Kids in high achieving schools

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DD graduated from TJ and now attending GMU. My oldest son graduated from Potomac school and he went to NVCC. My youngest graduated from Langley and he is now at Radford University. You can say that TJ, Potomac and Langley are probably some of the best schools here in the DMV but it doesn’t bother me one bit.

What is your point?

The point is that they will do fine in life via family connections regardless of the university they attend. It is not what you know but who you know.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s not the school that does this. It’s wealthy snowplow parents who obsess on elite colleges.

This. My son went to school there and is now at a regular university and is doing well. I’m sure he’d look like a failure when compared to his peers but I know him and knew he wouldn’t do well with so much unnecessary pressure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everyone in DCUM is an exception to the rule and that their kid is an academic star !!!

I posted above that I have 1 academic superstar and another who isn’t. He is a smart kid but a total slacker. He would not keep up with the academic superstars.

Our public school is massive and competitive for everything whether it is to get on a sports team or academic competitions. This kid tried science Olympiad and it was obvious he was not interested. He also did not get an A in math. He is probably the only Asian kid who didn’t get an A in math.

Basically the first kid is an academic superstar and the second is a smart kid. In other words, everyone in DCUM has smart kids. That proves my point.

Pp here. We live in an affluent and highly competitive area, the exact type of school pyramid OP is referring to. Both boys were flagged gifted and in the gifted program in public. Dh and I are both ivy educated and we have a seven figure HHI. DH is one of those guys who is just really good at everything and our oldest is like him. They both excel and make it look easy. My younger kid is very bright but just puts no effort in school. He is just as smart, if not naturally smarter than his older brother. We know that being bright is not enough and thought he would just get lost in a big public school so we switched him to private.

Our neighborhood is full of rich and successful people. Everyone seems on top of their industries. You can’t live here if you are random lawyer, not even a biglaw associate. They are the biglaw partners and those guys all send their kids to private. There are tech executives, politicians, lobbyists, surgeons and some professional athletes. We have some neighbors who are foreign diplomats or just rich and bought a home in the US. There are more modest neighborhoods that feed into our highly regarded public school and those are the MC/UMC kids who grind. I don’t necessarily think their parents were the super successful ones so they may put lots of pressure on their kids.

What’s the point of your post??? That you and your family are genetically gifted and don’t have to try hard, whereas others have to grind? How dumb do you have to be to write something like this?

Also, I live in a highly coveted area with so called high achievers and families like you are a dime a dozen, get off your high horse.

I am seriously trying to wrap my head around the ramblings in your post, your neighborhood has rich people, a foreign diplomat blah blah… who writes stuff like that? If you went to an ivy and this is your intellectual level that all ivys should be banned.

Such a loser!

The point of my post is that we do not put pressure on our kids and they don’t suffer from mental illness. We absolutely are a dime a dozen. We are surrounded by successful and smart people. Our kids are also smart. They have smart friends with smart parents.

My kids are happy well adjusted kids and have friends who also seem healthy and happy. This goes for both kids in public and private.

Are there a few kids who struggle mentally in both schools? Probably.

I actually get that the point of your post is not to brag. However, I think you are confusing your own personal perception with solid data. You do not know if your friends' kids or kids in your community suffer privately from mental health problems. Have you read about the suicide cases in high achieving kids at high achieving schools? It's not like these kids walked around with a red flag. Some times even their parents are floored because they had no idea how unhappy these kids were. On the surface they looked just like my high-achieving kid. Ignore the evidence from professionals if you like, but there is a problem.

[Anonymous]

My kids are both bright and talented but get mixed grades in dpcs — not TJ or MoCo—due to too much homework, missing assignments (or add phone mysteriously missing), hard teachers in rigorous classes, like Chinese or StEM track classes. They are stressed. I’m part of the problem admittedly, but on this board and elsewhere it’s clear that a mix of Bs and Cs is not ok. Both of us parents went to top schools. I still think school is harder now, but lament the lack of reading and writing.

[Anonymous]

Everyone in DCUM thinks that their kids are smart and bright. Totally delusional.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Everyone in DCUM thinks that their kids are smart and bright. Totally delusional.

+1. You beat me to it!