To (All) the Colleges That Rejected Me

Parents Forum
1441

<p>Some of what you may think is provincialism, folks where I live would think is practicality. If you live in New Jersey, one of the most stereotyped of states, your children have a fantastic range of schools to choose from that are not more than two hours driving distance away. You can head to Philadelphia and attend Penn, Drexel, Villanova, St. Joe’s, Temple, Haverford, Bryn Mawr, and so on. You can reach Allentown/Bethlehem/Easton in a little over an hour and attend Lehigh, Lafayette, or Muhlenburg. You have Princeton, Seton Hall, Rutgers, TCNJ, and every other NJ state school within driving distance. You can head to New York City for Columbia, NYU, Fordham–I could never name them all. If you are willing to drive a little farther, you’d have Ursinus, Bucknell, Franklin & Marshall, Dickinson. Yale is only about 3 hours away too, as is Cornell, Georgetown, GW, American, Univ. of MD, Univ. of Delaware, and so on. Extending your drive to 4-6 hours and you can include UVA, James Madison, the Suny’s, Penn State, Pitt, CMU, Harvard, Brown. Dartmouth, Amherst, Williams, Wellesley, Smith, Vassar, and so on forever.</p>

<p>With all those choices, can you see why a NJ parent with limited resources would not feel it’s necessary to spend additional money on plane fare to send a student miles and miles away to college? There’d have to be some compelling reason–something your student really wants or needs that could not be found here. A friend of S’s wanted to study Native American languages, so he went to OK I think. That would make sense. There was another kid who wanted to study golf course management or something, and he felt he needed to travel a bit farther. If D had seemed likely to become an Olympic runner, I would have been willing to send her to the Univ. of Oregon. Since she wasn’t quite that good, but good enough, we were willing to fly her Stanford for the combination of high caliber academics and a top 10 team ranking not available locally.</p>

1442

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<p>I want my children to be comfortable using statistical reasoning to avoid trouble. Crime rates are much higher in some cities than others, and even the safer cities have dangerous neighborhoods. Cape Town is one of the 50 cities in the world with the highest murder rate, according to Wikipedia. I expect that my children will inform me of where they are planning to live during their 20s, and if they were thinking of living in a sketchy area to save money, I would consider subsidizing a different choice. Once they have children they should live in areas with good public schools, and again that could be subsidized if necessary. I don’t need to spend much to entertain myself.</p>

1443

<p>Only some of the schools you listed above count as “fantastic.” The others? They are just colleges with local student bodies and local student (and employer) awareness - just like the colleges in the rest of the country, that we all have near us.</p>

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<p>So it would be quite reasonable of someone of your acquaintance to refuse to take a good job offer in Chicago, right, because “everyone dresses like Al Capone and carries a tommygun.” I mean, once you HEAR a stereotype, you have to absolutely live by it, right?</p>

1445

<p>My, my, my. Such a rush to nitpick and so eager to try to trap me with my own words. Pizzagirl, if you had read more carefully, you’d have noticed the adjective “fantastic” was modifying the noun “range,” not the noun “schools.” If I had just listed the supposed “top” schools, then no doubt you or someone else would have called me elitist. The point was we have lots of options in different price ranges and academic level right here within a short distance. The fact that someone wouldn’t see the point in leaving the region to attend Carleton (to use the example school given in an earlier post that we in the NE would allegedly be too “provincial” to think it’s worth flying our kid to) doesn’t mean we think our schools are all that and Carleton isn’t. It would just mean we could reasonably replicate the important aspects of the Carleton experience locally.</p>

<p>If I lived in another region, I also wouldn’t pay for airfare so my kid could attend almost any of the schools I listed above, and that also wouldn’t mean I was being provincial. It would mean that what they offer I could probably duplicate pretty well where I was. There’d be notable exceptions, of course, based on my kid’s abilities and interests.</p>

1446

<p>My, my, indeed. I don’t disagree with you, GFG. I said earlier that there are so many colleges in the NE. I do agree they’re not all great, automatically. But there can be strong majors or programs, maybe some merit aid, who knows. It’s just an odd generalization that NE families won’t send their kids on a plane. We all know of kids at Carleton and Mac, NU, UM, WUSTL, Rice and more. But not all kids are that level. </p>

<p>I don’t know how this morphed to regional jabs. The stronger point we had going was that we all hope for a solid experience for our kids but you don’t have to go to a top 20 to achieve that.</p>

<p>As for jobs, of course it makes sense to follow the best offer, which is a combo of plusses, incl opportunity, how well it gives you a toehold, etc- not just salary. Of course kids could prefer an exciting city. But something did get lost: cobrat’s point that not all kids will be comfy everywhere.</p>

<p>Because of the way that was put, with old examples of what someone said happened to one or what one or two might think, whether you can be friendlier in the south or get beat up for it in some NYC neighborhoods, etc, that point did get lost.</p>

