<p>I also think that there is a direct line connection between the “limited writing and critical thinking practice” that a lot of high school students get, and time-wasting projects. If only some time could be found for practice in writing and critical thinking! How could that time possibly be generated?</p>
<p>I have a confession. Five years ago, when D was in 6th grade, my father suffered brain aneurysm. We spent many hours driving hundreds of miles to and from the hospital in another state and worrying in the waiting room. D had a major history project due that required her to create a book called “ABCs of Ancient Egypt” by selecting 26 vocab words and illustrating each with a full-color picture and then binding the book. It was not getting done. So my sister, my mother, my husband, and I sat down in the waiting room and colored D’s pictures under her careful scrutiny. (Ironically, I think one of my assigned pages was “scribe.”) Between us, I believe we had 9 advanced degrees…and I’m proud to say “we” got an A. </p>
<p>Luckily, that kind of project has pretty much disappeared since she’s gone to high school. </p>
<p>Just wanted to throw out one more observation: What the top students have “managed” depends a lot on the type of school they have attended. I think it is very uneven. A school like Stuvesant is very academically challenging, from what I hear. Others, not so much, even though they may be highly ranked within a state. I take cobrat’s word for it that Stuyvesant won’t waste people’s time. Others offer repetitive rock-pushing for credit.</p>
<p>Theoretically, it IS possible that a high school would give so much work, busy work or worthwhile work, that their students would not have as much time for outside activities. That is beyond question. If you imagine that a “top kid” could complete a number of assignments in X amount of time, then a high school that gives double that would naturally leave less time for outside activities. Therefore, if there are ~175 hrs in a week, then top kid #1 at Sensible High School would have 175-X hrs left for outside activities, while the identical twin of top kid #1 (top kid #2) at BusyWork High School would have 175-2X hrs. Therefore, top kid #1 would be more competitive if you didn’t consider the context.</p>
<p>You may question whether such a high school exists in real life such that the difference in free time would be significant, but the concept itself is completely logical.</p>
<p>For me, it does seem that a high school could go off the deep end with giving material, although I have not personally experienced it. In another thread people were advising to not enroll in BASIS Silicon Valley partly because they give so much work there. I have also advised people that it may be easier to have a competitive application from a non-IB school (even a really good one like TJ or Stuy) than an IB school which really piles on the work. </p>
<p>OK @QuantMech - I didn’t keep up with this thread for a few days and BAM - you pull out the make-a-mole! That has got to be the single craziest time sink I have ever seen in HS! If my kids had to do it I wasn’t aware (they are NOT crafty so I probably would have been made aware by at least the night before “mole day”) but man! I googled and I saw. That brings new meaning to “glitter for grades” which neither saintkid excelled at. I have a friend whose daughter had to dress up as a mole for “mole day”. Anyway, thanks! I needed the laugh today. :)) </p>
<p>Responding to QM’s comments re. schools with “repetitive rock-pushing for credit”: </p>
<p>Right. If parents are able to understand what is going on and intervene, their kids will probably survive okay and may even get into one of those “top” schools. When it is just the kid who understands something is off and complains, probably that kid gets labeled a troublemaker and that’s the end of any top college aspirations. But I am becoming more and more depressed about planning a child’s education around creating a profile to get into a top school. That is just not what education should be about. imho</p>
<p>Agreed, collegealum–although if you could arrange for a few of those 175-hour weeks for me, I could really use it, personally! (I used to have a mantra that started out, “Okay, there are 168 hours in a week.”)</p>
<p>^Sleep is for whimps.</p>
<p>I had to go get my calculator.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I wouldn’t give my HS that much credit either as they were the polar opposite of the mole arts & crafts craze. While assignments were more sensible in one sense, they assigned a lot of it, expected students to keep rigor/pace with the top 1/4-1/3 of class or sink, and ECs/outside activities were solace from the academic pressure. </p>
<p>Joke we had was there’s academics, friends/ECs, & sleep…choose two. Most of us sacrificed sleep…cept slackers like yours truly. </p>
<p>It’s one reason why for the vast majority of us including those attending most of the HYPSMC, college felt much more relaxed and easygoing than HS. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That was the exact motto most of my HS classmates lived by during our 4 or so years there. One amazing thing about attending was the sheer concentration of kids who can get by on as little as 4 hours or less of sustained sleep each night throughout HS and seem fine. </p>
<p>Let’s put things into some context. Years ago, back when we were kids or before, most high school graduates simply weren’t candidates for admission to places like Harvard, Yale, or MIT. Not because they were somehow morally unworthy, but because they lived in communities that failed to educate them to the standard colleges like that expected. Why would anyone expect Harvard to take the valedictorian from some mediocre suburban school when the 100th-place boy at Exeter knew twice as much?</p>
<p>Around the time most of us were going to college, that attitude was changing, but it hadn’t exactly changed. Colleges were willing to take flyers on URMs or kids from the sticks. (Although, then as now, the URMs on whom colleges took flyers tended to be URMs who had gotten a lot of help already, say from ABC, or academic communities.) Someone at Yale and Brown interviewed my future spouse and decided to take a chance on her despite her completely inadequate high school education (which she wasn’t even planning to finish, it was so bad), but Smith deemed her not well-enough prepared. Still, lots of people still weren’t candidates because they came from bad schools in communities that did not share the educational values of Harvard and Yale and had no special redeeming circumstances.</p>
