-)</p>

<p>I agree with you that the 3rd group (exceptional academic kids) nearly always go on to college. The second group (“deep religious affiliation who find the public schools hostile to their belief systems”) is more mixed, though. </p>

<p>I attended a homeschool graduation for 100 homeschoolers last weekend. (My son was one of them.) This was a conservative Christian homeschooling organization and was composed of “2nd group” homeschoolers. Of these 100 kids, 3 received appointments to military academies, 1 was a Nat’l Merit Scholar who’ll be attending an elite university, and the total of scholarships awarded to these 100 graduates was over $1.5 million. 10 or 15 of the kids were in the Jr. College Honor Society due to the dual-credit courses they were taking.</p>

<p>In the bios the kids prepared, nearly all of them said they planned to attend college. Many were going the community college route, but I think this is more a matter of finances than college preparedness. As you know, homeschooling families tend to be single-income. Also, the families are larger than average. Living on one income and paying for your own educational expenses, these families don’t have a large college fund saved up. </p>

<p>When you have 3 or 4 kids you’re going to have to educate on one income, a state university is often out of the question, and a private university wouldn’t even be considered. Many of them fall into that middle-income hole where they don’t qualify for financial aid but yet can’t afford to pay for college.</p>

<p>From my experience, I think I’d divide the religious homeschoolers group into 2 categories - college-prep and non-college-prep. I don’t know what the ratio is. Our family is kind of weird. We started out non-college-prep with our dd. Big mistake. Fortunately, our ds decided he had college aspirations in the 8th grade, so we were able to prepare him adequately. He’ll be attending the state univ. on scholarship in the fall. </p>

<p>Our youngest son is 15 and I am torn in some ways about how to prepare him. He’s an aspiring filmmaker, and I’d like to turn him loose to work on that. I frequently have to say, “Stop editing films and go do your biology!” It seems so pointless for him to be doing biology. However, I know that the chances of him earning a living as a filmmaker are not great, and college will improve his chances of success in filmmaking as well as in another field if that doesn’t work out. (We may require him to double major in business as a safety net.) So, we are doing college-prep with him…even if it means he can’t spend all his time on filmmaking.</p>

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<p>timely- one disadvantage I see homeschoolers having is they have no college counselor to help them with college.
As you probably know from these boards, there are lots of schools which meet 100% of EFC and welcome homeschoolers.
acommunity college may be a good transition however between homeschooling or “unschooling” and a 4 year university.
I think that for many filmmaking is a viable career. In our area we have many young people who are relatively successful in film while still in high school-you really can make some great work on a relatively low budget with current technology.
<a href=“http://www.livinglifethemovie.com/home/index.html[/url]”>http://www.livinglifethemovie.com/home/index.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>timely - In my case, it didn’t matter what my kids were interested in - they had to finish their basic school work no matter what. They knew that if they wanted to do something else then they better get done with “the basics”. Actually it was a great way to make them get done in a more timely (no pun intended) fashion!</p>

<p>No matter what career path you follow in life you will be required to do some drudge work.</p>

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<p>emeraldkity4 - Could you please clarify the no college counselor to help them w/college? Did you mean HS counselor? Just wondering.</p>

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<p>yes I meant no high school counselor( I think of them as college counselors since that is their main role)- for instance at my daughters school, the counseling office has an ongoing relationship with schools and they(the colleges) contact them ( the high school) to encourage students to apply.
It pays off- I noticed since Brown was heavily recruiting at the high school this year, a large number of students were accepted ( don’t know how many were attending or how many applied)
However since there are some well organized homeschooling groups- they may have a parent or other community member that fills that role for the students. It would be very useful I imagine as then you could have a recommendation that fit the high school counselor role besides the parent.
I know I wouldn’t even want to attempt to write a recommendation for my child, if it didn’t get them in, I would feel like it was my fault, and I would be afraid to tread the line from praise to hyperbole.</p>

