<p>keepmesane, okay I see what you are saying. </p>
<p>I guess it’s hard for me to imagine any Yale admit as being potentially vulnerable in the wrong environment!</p>
<p>jack</p>
<p>thank you…you did understand exactly the point I was making.</p>
<p>We all want the best for our kids and want them to have more success and better lives than we have had which is only human nature. Unfortunately somewhere along the way we forget that these incredibly bright kids (they wouldn’t have the choices if they weren’t) really can think for themselves and what WE want for them may not always be what is really the best for them in the long run…they are only 17 or 18 years old when they make these HUGE decisions about “the rest of their lives…” which while certainly not irrevocable are traumatic nonetheless.</p>
<p>My comment about “not seeing himself ay Yale” is based on long conversations he has had with friends AT Yale. He was one of seven in his class of 82 accepted to Yale and the only one who didn’t matriculate there. Don’t get me wrong, his friends are all happy and thriving but certainly more stressed and leading less balanced lives. I’m not attributing that to academic rigor but more to peer pressure and the more overt competitiveness that exists there. You have to understand that this is a kid who has always regarded grades as a necessary evil and who truly loves to learn for learning sake. He has always maintained that his friends at UNC are “amazing and brilliant” just far more relaxed and less overt about their intellignece and talents …not trying to prove to one and all that they are uber acheivers I guess. </p>
<p>Would he have thrived at Yale? Yes, I am sure he would have. That’s not the point. the original thread was about taking the $$ and turning down the “elite” school which as I have said before seems to be heretical among many on CC. In our case it worked out far better than Eamom or I could have ever imagined…as I said WE had a harder time giving up Yale and the bragging rights that came with it than he did.</p>
<p>AnitaW, if a decision has already worked out well (“success at UNC”) is there any need to rationalize? The proof is in the pudding. However, I agree when we make decisions for the future we tend to find reasons to go with our gut feelings.</p>
<p>Going back to my post on page 104, I am grateful for the excellent responses. Thanks, Dad’o’2 , kelsmom, JHS and all other (cyber-) parents! </p>
<p>JHS –
Being restricted to engineering at Olin is a concern that came up in our family discussions in the last few days. I really have to think hard. Brandeis doesn’t have engineering, that is also a disadvantage.
You are right. Tuition costs are about 130K for 4 years. So, I should compare 180K, not 200K, versus 50K for 4 years.</p>
<p>Eadad, we all do want the best for our children, but as is evident here, how we define it differs. I’ve been doing some volunteering with a foundation that helps inner city kids get scholarships at private high schools. One thing that I’ve learned is that many parents are afraid to let their kids leave home, and not just where geography is concerned. </p>
<p>My parents wanted the best for me, but they honestly believed that wopuld be a local college because in their world that was the height of success. As their exposure grew and I explained what Harvard and Yale were to them, it became evident they were afraid of my leaving the family behind. </p>
<p>In reality. I did in many ways. I had rarely left LA as a child and assumed I would return after college. College showed me a new world, new places I preferred. I returned 14 years late. </p>
<p>I made friends with wealthy people and my parents firmly believed you could not be rich and nice. I married someone of another race, need I say more? I didn’t realize what was happening at the time, but my parents would not let my very brighte younger sister apply to OOS colleges after seeing my evolution.</p>
<p>feng, I mean a headache as in when you think about going to school A, the more you think about it you start getting a headache. whereas with school B, when you decide to go there you mentally breathe a sigh of relief. deep down inside you KNOW this is the right choice for you. your body tells you when your brain won’t.</p>
<p>Have you heard from Brown yet?</p>
<p>Tomorrow. Brown gives me headaches just in terms of will I be able to succeed, only because I come from a sorta noncompetitive HS… which is a sigh of relief with the full ride… but I generally get more mixed emotions and conflicted feelings about the full ride at UMCP and generally am more YAY AMAZING about Brown. We’ll see if I even have to worry tomorrow though.</p>
<p>kirmum: Your comment about your parents not letting your sister apply OOS reminded me of a family I know. From rural Nebraska. Very smart and conservative, with smart, ambitious kids.</p>
<p>Child 1: Yale, grad school at Stanford. Very successful Silicon Valley engineer. But from his earliest days after college, rejected the family’s values, and has lived a very alternative lifestyle since college. This upset the parents a lot, they rarely talked about him (although that softened over the years).</p>
<p>Child 2: Not allowed to apply anywhere in the northeast or California due to experience with Child 1. Goes to Duke, begins med school at Nebraska but finishes at Penn. Meets and marries a near-communist at Duke, rejects most of her family values. Settles in the northeast. Is a successful academic MD. The parents had constant conflict with her husband, but were basically proud of her.</p>
<p>Child 3: Not allowed to think about going anywhere except U. of Nebraska. What happens? Rejects many of her family values. Moves to NYC, marries there. Leaves NYC but stays in the northeast. SAHM. By now, parents were used to it, spent lots of time visiting.</p>
<p>The lesson: Controlling where your child goes to college doesn’t determine what he or she does with it.</p>
<p>tyr:</p>
<p>In response to your pages-old question – I have written far, far too much, on this thread and elsewhere, about exactly why I would pay $100,000+ for my child to go to Harvard or Yale over a good alternative. I think it is the kind of judgment call that different people could make differently, but I note that relatively few actual people actually turn down Harvard or Yale other than for each other, Princeton, MIT, or Stanford.</p>
<p>keepsmesane</p>
<p>Thank you. You too understood everything that I was saying and moreso what was truly behind what I was saying. I wish I had been as eloquent in relating it as you were. Thanks again.</p>
<p>Good luck, feng. I’ll be thinking about you.</p>
<p>jhs</p>
<p>Maybe, but some highly qualified students never apply to hyp because they are not appealing.</p>
<p>Fengshui, if you get into Brown you will be able to succeed – don’t worry about that part. I worried about that with my daughter – I felt that academics were pretty weak at her public high school - it was one of those schools that tests better than it really is. But my d. is doing really well at Barnard – she has had no problem at all keeping up with her studies. </p>
<p>And if you don’t get into Brown… well, then you are in good company, my d. was rejected by Brown last year. 
