Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion more on "Tiger Mom"...

Wren, glad you understood that I'm really just ranting about what I see as a completely toxic culture.

Honestly-- DD has only a couple of "elite" schools on her wish list. We're fine with that. Supportive in the extreme. One of them is only there because we've encouraged her to apply there-- though we know she has about a 1% of actually wanting to GO there, if they'll offer her 30K a year, well then-- she can (hopefully) leverage that into a much better financial aid package elsewhere.



She wants to major in math (at least currently), and is otherwise undecided but leans (right now, again) toward poly-sci or the social sciences, but also has an interest in physics.

So who knows, right? With that set of interests, though, we're VERY wary of having her go to a tech-oriented school, though she'd probably be a reasonably good candidate for one.

My complaint is the same as that voiced by others occasionally-- like the science poster another member recently posted-- clearly done by the child. But will it be merely 'comparable' to that done by the other kids' parents? (Yuck.) Is it "too good" for others to understand that it is really the child's work?

My DD gets caught in the same net a lot. Adults/judges assume a level of involvement by expert mentors/parents which just isn't there. She really DOES do that stuff herself. So, seriously-- I think she compares pretty darned well with the efforts of her classmates' parents with masters degrees and PhD's. LOL.

I console myself with the thought that ultimately, we're raising a child who can self-regulate, and choose things for HERSELF, rather than for US (or anyone else). I hope that we're giving her a sense that she can do things 'right' without us doing them for her. That probably counts for something. At least I hope so.

For one thing, those who do end up at a school where they can't hack it are obvious and not all that happy.

kcab, that is the single BIGGEST indicator that there is something seriously wrong locally-- wayyyyyyyyy too many of these kids wind up dropping out of the high-flown places they go off to college at, or they wind up coming home for a year to retool at the local JC/Uni (at least that is how their parents spin things-- I suspect it's academic).

I've been ruminating about this problem and I think that basically, the entire system is a caricature of a disaster. Getting into the right kindergarten, shelling out thousands for professional college counselors, and trips to Italy designed primarily as fodder for application essays are all evidence of this assertion.

People can analyze the details of this situation, but I suspect that individual problems merely morph as people focus attention on them and force the colleges to "address" them.

The way I see it, it's kind of like the way that big food works. BigFoodCo, Inc. removes fat from processed product X when people are wound up about fat, but substitutes in sugar and salt as replacements. Then it makes "health" claims about the new product. It's not like the food is suddenly good for you. It's still bad for you, only now it has a label proclaiming FAT FREE!* and *a note about fat and heart disease. In five years, the fat will be back and the label will say REDUCED SUGAR!* and *the note will refer to diabetes. It's all about the problem of the moment. The underlying broken process doesn't change.

IMO, it's the same with the US education system. So long as admissions are subjective, the colleges will continue to find ways to make admissions harder or easier for the problem groups of the moment. The groups in question will change, but the underlying broken approach will remain. The problem is that people allow the colleges to be subjective and then accept their arguments about well-roundedness without really asking "Wait. What does that really mean? Helicopter/Tiger parenting produces the opposite of a well-rounded person, IMO. But as HK pointed out in an earlier post, it's what's on paper that matters, and no one can tell if Mummy or Daddy wrote the essay (or the homework or even the Ph.D. thesis, and yes, I've seen examples of all three).

Now, THIS is what we're talking about--


NYT Some College Applicants try a little Dazzle while On Waitlists

The comments section is the really interesting bit. The article itself is just an echo of what some of us (in academia or with HS-aged kids) have noted is going on. Parents really are part of the problem here.

My personal favorite comment--


Indeed. There's plenty of blame to go around, it isn't just parents who have raised kids that expect the world to bow down to their obvious entitlement, but also colleges that seem to have forgotten their mission statements.

I also thought that this one was insightful, if blunt:


This one made me laugh out loud, actually--


Yes, yes, yes. YES.

It really is a complete system failure on some level. Totally dysfunctional.

I don't know the statistics on the importance of extracurricular activities and professionally edited (written?) essays for college admissions. But I do know from personal experience that helicopter parenting is not required for admission to a top tier university. In fact, it can be done with rather minimal parenting.

I don't remember the timeline exactly anymore, but for a significant period of high school I lived by myself. My father would come by once a week to take me to my music lesson and the grocery store. It's a rather odd sequence of events that lead to this situation, but in short, my parents were divorced when I was 10. My father was awarded custody because his father owned the house my family lived in. I was the youngest of 3 children, and by my Sophomore year my older siblings had graduated and moved out. I guess my father was anxious to get on with his life, because he started dating and moved in with his girlfriend, while I stayed in that house my grandfather owned... alone.