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<p>The group of homeschoolers I know have all three categories. Mainly they homeschool because the public schools are not so great, and they are very capable to teach their own kids. It is a cluster and the kids benefit from the various talents that all of those parents have as most of them work at the local university. There are not many with a deep religious affiliation, so much as they do not like the culture of the “locals”. They live in this area because of the jobs the university provides, but they do not make enough money to send their kids to private school or pay for many of the ECs. So they provide it all themeselves. Now among those kids are ones with problems, ones who are very high functioning academically.</p>

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<p>Reasonabledad,</p>

<p>I know that since the 1970s, males used to predominate college campuses. As more women started applying in higher numbers, you start to notice more women on campus, but it didn’t mean that males were not applying at all. (Look at medical and law school numbers by gender for example. More women are applying to grad schools traditionally dominated by men.) HOWEVER, there has been a change (decrease) in the number of black/latino males who do apply to college due to socioeconomic and cultural factors I do not feel to explain. More black women are applying to college every year, and as a result, many HBCU campuses have severe gener ratios (65 F/35 M). The number of white and Asian male applicants have not decreased but the number of white and Asian female applicants have increased. The only decrease I know affecting males the most are in African-American and Latino communities.</p>

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<p>emeraldkity- You crack me up (about the recommendation letter). I will just tell you that most of the home schooling students we know have jobs and/or take classes by the time they will be applying to college & that is who they are using for recs. If you have read many of the threads about GCs I’m not sure you can count on them either. My sons have a great GC, but we have still done all the college stuff on our own. GCs just don’t have the time to educate students about all the college search aspects. In fact, when we went to the HS meeting about college I knew way more than the GC giving the presentation & he even told things that certainly don’t apply to the college search today (thank you CC moms/dads - I owe you one). </p>

<p>I guess that what I’m saying is if you home school through HS good for you, and if you don’t good for you. I am so glad that I had the opportunity to do it until HS and whether or not my kids where in school or not I would have been college searching long before they needed to apply. Let’s face it all the parents on this board have done & are doing a tremendous job with their children whether they are home schooled or not.</p>

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<p>I would agree mominsearch about the positive involvement that parents on this board must have with their children and as role models for other kids as well.
I have to say though that I don’t have a lot of sympathy for those who have chosen to limit themselves to one income, but don’t limit the amount of children they choose to have or how close they are together, and then complain they don’t have any money.
Kids are expensive- they are a luxury- I would have liked to have had more kids and to have had them closer together, but I recognized that we couldn’t have afforded a bigger house to put them in just for one.
I have two kids, 8 years apart, I realize that not everyone is making the choice to have only one or two kids, but it is a choice in most cases I hear about.
Not many virgin births lately in our neck of the woods. ;)</p>

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<p>For some families, having no counselor, or more importantly no infrastructure for the college process is a problem. I know a family who was very successful homeschooling her brood, but she was not as aware of the timelines for college. She missed the PSAT deadline. She had some problems with some other things that are just part of the flow at most highschools that have a college bound population despite deficiencies in the GC department. So it can be a problem. Another problem occurs if the a homeschooler does not get high test scores. Often that can be mitagated by school recs, school rigor, excellent grades. Without an official transcript it is difficult to assess a kid. Community college courses are often not as rigorous as good highschool courses as taking them here and there is not the same indicator as taking a course load for 4 full years and coming up with a gpa. There is alot of room for selective packaging when you homeschool, so those test scores which become the objective item in the app.</p>

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<p>jamimom - I guess I should clarify something. There is a HUGE difference in HOW people home school. Can it be a problem for the child down the line? Absolutely. I would have NEVER home schooled my kids if I would have thought I was compromising my children’s education. I knew that my kids would be in college someday & we did everything you would do in a traditional school (take tests, do special projects, art, gym, etc.) because that is what they would do if I put them back into school. I always thought in the back of my mind (what if I die - my husband couldn’t do it, etc.) so I prepared them with that in mind also. We also had the kids tested every year (SAT - grade appropriate). A licensed teacher has to give it, and yes it is the same test (timed also) any other school would have used. I not only used this to see how they were doing, but to make sure we had a record. It sure made a difference when my son decided that he would like to attend HS for 10th grade.</p>