1447

<p>Since the word “provinicial” has been bandied about in this discussion, I thought I’d get a better understanding of the word. My trusty dictionary says this:</p>

<p>Synonyms:
bumpkin, chawbacon, churl, clodhopper, cornball,countryman, hayseed, hillbilly, hick, rube, rustic, yokel</p>

<p>Related Words:
boor, clod, clown, gawk, lout, oaf; greenhorn, tenderfoot;peasant, peon; backwoodsman, mountaineer</p>

<p>Not very complimentary in the least. Maybe we shouldn’t use the word to describe anyone, much like the derogatory terms “clones” and “robots”.</p>

1448

<p>"More rural areas outside the cities, it may not always be the case and having someone who can speak Mandarin and/or the local/regional dialects is necessary. "</p>

<p>Not sure I am expecting an American college graduate to go work in rural China but I suppose it is possible since enough high school kids are learning Chinese in US who can manage it too.</p>

<p>The mosquitos in Houston are much bigger now.</p>

1449

<p>If I had come on this board and said - I have kids who are reasonable candidates for elite / excellent schools - and oh, and my list consists only of NU/UChicago/Notre Dame/Michigan/UIUC/Grinnell/Carleton/Macalester/WUSTL (just to pick on schools that would be within 6 hours driving distance), I’m pretty darn sure I’d have people saying - why are you not looking at … ?</p>

1450

<p>I don’t think that’s true PG.</p>

<p>And with Claremont consortium, USC, Stanford, UC’s, Chapman, Santa Clara Eric. There are kids who look only in CA.</p>

<p>For myself, I don’t care where other kids go to school, work, or who gets Ivy fever. I went to a place with no bragging rights because my parents and I parted ways and I had to pay for state u myself. I got wait listed at UC’S Berkeley, my #1 choice for grad school, but accepted at Columbia. I stayed here.</p>

<p>I know it’s a big, wonderful world, and adventurous kids who explore will have more opportunities. Just common sense.</p>

<p>However, I hate the nasty making fun of people using “history on the board” as justification. I also find a normative approach that tries to prove what other people should do or force their kids to do very unpleasant.</p>

<p>From this left I am left to conclude I am a horrible mother with damaged kids because they want to stay in the NY metro area. Somehow I failed to communicate the financial facts of life and I failed to give them emotional flexibility according to the collective wisdom here delivered with generous dollaps of self-righteousness and condescension.</p>

<p>The last time I was subjected to such a campaign was when I allowed my sixteen-year-old daughter to date the nineteen-year-old son of a friend. I was bombarded with messages if my unfitness as a mother. I did lose a friend, but ten years later both kids are fine. They broke up eight years ago with no ill affects.</p>

<p>I think I have a lot to contribute to CC because I do work in higher ED and send kids to transfer to all sorts of college, but a thread like this comes along and nudges me into months of hiatus from CC.</p>

<p>Sometimes I start fights with my kids: “Hey, you’re spoiled and stupid he cause you don’t want to leave the NE and it’s my fault,” which isn’t very nice, very fair, or very productive.</p>

<p>I think, my son, in particular, which not be receptive to such a gambit this morning since he sat on the Tarmac for four hours in West Palm Beach last night discharging a family responsibility. He did get in at 3:30 am.</p>

<p>Oh yes, I was told I was crippling him because I allowed him (and my daughter)?to move back home to do their masters to avoid debt for rent. She’ll be leaving with PhD funding, but he won’t. I understand I’ve failed there, too, but allowing him to switch fields so he wasn’t admitted to a funded PhD program.</p>

<p>I think it’s time for a hiatus.</p>

1451

<p>Myth- I don’t believe anyone has said any of the things you are taking away from this discussion. Nobody is being crippled; there is no campaign here. If your friends in real life have said such things (particularly on the housing) then you should put your anger on those people, not displace it here.</p>

<p>You work in higher ed; you are clearly savvy to the ways the academic job market works and I imagine your kids have learned the reality from you. So fantastic- everyone is making life decisions that work for them with the facts on the table and a full deck of cards.</p>

<p>My comments are not meant to attack you- and I apologize if they were taken as such. However, there are people on this board less savvy than you-- who may not understand that if a PhD in Classics hits the job market the year that there are three tenure track positions in North America- those three slots are not likely to be in NY or Chicago. Or a Phd in molecular biology who wants an academic track (i.e. not big pharma) may be forced to choose between a post-doc at a U in a desirable location- with absolutely no commitment for years 2 and 3… or a tenure track role in Iowa or Kansas with a generous lab commitment.</p>

<p>That’s all. Not every parent understands the limitations of their kids career choices as well as you do. My kids don’t do anything remotely related to the worlds I know and understand- so the moves they’ve made (physical and otherwise) don’t often make sense to me. But I get it- every career track has its own logic. If I’d not been willing to relocate I’d be doing very different work right now and that’s swell too.</p>

