<p>D1 was just accepted to an Ivy school. Grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins are very odd about it. We’re not bragging. But it did feel appropriate to share the news of the accepance in a low-key way. D1 has also applied to publics and other privates and will not decide until spring where she’s going. We are getting endless warnings about how snobby and unfriendly and overrated the Ivy world will be and about how state U was fine for all of us and why on earth would we pay so much to send her so far away to be with mean Yankees. This seems to have the whole extended family kind of unhappy and defensive.</p>
<p>Didn’t see this coming and I must say it’s made for an interesting holiday. </p>
<p>2) They are truly concerned she may feel like a fish out of water and don’t know how to convey this tactfully (or understand they shouldn’t convey this at all!!!)</p>
<p>In my family, if my kid got accepted to an Ivy, everyone would be taking credit for his apparent genius!!</p>
<p>When we moved from one of those anti-Ivy sorts of places (back) to the Northeast, our neighbors couldn’t believe it. They also said we would get Lyme disease. Maybe that’s what your relatives fear!</p>
<p>Lots of folks want everyone else to move in the same close orbit that they do. If anyone leaves it, they take it as a personal insult. To them, it’s as if the student said “I am better than you are.” WANTING something more or more prestigious or maybe just plain different MAKES you a snob–by definition. </p>
<p>mammall–They may feel like she will look down on them and become a snob herself once she meets all the high-fliers at college. They might worry that college will change her values in other ways. I don’t know what part of the country you’re from, but they may think Yale will turn her into a crazy lefty or a crazy conservative, depending on which end of the political spectrum they find odious. If the relatives are local, they may be afraid that she won’t move back home and they’ll “lose” her. They may feel inadequate about their own educations. They may feel that they should have pushed/advised their own children better so that they could have had such an opportunity. They may not have been able to consider schools of this caliber for their children because of financial considerations and feel badly about it. They may be unpleasant people who can’t stand to have anyone do better than they have done and are unable to be genuinely happy for other people. They may honestly buy into outdated stereotypes and have concerns about how your D will fit in.</p>
<p>I’d try to insulate my D from them so her decision is based on what is best for her. It would be sad if she bought into their defensiveness and it factored into her decisionmaking.</p>
<p>They could be legitimately concerned. Private schools are expensive and if your D gets money at a state U, she may very well want to consider the latter.</p>
<p>How would they even know much about the Ivy unless they attended the school or are really up to speed on its current demographics? Also, the grandparents could be considering some preconceived ideas about the Ivies they formed 50 years ago which may not be very applicable today. </p>
<p>Regardless of what extended family might think, your D should go to where she and her immediate family feel best suits her. Besides, once she’s at the Ivy (assuming she decides upon it), these same extended family members will probably start to brag about her.</p>
<p>Congratulations to your daughter!! What a wonderful acceptance to receive FIRST!! If this ends up being the right decision for your daughter, that is all that matters. The naysaying relatives are NOT headed off to college…your daughter is!!</p>
<p>Where I live, if you said Penn, folks would think Penn State (and might start talking about Joe Paterno), Brown would mean UPS, Cornell and Dartmouth wouldn’t even exist, Columbia might raise questions as to why anyone would want to spend four years in a slum, and HYP would get about 20 seconds of attention. They just wouldn’t attract a lot of heat, either positive or negative, especially as the grads virtually never return.</p>
<p>Congrats! It’s a fine achievement, and a great place to learn!</p>
<p>We also live in the South (with a capital S!!) and all other family members attended college in this area (the Southeastern US). We never really had the overt issues you describe with our family, though my sons and my d-in-law do, at times, say things like they feel their education at UGA was a great one (not ever directly running down Barnard, though). They totally acknowledge, though, why Barnard is perfect for their sister even while indicating that they would never want to attend school in or live in NYC. </p>
<p>They are, however, really pulling for Emory for her for grad school!!! We miss her a LOT!!!</p>
<p>Hmm, come to think of it, one member of the extended family did say she was afraid my d would go “up there” and meet and marry a “yankee”. I don’t think that is going to happen, though. :)</p>
<p>That’s not really fair. The argument is that the value-added of full-pay Caltech over Purdue full-ride is not worth $200,000. (They might or might not be right, but that’s another issue entirely.)</p>
<p>Mammall, your daughter shares an honor with only 884 other students in the nation. Be proud and do not hesitate to err on the bragging side. That is what people expect you to do. She worked hard for her success, and you and your immediate family helped her reaching her goals. There is no need to downplay the success and worry about the negative reactions. </p>
<p>If there is something better than her SCEA school, that is for your daughter to decide! </p>
<p>PS Get the bumpersticker! That is a small trophy compared to the bills that will show up in the mailbox! :)</p>
<p>My father-in-law’s grand niece was accepted to Harvard. He was outraged that the niece would go to Harvard because of the cost and the sacrifice that the family would have to make financially. He was quite outspoken and ruffled collective family feathers.</p>
<p>I find that fear and anger are close neighbors for many. When I hear something like this, I wonder what the relatives are afraid of. I know in my own family, it was that I would get “uppity”, that I would look down on the rest of the family. My dad had a very limited education, and was sensitive to anything made him feel dumb (and was pretty likely to see people trying to put him down even when they weren’t trying to). So my doing well in high school, and then getting into some good colleges made him very defensive, angry, and generally hard to be around. It made my mom nervous that she would do something to embarrass me.</p>
<p>So hang in there… Congrats to your daughter, and good luck with making decisions when you get all the “results” in.</p>
<p>The problem is deeper than jealousy over getting into an Ivy.<br>
Functional loving families do not get twisted about a nephew getting into an Ivy. If anything, they get ecstatic.
I’m so sorry that in what should be a happy time in your life, you are met with this kind of reaction. This should be wonderful news within a family!
Sorry that the positive reaction is from a bunch of anonymous online chatters. Maybe you should let these people know that perfect strangers are more supportive than the family.
Congratulations to your son!</p>