At least then if you take the full ride at UMCP you won’t have to always be thinking “what if?” about Brown.</p>
<p>=================================</p>
<p>I think anitaw’s post about cognitive dissonance is great, and definitely hits the nail on the head about why these discussions get so heated. However… I for one don’t feel that way about my kids’ choices – they both picked elites at somewhat great cost than our in-state publics (but not too many $$, because we qualify for need-based aid). I think that their college careers and lives might be very different if they had chosen differently… but not better, not worse… just different. </p>
<p>Eadad’s post pretty much states the difference I imagine for my daughter – his son’s Yale friends are more stressed, the UNC friends more relaxed. That’s pretty much how I imagine it would be if my daughter had chosen Santa Barbara over Barnard – less hours spent studying, more spent socializing or participating in EC’s, and a lot less pressure/worry about money. </p>
<p>I have seen my fun-loving daughter evolve into a much more intellectually sophisticated and focused individual – and it is exciting to witness the transformation – but I don’t see one choice or path as inherently better than the other. It’s just a choice – and all the choices we make in life have consequences in terms of impacting our futures – the jobs we take, the communities we choose to live in, the partners we choose to marry, etc. </p>
<p>The only thing I take issue with is parents who think that they can really impact the future by pushing a choice on to the kid. I am not talking about financial limitations – if the parent can’t afford the dream college, then there is nothing to discuss or argue – the money isn’t there. But I am a little bothered by the sentiment expressed SBMom’s statement, “Her becoming more intellectually excited was our main goal.” – because it sounds like parental goal setting. I understand why a parent would want that – and it sure makes a lot of sense when the parents pick out the elementary school or middle school. But I think that with the college choice, the goal-setting should be done by the student. If the kid wants to challenge herself – great! And I don’t even want to get into the discussion of nurturing small college vs. big university, level of academics, etc. My only point is that it is precisely because the choice may impact the young person’s future in ways that are unpredictable, that it should be a choice which reflects what the student wants and not what the parent hopes.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Exactly the way I feel.<br>
I’ve found a silver lining in every cloud that sailed into my life. If I am rejected from the IVYS today, I will not be less pleased than if I get in, because then I will have fewer regrets with my choices on hand. Sometimes having too few choices can make for a happy life.</p>
<p>calmom:<br>
First, let me say that I enjoy reading your posts as I always find them thoughtful, insightful, and articulate.</p>
<p>I would just like to point out, however, that in your post above (#1611), you are inferring (from eadad’s post) that there are “less hours spent studying, more spent socializing . . .” at UNC than at Yale. Actually, eadad never said that. What he said was:</p>
<p>“Don’t get me wrong, his friends are all happy and thriving but certainly more stressed and leading less balanced lives. I’m not attributing that to academic rigor but more to peer pressure and the more overt competitiveness that exists there . . . You have to understand that this is a kid who has always regarded grades as a necessary evil and who truly loves to learn for learning sake. He has always maintained that his friends at UNC are “amazing and brilliant” just far more relaxed and less overt about their intelligence and talents …not trying to prove to one and all that they are uber achievers I guess.”</p>
<p>Never did he say there was less studying going on. Just because there is (or he senses there is) less “overt competitiveness” and less “peer pressure” (ie who is the best here? What was your SAT score?, an obsessive need to have to “prove” you’re the “best,” etc), does not mean–that there is “less studying” taking place. </p>
<p>Having a kid who attends UNC-CH also, I do understand what he’s saying. The academics there really are top notch, and not much–if any–grade inflation going on; and, yet, the campus atmosphere–and students as a whole–just seems very balanced. There’s a wonderfully relaxed atmosphere about the place, yet–trust me–those kids are studying. I don’t know–maybe it’s a Southern thing. </p>
