Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums College Rigorous college ends up not challenging

What could we have done differently?
HG/EG son attended rigorous private prep school, took 10 AP exams, scored 5 on 9 of them, and then went to an "academically rigorous" private college. He entered with 40+ credits and will graduate in 2.5 years. Currrently 20, he recently revealed that he felt very different in middle school and high school because there were only 2 or 3 students on campus he really related to intellectually. And today he has revealed that college is "markedly less rigorous" than high school was, and the only stimulating people are the professors. He is hungry to be with people truly interested in learning as opposed to good workers and grade grubbers. There just are not many such people. Where on earth should he have gone to college??

He already has a job for after graduation, but at such time as he wants to go to grad school, I don't want a repeat experience of disappointment and frustration.

What kind of college is this?

Your last sentence says it all.

When choosing a college (and we're finding this to be true right now, as a matter of fact), it may be BETTER to be in a less selective environment.

Why?

Well, because as your DS so astutely noted, his real peers are not the students around him, but the faculty. That is likely to be the case of about 90% of the students even at the most prestigious institutions on earth.

The only difference is that as you go up in prestige, the students themselves have been groomed/conditioned to "pass" as HG/HG+.

They still aren't-- at least most of them aren't, I mean. But statistically, what can one realistically expect here anyway??

The "hard working" students are now able to achieve at the same stratospheric levels as truly EG/PG students now... because the entire k-12 system now conditions kids for volume, not authentic rigor, and makes an A accessible to ALL, provided that they just "do enough" or "work hard."

So this is how you get to a point where a school produces 40 valedictorians. ONE of those kids is actually EG or PG, most likely. About half might be HG. The rest are likely MG or borderline MG, and TigerParented.

Why do I mention this? Because all of those valedictorians are now your son's classmates in college.

Faculty look out at a sea of cookie-cutter "perfect" students... and how should they tell them apart? How can they know which three of them in a class of 100 are really worth the extra time? How can a STUDENT figure out which two classmates are genuine peers? They can't.

In a less elite setting, however, one of those PG kids IS that different from the rest. They will get noticed and nurtured because they are rare and special. Now, no-- they aren't going to have any more peers than in the elite setting.

But you said it yourself; when you're a statistical rarity, you may very seldom meet others like yourself. While BigName University may be enriched in those outliers... fundamentally, the environment also makes them harder to identify from the background noise.


^ JMO.

Grad school is different. Truly. There, the less-able vanish after the first year. Those who remain are generally at least HG, and many of them are EG. (Depends on the field, of course-- in STEM, this is certainly true, though.) As you go up in educational setting, the enrichment becomes more noticeable.

This is why your son's professors have more in common with him than his average classmates. They are more like his LOG.

DD already discovered this during a high school internship at a uni research lab. Pleasantly, she also discovered that faculty are downright rapacious about mentoring the real thing, and it's not at all hard to identify them in a non-selective setting.

DH went to Harvard and felt the opposite of your son. He felt like he finally went to school with his peers. First time he met someone smarter than himself.

So I am curious also, what is this school and how selective are they?

Great insight. This post rings true to experiences I am familiar with, and could be the subject of several articles, a research study, even a book. I'd call this required reading for parents, high school guidance counselors, and college admissions officers.

One important note: Those who leave college while pursuing advanced degrees may include those without sufficient funding, despite profound intellectual gifts. The one thing I'd most appreciate the world to understand about giftedness is that it occurs in every demographic and can present unique burdens to those with limited finances.

This was true for me. I found a wonderful mentor who took me under his wing. He was a renowned scholar in his field but he stayed at the mediocre state flagship university because his wife didn't want to move. His (very smart) graduate students were my social network.

When I did a fellowship at a very selective LAC, students were accomplished in everything that they did including music and sport and they were efficient and focused but only a couple of them seemed passionate about ideas and learning. However, I must say, most of them were just about the nicest, sweetest, and loveliest teenagers/young adults I've ever met. As a parent, I could live with that tradeoff.

This doesn't really jibe with my college experience. I have trouble believing that things have changed this much in the intervening years.

I spent a year at UC Berkeley, and felt like I did more or less fade into the noise most of the time. I was able to connect with one professor, though, and I worked in his lab in the spring and summer. I never really connected with any peers. I can't even remember the name of my roommate.

Then I transferred to MIT, and I felt like everyone "got" me. I connected with a number of professors, and worked for a couple of them. I made great connections with other students, many of whom I am still in contact with. Overall, a very positive experience.

In grad school (at MIT again), it started out OK, and devolved into a dreadful slog.

In law school (at Harvard, while I was working in a law firm), I never felt connected to anyone in my class, and I have trouble even remembering anyone who was there. My professors definitely knew who I was, but I doubt they remember me now, ten years out.

I'm not sure where UCB ranks in your hierarchy of selectivity, but I presume that MIT and Harvard are near the top of it. At the former, I was noticed and nurtured in undergrad; less so in grad school. At the latter, I was noticed but not nurtured, and I doubt that I am remembered.

Many thanks to all of you. Lots of interesting things to think about here. I have been reflecting and reading over the last few days. Son could have gone to one of the early entrance college/high school programs, but would have left home 2 years sooner and still finished college at the same young age. We have tried to foster his full development, not just his intellectual dev. His participation at church and sitting and talking at our dinner table for those teen years was very important to us, and he acknowledges the value himself.
I have talked to him now about not doing so much belly-button gazing. As a well-educated adult, he will have most of his interactions with people whose IQs are 110-135 or so. He needs to understand himself but also to understand others and make adjustments.
Good for him he identified the professors as "his kind of people". Right now he just wants to be finished with school and assignments and do "real stuff" - working. But you have given some interesting info for future possible grad school.

Other: I think it is best not to name the college. Son did NOT want a big university. This is a school of about 2,500 students, and his department is quite small. He was determined to attend here, applied early decision.

I think some of this is institutional culture. Take two small, competitive liberal arts colleges with similar stats on the surface, and one could have students whose main interests are Greek culture, preprofessionalism, skiing, etc and the other could have kids who are into--well, smoking pot, but also philosophy, film, neurology, arts performance, etc., and doing a lot of independent study.

I'm not saying I know anything about the school your son is at, but I do think even the small competitive schools vary a lot in terms of the kind of peers you get and I'm not at all sure it's as simple as IQ scores. I do think it's true that at a really large university, you may have a better chance of finding "your people," simply by virtue of size. It might take a long time, though.

UM brings up the point that my DH has used to argue in favor of larger institutions. I have to admit that I had my doubts about this strategy for an introvert, but hearing it again here is reassuring.

Isn't angst-fueled navel-gazing a fundamental component of adolescence and the transition into adulthood? I think that at some point in during that time, many people realize that they feel a lack of connection to their surroundings and peers.