<p>The GC was TOTALLY against putting my son into HS. How would he keep up, how would he fit in, etc. Once I showed her his test scores & his art then boy was it a different story. To make a long story short, he is in the top 5% of the kids graduating this year, NHS, captain of the Academic Challenge team, leadership roles, etc. He has put in over 300+ hours of community service, received local scholarhips, awards for his artwork, & received department awards at the academic banquest. His teachers love both of my sons & his GC wishes I had more kids at home! My oldest son will be attending a great school with merit scholarships this fall.</p>

<p>I agree that it is tougher for the kids to be assessed & I wish more home schoolers would take this more seriously. However, I have always thought that at least if these parents love their children, teach them good morals & values then they will still have to become better adults than those that are at traditional schools w/no parental guidance, etc.</p>

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<p>I know this has gone off in another direction…but back to the lost boys…there was an interview on NPR this week stating that the more girls than boys trend in colleges began/tipped 25 yeras ago and evidently grows a little each year. Amazing since I’ve only heard about it the last few years. There was some discusion about all the efforts to boost girls involvement and acceptance into science, math, and business environments due to the historical underrepresentation.
Interesting that we don’t have the same focus on boosting boys admissions and leanings in male’s non-traditional areas so we could improve the numbers of male teachers, nurses, and other traditionally female dominated professions.</p>

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<p>I am not about to make generalities about homeschoolers anymore than I would about schools, counselors, colleges or kids. Done properly, homeschooling can be the best thing for kids and the family. I can tell you that many of the “boy” problems that we have discussing is avoided through homeschooling since it seems to me that it is often the “pack mentality” that gets some of these boys into trouble. By keeping the adverse influences out until their brains mature can really avoid trouble and there are ever so many things that can be done in the time some of these kids are “hanging out”, “chilling”, “hooking up”, getting high, you name it. </p>

<p>Most of the homeschoolers I know are happy about their choice in providing education and the results. They seem as a rule much happier about the kid picking his path in life whether it is HPY or a more vocational route. As I said earlier, it reminds me more of the European frame of mind. In my prior post I was just pointing out a pitfall of homeschooling if the parent is not so aware of the college process. Many of us who are still get caught by surprise by things as the deadlines arise even with the autopilot that a highschool gives us on certain things, and the peer talk that may just penetrate an uninterested kid’s brain about colleges. So if you are practicing solo , homeschooling unless you are careful, you can miss a step easily. </p>

<p>As a tutor, my easiest clients are the Asian kids and the homeschoolers, with no question whatsoever. One group tends to already be set for the tests and really don’t need the tutoring; they are going to do well anyways. The other is ready and willing to learn. Too often I get a kid who is being tutored cuz mom and dad are insisting, and the colt is fighting the proverbial rope which is no fun for the tutor.</p>

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<p>the studies are very interesting to me. They are in direct opposition to what I observed when I was initially looking for schools for my daughter.
We looked at both private and public school and by far the parents who were most involved were parents of boys. This worked to her advantage as the private schools that she was interested in, worked to have a male/female balance.
One of the reasons actually why we opted for private school, even though we ended up paying out more than we do for our mortgage was because she was a “quiet- well behaved” girl, and we worried that she would be totally overlooked in a large classroom of 30+ kids.
As a frequent volunteer in public schools, I see vocal students getting much more attention both positive and negative than quieter students.
I think part of the reason is the way the classes are designed. Teachers seem to be people who were relatively successful in school, perhaps in even more traditional classrooms than we have now. They may not be able to design a classroom that serves different types of learners, particulary with the introduction of performance based testing in every grade. Kids who need more hands on type of activites or even recess may be SOL.</p>