<p>JHS: I know you don’t want to believe this, but, every year, there are kids who do actually turn down Harvard, Yale, etc for other schools. (And you can probably get the actual numbers on that.) Granted, most of the students who do, are–no doubt–offered something equally outstanding at another school (ie., the Morehead at UNC; the Robertson at UNC/Duke; other outstanding scholarships Duke offers (AB Duke; BN Duke); UVA’s Jefferson; Bellingrath at Rhodes; etc). Certainly, those scholarships are not plentiful-- so we’re not talking a <em>lot</em> of students–still, it happens more than you would like to believe. I personally know 5 students who turned down Harvard for either the Morehead or the Robertson. I know plenty more who turned down Yale. I know another truly brilliant student who received a full tuition scholarship at Duke; was accepted to MIT; and was awarded a very competitive scholarship at WashU. He chose WashU and is extremely happy there. He liked the school, the atmosphere, and loved the department in which he had interest.</p>
<p>Those are just the few people I know, but rest assured, people turn down those schools all the time, and go on to live really happy, productive, successful lives(!) And, as bethievt pointed out–for some, many of the Ivy schools just weren’t that appealing for undergraduate–much more appealing for graduate school (Harvard, in particular).</p>
<p>calmom,</p>
<p>Ya know, I’ll admit it. We wanted things for our D that she wasn’t really aware of enough or mature enough to want for herself. </p>
<p>We’d seen her time an again undersell herself, and time and again (when given a bit of a push) she’d rise to the level of her surroundings. Sometimes an observant parent has wisdom to offer. We did not force her, but we pointed out the pattern and she recognized the validity of what we were saying.</p>
<p>If we’d let her run the whole process with no input, I think she’d have applied exclusively to schools near the location of a ‘true love’ boyfriend-- who then bit the dust by December! Okay, that’s a learning experience and you can bounce back from that-- but would anyone argue that parents not provide advice in that situation? The same way a kid can miscalculate the “true loveness” of a HS boyfriend, they can miscalculate other things too. </p>
<p>Know your kid. Know your kid. </p>
<p>I don’t think you can force a kid to be different than they are but you can gently help them discover more of who they are and can be. That’s what being a good parent is all about. Some kids run their own show from age 14 (my son) and others need some parental input a bit longer.</p>
<p>Northwestmom: I agree with your assessment in your second paragraph. Again, I don’t think anyone should accept a merit scholarship if it’s not offered at one of his/her top choice schools that he or she would be equally thrilled to attend. And, yes, what a wonderful, if not somewhat stressful, position to be in–pretty terrific to have such great options.</p>
<p>My point, really, was to say to JHS that kids really do turn down Harvard, et al, all the time–for whatever reasons. I’m not sure JHS truly believes that–see his last sentence on his post #1607–but I do think it happens more than he knows. And, as others have pointed out-- some highly qualified folks, for many and varied reasons, never even apply.</p>
<p>At any rate, congratulations to your son on the AB Duke!</p>
<p>Well, of course kids turn down Harvard. 20% of admitted students do so, or about 400. Most of them turn Harvard down for Y or P or S or M, but some do so because they got merit money elsewhere. In my S’s school a couple of years ago, 11 got admitted, 1 turn Harvard down for Stanford. Ten matriculated.</p>
<p>^ I agree with jack. Many potentially qualified kids are not interested in Harvard.</p>
<p>“And, as others have pointed out-- some highly qualified folks, for many and varied reasons, never even apply.”</p>
<p>108 pages later, we get to the hard numbers. In fact there are not many kids saying no to HYPS. Maybe 100-200/yr choosing merit dollars over Harvard?</p>
<p>The question in my mind is will this number significantly rise as tuitions continue to outpace inflation? 40% of students do receive financial aid and money must matter to most of those and a reasonable percentage of the full freighters.</p>
<p>If the trend in private secondary schools is anything to go by, I’d say yes, private colleges will see lower selectivity in the coming years.</p>
<p>The average mom with children in an independent primary school is a working physician.</p>
<p>That’s who can afford the crazy tuitions.</p>
<p>And there is a downside. In general, working physicians do not have time to comb through difficult homework assignments and time consuming projects with the child. They don’t have the energy. In general, working physicians just want to hear about their ‘happy’ children–not their struggling children. These are trends being discussed by the folks at Independent school conferences.</p>
<p>calmom</p>
<p>I never said he studied less than his friends at more “elite” schools just that the atmosphere is more relaxed, nurturing and helpful…the students are more cooperative and sharing, not in competition with each other. He has friends at H and Y who told him how difficult trying to organize a study group for Organic Chem was. At UNC it was absolutely no problem trying to get a group together and in fact he was tutoring several people in the regular Orgo class for free…he was in honors orgo.</p>