My parents did not:
Write my college essays.
Edit my college essays.
Read my college essays.
Enroll me in SAT prep.
Know when I took the SAT (which I took only once).
Advise me about extracurriculars.
Advise me about course selection.
Help me with my projects.
Help me with my homework.
Make sure I did my homework.
Make sure I even went to school.

I went anyway, and not because I liked it. I hated it, and I hated the privileged kids in the "advanced" courses I was in. I tried to avoid spending time with them as much as possible. I refused to join the the NHS. I refused to join the math club until I was kind of recruited in my senior year. I played one instrument, and not that well (budget cuts for music in the public schools took a number of years away from me and private lessons were my attempt to merely compensate for that). I never played a sport (couldn't get along with the kids who did).

I still got into my first choice, and went to the highest ranked college of anyone at my high school. (Lucky for me, that school gave me a big enough grant to actually make attendance possible.)

So who knows why I was accepted. I certainly had strong SAT scores, especially in math, but my GPA was barely top 10% and I had very few extracurriculars. Did the admissions officers recognize the clues of a bored (and frustrated) gifted student? Anything is possible I suppose. Except it's not possible that a schedule full of overwhelming extracurriculars is absolutely required for top tier college admissions. Kids shouldn't be busy 24 hours a day (unless they want to be). They should have some time of their own, to do whatever they want. I think most kids can be true to themselves, avoid activities they hate doing, and still have a bright future. Allowing this will probably lead for a better relationship with their parents, too. And in the end, what's more important than relationships?

You know, I had a similar profile-- only because I didn't really know any different and neither did my (somewhat naive) parents. Right down to the absentee parenting, come to that. My mom was completely AWOL for most of my high school career in one way or another, and often literally... I couldn't stand the snobby kids, so I sure wasn't a "joiner" other than being an enthusiastic band member. I could really rock a standardized test, though.

Heavens, how the colleges stalked me...

CalTech and RPI were both really aggressive in chasing me, even. I was flabbergasted. Seriously had no idea what to make of all of this sudden courting by high-flying schools that I'd only heard of in hushed whispers... it was just bizarre. None of my friends had people from {insert elite college} calling. I checked. LOL.



But things are way, way different than they were thirty years ago.

One can definitely decide to opt-out, as we've done; but we understand that the reality is that we ARE choosing for our daughter to probably not be competitive at an Ivy in doing that. On the other hand, we figure we aren't raising an Ivy student-- hopefully we're raising a well-adjusted adult who can follow her own dreams. It seems that more and more, that path doesn't lead through the Ivies for all but a few kids who are naturally that manic (?) and fortunate enough to have opportunity to spend 20 hours a day racking up activities that will play well to admissions committees.

More power to them if that is healthy for them, I suppose. But I have to think that Dad is right. Kids-- even really high ability kids-- need time to just BE. Time that isn't about how it benefits a vita.

Even if Harvard or Columbia were "the right" school for my DD, I'm not really a believer in the destiny model of college. I think that she could succeed and be wildly happy with her education at any of a number of less prestigious places-- and find a way for that experience to take her where she will love to go. Luckily, she sees things this way, too. Some of her friends are going off to Ivies, but not all of them. Some of them (all of them top 1% of graduating class, mostly) are going to the local regional colleges nearby. And that's fine.

I hear all the time about what a different ballgame it is now than it was when we applied. Why is this, exactly? Can someone explain? Is it because of the common applications that are now used--college get so many applications that they have to weed more assertively early on, so you have to stand out early in the game? Is it because more students are applying to college generally? It seems to me that the Ivies and the other good schools have just as many spots in their freshman classes as they always have, so why is it so much harder to get in now? Why the arms race? Is this a collegiate Flynn effect? What?

My 9yo can write a very nice little esssay right now. I'm sure she's going to write like a demon by 17. Both her parents were National Merit Scholars and she seems to be good at tests. She's going to be fabulous at any memorization-based schoolwork--which, let's face it, is a lot of high school. However, she has no sports talent and we're not forking over bucks for her to develop any fancy skills in anything else (music, dance, whatever) at this time. She's likely to volunteer heavily because she likes it. She's not much of a leader. Artsy.

I still think she could attend a selective small liberal arts college. I don't think Ivy unless she decided to really go apeshit with stuff in HS, but I don't know about that environment for her anyway. Our income puts us in the blue-collar zone.

I guess I don't feel a lot of hysteria about college. Am I kidding myself? Does she have to become a world-class Javanese gamelan player even if she is likely to be an excellent student with top SAT scores who can write a killer essay? Is it really THAT DIFFERENT? (Though, TBH, I still don't see us conducting our lives so differently even if it is. I just can't tell how much of this is hype and how much is real.)

It seems to only be the Ivy League and similar schools, Stanford, etc.

You can still even use dogging to get yourself a full ride at a state school.