<p>(And there was a reason for that. Back when failure was still an option, admissions departments didn’t like to admit people who were going to fail. One of our friends at college was admitted despite never having written a paper in her life. The admissions staff wasn’t wrong about her – she is a successful academic today – but they were wrong that she was going to be able to make it at Yale.)</p>
<p>Over the past generation, colleges themselves have at least purported to come around to the idea that everyone should have a chance as long as they have done their best with the hands they were dealt. And things like the spread of APs and dual enrollment have raised the standards for what is considered a good education in thousands of communities. So now we have the notion that everyone deserves to be treated fairly, based on his or her personal merits. And that’s true, generally.</p>
<p>But some bits of the Old Regime no doubt survive, and one of them may be that if you are an affluent, non-minority kid who goes to high school in some school district where they value Mole Day over content and opportunities to engage in the community . . . well, tough noogies, you are not going to look impressive compared to other kids who are just like you but who were lucky enough to go to high schools that were more like Stuyvesant, TJ, or, yes, Exeter. </p>
<p>Could that mean that life is not completely fair? Yes, it could.</p>
<p>JHS: I think that most people are willing to take on “unfair,” and see what they can accomplish anyway. The “no-win scenario” is a different situation.</p>
<p>Admittedly, it’s definitely in the category of a “first-world problem.” </p>
<p>But there is a parallel thread, asking why parents have gone crazy in the past 10 years. </p>
<p>I don’t think that the local school has done as well in “top” college admissions as it did when QMP and friends were there (and before that). I think that this could be in part because the expectations for having affected one’s community have ramped up to the point that the mole-overload has now become a problem.</p>
<p>I also think that there is a lot about sleep that we do not understand yet. I’m not ready to call wimp/whimp at people who function better when they have had more sleep than 6 hours a night, even. I can say for sure that I function better with more.</p>
<p>
That would be my sister-in-law. She flunked two courses, dropped out for a couple of years, learned to write papers at the U of Florida, realized she could have a Harvard degree - they took her back and she graduated in my little brother’s class and married him. </p>
<p>I do think occasionally parents should step in and tell schools a project is a waste of time. My kids BTW got plenty of sleep, but then I think we were lucky to have a pretty darn good high school.</p>
<p>With regard to JHS’ point, I think it makes more sense to give a pass to students who lack distinguishing EC’s such as, say, prizewinning llamas than it does to admit people lacking academic skills .</p>
<p>25 or more years ago, all the numbers were different. Pretty much except one: number of seats available You’ve got be be able to do the math. In 1988, there was a record 14,400 apps at Harvard for 2147 admits. This year was roughly 2.4 times that, with just over 2000 happy letters. Regardless of where the pressure comes from, that’s over 32,000 disappointed kids today, versus just over 12,000 back then. </p>
<p>Regardless of the usual arguments about legacies, athletes, faculty kids and diversity, the numbers alone should convey some front-end message that bright people (kids, families and observers) should be able to process. I get that people recall the past and would like everything to stay proportionate, but it isn’t. </p>
<p>Regardless of who’s getting better prepped, for pay or by some community program, in that 34k are more 4.0/rigor kids than I think most people can fathom. Of all backgrounds. And nipping at their heels, those kids with one or two B’s in 3.5 years of high school. I think people tend to think of the few really bright lights they know. But now put it on steroids: it’s 6-10-15,000 bright kids who did well and have friends and family they impressed, who love them and think they are H quality. And Harvard will pare it down to 2000. And not based on what we think is fair, but with strong regard for what suits their needs, what keeps their brand going, what makes that mix of kids thrive together, in and out of classes. </p>
<p>I think that the accomplishments that the “top” colleges can expect have risen in the past 5 to 10 years, to say nothing of 25 years ago. I think that there are people on CC arguing that the expectations of the colleges have risen again, just within this past year. </p>
<p>My hypothesis is that the boundary line of “lowest acceptable level of accomplishment by a student from a good suburban high school” swept past what even very unusual students at our mole-intensive high school could accomplish–sometime in the past 5 years, judging by the pattern of acceptances. Either that, or the students a few years after QMP’s cohort just weren’t as good as the earlier cohorts. The possibility that acceptance-level accomplishments rose just a little too high for them seems like the more plausible scenario.</p>
<p>If you add up admissions to H + Y + P + S + M + C, and then account for top students who actually prefer to go elsewhere, I think there are 10,000 spots available (give or take). There really are not 10,000 students a year at the level of a student I would consider extraordinary.</p>
<p>You don’t think that out of over 3 million high school graduates, that 10,000 of them are likely to be extraordinary? (That’s just 3 million in the U.S.–leaves out high school graduates in other countries.)</p>
<p>I just have a very high bar for “extraordinary,” Hunt.</p>
<p>There may not be 10,000 Einsteins and Picassos each year, but I think there probably are 10,000 students (and more) who have very impressive grades and scores and impressive personal achievements outside the local high school–and, probably, were also involved in their local high schools as well. There are something like 20,000 high schools in the U.S. (again, not mentioning other countries). I’ll bet at least half of them have at least one really impressive student each year (and some have many each year). I don’t think those top colleges have to compromise much on quality to fill those slots. They may have to make modest compromises because of hooks or other institutional needs (i.e., HYorP will have to take the third-most impressive kid from North Dakota each year).</p>