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<p>I am a student, but I was instantly enthralled when I passed by this thread. My two cents on the topics under discussion-</p>

<p>Homeschooling - I realize that the majority of you are mothers of teenage children and are in support of this concept, but I would like to shed light upon the opposite stance. I have lived in the Bay Area of California for all my life, and homeschooling is rather uncommon here. However, I have personally known a few homeschoolers yielding from a variety of family backgrounds. A few are completing their majors in prestigious unis (berkeley, stanford), while others are being treated for mental disorders or are following normal high school curriculum. To the religious conservatives, I realize that I cannot, and it is not my place to change your orientation, but I find homeschooling to be incredibly detrimental to a child’s personal growth. Social compatiblity in today’s world is founded on abundant human interaction, and homeschooled children lack this vital experience. You may say, “my child has plenty of outings with friends and peers and is exposed to plenty of family gatherings.” I would say that this is far from adequate. A growing individual needs exposure to the broadest range of human vices and complex relationships to stimulate maturity and mental preparedness when the time comes for college, marriage, and employment. Protecting and censoring a teenager from both the follies and strengths of his or her peers will eliminate a major aspect of social competency that is necessary especially in America. Secondly, I strongly believe that we young adults learn the most from our acquaintances and not from our textbooks. How is one to gauge ability and skill without a variety of competition to compare to? I have been driven to excel and dream largely because of my fellow students. I am NOT a conformist nor complacent student, yet I completely believe in this. Peers provide a stimulus and standard far beyond what dedicated parents can provide. </p>

<p>Male/Female Achievement Discrepancy - It is true that females often do better than their male peers in school nowadays. I am a male. When it comes to grades especially, females often outperform. This is because the fundamental concepts behind the education system is fashioned in a way that neglects inherent male behavior. We find it harder to sit still and pay attention in classrooms, listen to teachers and meticulously follow instructions, organize notes, and complete homework. The majority of females are far superior in these regards. </p>

<p>A brief background to my school - private, class size average of 8, 400 students in the upper school.
Acceptances -
Ivy Schools - 20%
UC Berkeley - 40%
Stanford - 15%</p>

<p>Me -
Junior, taking AP Bio, AP Chem, AP Calc, AP US, Spanish, English Honors
Grades - 1/3 B’s, rest A’s
SAT- 2260 (planning to retake)
SAT2 - Math2c 790, Chem 800, Bio 800
APs - anticipating all 5s</p>

<p>Now for the more controversial stuff. Although girls may outperform on paper, they still lag behind in standardized testing and other prestigiously recognized programs and rewards (on the regional and national level). I say this after years of observing and discussing such matters with my peers. It matters to us just as much, if not more than you parents. Girls make the grades, but less persistent males often achieve higher awards and scores on tests that purely measure cognition, reasoning, and aptitude. My school is host to a variety of brilliant students, but the so-called geniuses are more often male. This is not to discredit the competency of the female students but rather to show how natural male behavior often prevents teenagers especially from performing well in school.</p>

<p>On the behalf of all underachieving, rule-breaking, rebellious teenage males, I thank you for reading my point of view. If there are any questions or conflicting arguments I will be more than happy to respond to them.</p>

<p>-Eric</p>

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<p>tropical - you do realize that schools are a relatively new concept? I will agree that there are home schoolers that keep there children away from everyone, but most of our children play with neighborhood children, are involved with youth group at church, are in book discussion groups, & have very good friends their own age, etc.</p>

<p>Have you watched Extreme Makeover? Every single person on that show is still reacting from comments made by peers that they went to school with (YEARS AGO). Many people are scarred for life because of the constant harassment that they received in school. Peer pressure can be good or bad, but in the majority of cases it is for the worse. Just my two cents.</p>

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<p>Eric, my family fits your profile in the ways the boys and girls perform academically. The boys have the high testscores, the girls have the high grades. I have seen SAT breakdowns for males and females, and I think at the higher levels, the males do tend to outperform the females, particularly in the math. Overall, I don’t think that is the case. There were some studies with actual stats on this forum last year.</p>

