Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Planning summers around college application essays

One approach worked for me.

I spent much time to find out what my son's interest was and help him to develop it into a passion. He likes his passion so much that he became motivated and on auto-pilot. He eventually applied for the Davidson fellowship and other fellowships. Winning one or more of these fellowships will help a kid to get into the college he likes. The few Davidson fellows I know all have been accepted by colleges such as MIT, Caltech, Harvard... Some were finalists in the Intel Talent Search. When a kid pursues his passion relentlessly and with vigor, he or she will stand out.

"For those of us that have younger kids", you will have a lot of time if you are interested in this approach.

"help him to develop it into a passion". That is the key. Right now, DD says, "I am not sure what my talent is" though she has several serious talents. But the passion is lacking. As she expands beyond ballet, adding jazz, I am hoping the dance, which has always had potential for passion, goes there. And she does try every so often to compose a piece on the piano. There is strong interest there but fights it.

Though she is only 6. I am not worried. And I wonder what will define kids differently in 10 years. Will it be a different test? Will curriculum be overhauled to challenge kids more? It will be interesting to see what happened in this bubble of college education.

Ren

Don't forget that your children don't have to go to university in the US, necessarily; there are good universities elsewhere which have different admissions criteria, and may suit your child better. Oxford and Cambridge, for example, are open about being interested in academic enthusiasm and potential rather than in impressive extracurriculars. Both have many overseas students, wonderful courses and fees that will not seem scary to those of you otherwise thinking about the Ivy League. Anecdotally it can be tough for people coming out of the US school system to succeed in UK universities, as specialisation happens earlier in the UK, but many people here have children whom that challenge would suit down to the ground...

Cambridge's overseas student page
Oxford's equivalent page

Didn't the UK suddenly hike tuition? And with current austerity, probably continue to do so? And I do expect more Chinese students will apply to European institutions over the next few years.

I do not think there are too many safe havens. In our case Canada remains an option.

The UK has a strange system where you can go from high school right into medical school, though Canada and the US don't accept the degree as equivalent, you have to do medical school here also. So those are considerations.

Ren

What you've heard about is that the "fees" for home students were raised. What this actually means is that more of home students' costs will be met from them (via a central loans system) and less from central taxation. Overseas students, who were paying unsubsidised fees anyway, are not directly affected, although I see that Cambridge did restructure fees for them too and the result is an above-inflation rise especially for engineering; details at that link. Of course there are no guarantees about the future, but UK universities currently do not really have the "arms race" of needing stellar non-academic facilities that someone posted an article about recently. For Cambridge next year, we're talking 16-23 thousand pounds per year, depending on course. I'm not saying this is definitely a good deal, just that it's worth considering!

Certainly anything involving a professional qualification needs particularly careful scrutiny, yes. It's not quite as strange as you might think, but it is differently organised - UK medical training is split into "pre-clinical" and "clinical". While you might think of entering the 3yr pre-clinical stage as "going right into medical school", that part has a lot of basic science in it like what US students might do before their medical degree, and you aren't a doctor until you've done clinical also, so it ends up being not as different as might at first appear. I don't think it's that you have do do medical school in both places, although if you did your pre-clinical only here and then went back to the US I'm sure you would then need to go to med school there. Both systems are quite rightly concerned not to allow under-trained medics to practise... However, this is so specific as to be off-topic so I'll stop :-)

Depends...

DW and I talked this weekend about some jobs she did not take back in her early 20s. One was with an M&A firm ( Mergers and Acquisitions) in Dallas.

"Everyone was highly intelligent, highly successful, and the guys were ALL GORGEOUS!"

I replied to her that my MBA profs all said that the best looking people were in M&A.

Ironically, that was probably the first firm that wanted to hire her for her ability. Good looks were a dime a dozen there so you had to be smart so they looked right past her appearance.

First, Collinsmum, I am positive about the whole medical degree thing in the UK since I met 2 doctors from the UK in Toronto who were very frustrated with the system. And DH went to inquire and found out that because he went to medical school in the US, trained in the US, they would give him a medical license. The only exception for not doing further training in Canada. In the US they usually have to do a modified medical degree, 3 years I think.

So that is a serious consideration.

On the other comment, I think many investment bankers tend to be attractive, whether in M&A or private equity. Or it is that energy. They do tend to dress well and work out.

Ren

Hah. I work in M&A.