<p>Apologies if I’ve implied that you’ve crippled or failed your kids in any way. People should do whatever floats their boat… as long as they’ve got the facts in front of them.</p>

1452

<p>[To</a> All the Colleges That Rejected Suzy Weiss - Hans A. von Spakovsky - National Review Online](<a href=“http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/345235/all-colleges-rejected-suzy-weiss-hans-von-spakovsky]To”>http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/345235/all-colleges-rejected-suzy-weiss-hans-von-spakovsky)</p>

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1453

<p>If people are going to discuss CA colleges, as Bovertine’s proxy, I insist on Cal Poly Stanislaus be included in that list.</p>

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A fantastic school ;)</p>

1455

<p>From the article in Bel’s link:</p>

<p>“Suzy Weiss and many other high-school seniors across the United States are being discriminated against because of their skin color or because they have an epicanthic fold in their eyes.”</p>

<p>No. There is no evidence that there was a seat that was “rightfully held” for Ms. Weiss, that was subsequently upended from underneath her and handed over to someone less deserving. There was no seat that was hers. She had a 2120 SAT, which isn’t earthshakingly impressive in the context of the applicant pool for these schools. Perhaps “her spot” was taken by a white girl with a 2350 SAT, a higher GPA and stronger EC’s/essay/LOR’s. What is racist is assuming that she had a spot due her that was “given” to a URM. And what is bothersome is that she felt she was unfairly rejected. Look, there could be no diversity preferences and she still could have been rejected - because she was applying to schools with low acceptance rates. That’s the nature of the beast.</p>

1456

<p>Beliavsky: LOL, …hey one of the first things to do when you get a college mailer is to checkout the glossy pictures of the smiling student body to verify diversity. Because after all… who’d want to go to a place that can’t even figure out how to photo shop the right mix into their marketing brochures.</p>

1457

<p>Bel, in your own way, per your own perspective, you were making sense for a while. Now it’s back to d.a. links. Sorry, but is this to test us?</p>

1458

<p>One way to mitigate the pejorative connotation of the term provincialism is to replace with a term that described the local character of most of our educational venues, namely regionalism. </p>

<p>With an omnipresent public system of education, the biggest market is captured by institutions that have a primary mission to educate the local students, and at best include the neighboring states. The result is that most of the conversations center around getting in to the local flagship(s) or the next State one. Few of those schools, including the top-ranked state university have a national reach, albeit some seem to have a higher reach and reputation abroad thanks to their massive graduate school appeal. </p>

<p>While it is true that kids in California tend to look at the state offerings ranging from the UC to the junior colleges via the CSU, the same is present in Texas, Michigan, New York, or any highly populated state. Or the same could be said about Nebraska --take a look at the yield for an indication. </p>

<p>Next to the strong local --or regional-- market. there is a much smaller market for OOS sudents who either look at the best public schools or decide to cast a wider net and play the national marker. Obviously, the latter does require a different set of research. Research that could be defined as including a higher level of sophistication. </p>

<p>One can decide if look at the negatives and pejorative side of the “lower” level of sophistication in the application process, or one can decide to look at the necessity of looking OOS or the pragmatism of ignoring the national “rat race.”</p>

<p>It is good to remember that most students apply and get in in their first or second choices, and that most of those schools are local, or at best regional. See NACAC for details.</p>

1459

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<p>Interesting choice of words. Regardless of the sophistication (that word again) of a term such epicanthic fold and the usual and necessary inclusion of discrimination, it is nothing but a load of horse manure.</p>

<p>Hans A. von Spakovsky is a living proof that there are morons at the Heritage Foundation. It seems that I am turning my “conservative” around Must be the osmosis effect in California. </p>

<p>Ms. Weiss did not lampoon “diversity,” the sacred cow of the modern university world. She intimated that the people who benefit from the holistic review are usually relying on veiled fraud and gamesmanship. And the ones who did lie about it had it easier than a priviledged kid-with-connections who did not game the system enough.</p>

1460

<p>We know so little about Suzy. Much earlier, I said some are projecting. </p>

<p>We don’t know her rigor, who wrote her LoRs, whether they were good or bland. Nothing about her leaderdhip except that SHE says she did a lot of comm svc. Nor how she wrote. Though she seems to have supreme confidence, as if that’s all it takes, that she was worthy.</p>

<p>Maybe a better kid at her own h.s. or across town bested her. </p>

<p>My problem is that this self id’d golden child had the cujones and dim sense to mock others. In my corner of the world, that would cause serious setback in her chances.</p>

<p>But, noooo, it’s a minority?<br>
Why do some divide the world into us and them? People and minorities? Worthy and minority? The racism/prejudice is seeping.</p>