<p>As to home schoolers, as I state, I have worked with a number of homeschooling clusters, and most of the kids seemed well socialized to me. They often go to activities outside of school like youth orchestras, club sports, community theatre and many excell there and make close friends at these activities who are not necessarily homeschooled. I have seen a number of those kids successfully transition to college. I have also seen some of them choose to stay at local schools or take up a trade, but I would hardly call any of them socially stunted with the exception of those who were homeschooled because they had handicaps and disabilities that were better addressed privately. But those kids would not have been social butterflies even if they had gone to school. </p>

<p>The only problem I have with homeschooling is when the parents are not aware of their own limitations and impose them on their kids. Most of the homeschooling parents make extra efforts to reach out for community resources that many of us with kids in highschool cannot enjoy because school simply takes up too much time. My son should have been in our county orchestra. Could not because of his school orchestra and commitments. The community theatre did a phenomonal spring production that S really wanted to join. Couldn’t because of school. So in some ways, these homeschooled kids get a broader exposure to other kids, not being limited to their highschool. So it really depends on the homeschooling family, how much or little interaction the kids get with others. In some clusters, it may as well be a school the way the kids are taught together with parents teaching groups in subjects they know well and sharing their resources. There are often homeschooling proms, concerts, soccer games and many other activities. In some areas, it is a much better venue than the public school especially if it an unsafe environmnent and the academics truly inferior.</p>

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<p>Any form of schooling can have advantages and disadvantages. I know personally it took me years to recover from public high school. I was a shy girl, and consequently I found myself left out of social interaction, ignored, or considered “stuck up” because I didn’t know how to relate to others. My self-confidence was destroyed. The only thing that helped me survive high school was my goal to get to a good college, where I had hope that things would be different. (And things were, thankfully!)</p>

<p>My boys never suffered that destruction of self-confidence, thanks to homeschooling, among other things. They have attended high school part-time (their choice). The guidance counselors there have been no help to them, however. They have so many students to keep track of that personalized college advicing is pretty rare, so far as I know. I was the one to study about college requirements, find out when tests had to be taken, learn how to make transcripts, write up course descriptions, and do all those things that homeschooling parents do in place of guidance counselors. Fortunately, there are books telling what to do and online support groups to help. So it isn’t impossible by any means.</p>

<p>As jamimom says, homeschooling is great for flexibility. My younger son chose to only attend high school part-time because he knew that way he could take all the music courses he wanted to, along with being a part of community youth orchestra, while still taking college prep classes (many at home). He saw other fulltime PS kids having to drop band because it didn’t fit their schedule, and he didn’t want that to happen to him.</p>

<p>Yes, there can be homeschooling parents who are not ideal, just as there are PS parents who are not ideal. “Homeschooling doesn’t cause social maladjustment,” my son told me yesterday, as he was describing another band student, who has a lot of trouble fitting in. My son was encouraging this kid to apply to certain colleges that are excellent in music, as this student wants to be a professional musician. However, the parents (mother, especially) do not want him leaving home. They think community college is good enough, and that the student definitely should not go out of state. This kid was never homeschooled, but he has definite problems, and they may very well be parent-caused.</p>

<p>And to return to the original subject, I see a lot of self-confidence and high goals among many homeschoolers, both boys and girls. I think what someone said about the “pack mentality” is true, and homeschoolers can avoid a lot of that. Or perhaps they get in with a smaller “pack” that shares good values. I know my younger son was easily influenced when he was young, and I am glad that his family was his main influence at that time. As he matured, he was able to be out in the school without being influenced so much, and was able to choose well the group he wanted to hang out with. Now he is a leader, mentoring younger students and not afraid to take a stand for what he believes. </p>

<p>There are great kids in every schooling situation. Mainly it is about what works best for each family and for each kid.</p>