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I didn't start the post, just added...

Aline wrote: Brearley is a terrific school. Yes, Brearley is a terrific school but DD has a 9/28 DOB. She can enter kindergarten in the public system and St. Ann's would take her, but most private, including all top Manhattan ones, have a firm 9/1 cut-off and many will not take summer birthdates, wanting them to wait. Waiting is not an option for a gifted kid.

What I find interesting is that we don't responses from people whose children are through the process. Would be nice to see how kids from this forum went through college applications and the result.

What I wrote was from the Hunter High School newspaper article I read. It showed that generally 9.something% got into Harvard every year. This year was the first year it went down to 7.1%. It showed all schools applied to and previous % and this year. They were all down a few percentage points.

Ren

aha...

Wow, Ren, I can't imagine dealing with that system. It sounds like they are locked into a course bound for a particular college starting in preschool!

Things are much more fluid here. We may not even live in this state in a couple of years. Private schools of any kind are beyond our means...

Yours sounds like a completely different world to me. I guess it's a good thing we don't aspire to Harvard It sounds like the kids would never be accepted even if we could afford it!

Not entirely true, Ann! It's too early to tell what any our kids in the 8 and under group will be doing concerning higher education.

I should say up front that I chose my college based on the free ride they were offering, and not particularly for any of the reasons that it turned out to be the perfect place for me.... But what you say here, Kriston, is absolutely spot on in my experience. I took it to extremes, and went to a state school that catered heavily toward back-to-school adults -- second careers and "retired" homemakers in particular. And it was the absolute best set of peers I'd ever had. They were very serious students, had a lot of life experience to draw on, and could discuss any topic indefinitely. It was also a very urban school, and for my major (medical anthropology) that was an excellent thing -- very much not an ivory tower of anything.

There were degree areas that it might not have been too good for, but for mine it was better than anything I've seen since and I wish I'd stayed there for grad school. I might actually have gotten my dissertation done there and had a sensible committee to see me through it!

Anyway my sister (who went to a SPLA school) still looks down her nose at it, but I've never had an employer who cared. And I don't have much awe for the pricier institutions. You can have a great department in an unremarkable school or a terrible department in a famous school. Some of the more famous schools are great in certain areas, but if those aren't your areas they won't do you a bit of good.

From Deborah Ruf's "Losing our Minds,"



For me, college was the first place I found real peers, people who I understood and who understood me. That was a real gift and I know it was for most of the people I met there. I would like to be able to provide DS with that same gift when the time comes. I just don't know where that place will be for him; I certainly would not eliminate any options at this point.

Oh, and while we are plugging our alma maters, let me say that I went to Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington. I am fond of it, but I could recommend a dozen other great schools in the Pacific Northwest (And that includes Linfield Cathy!) that might be better fits for personalities other than mine. And that's just in my neck of the woods--there are literally hundreds of good options.

Yep. There's also Reed. I visited that one, too.

I don't think there are many/any people on the forum who have kids already through the process, are there? Didn't someone recently ask for parents of kids in college to post, and there were no responses? (Or did I miss someone?)

I suspect that once your kids are in college, you don't visit forums like this so much anymore.

Note on the on-going private schools in NYC. Just to extend the cost factor. Those top private schools are running 35K+ per year. So when you think about state schools for college because of cost, think about the option of spending 35-40K per year on K-12.

I also think that my bias on the name schools comes from 1) I am Canadian and I only know certain name schools and 2) working on Wall Street, the name schools are prominent.

Ren

My oldest son is in college. He's coming home today for summer break. So yes, we've been through the process!

Lorel