It's been 10 years since our oldest graduated from high school. The most successful are

[Anonymous]

I feel like a lot of people measure success by how much money you make, what neighborhood you live in, or how nice your house is. There are plenty of people who do good valuable work and don't make much money. They can be happy, content, don't overconsume, advocate for a better world, have time to engage in their communities, and donate to worthy causes. They can be great successes. A quality education can be a big part of this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Way too many posters here who don't understand that anecdotes aren't the same thing as statistically significant.

Correct. Hence the saying: "The plural of anecdotes is not data."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I feel like a lot of people measure success by how much money you make, what neighborhood you live in, or how nice your house is. There are plenty of people who do good valuable work and don't make much money. They can be happy, content, don't overconsume, advocate for a better world, have time to engage in their communities, and donate to worthy causes. They can be great successes. A quality education can be a big part of this.

Cool. In the real world, the public understanding of the meaning of success is heavily correlated with financial outcomes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't know - I think there is a lot of element of luck that goes into how "successful" people are -right timing/opportunity/exposure as well as high EQ as well as IQ. Of my high school friends, I was probably the least paper perfect, but I make maybe 4X what the other 1600 SAT friends make through some hustle and also some luck, to be honest, and exposure of putting myself out there. The scrappy, lucky kid wins.

There’s always luck involved and great timing but the persistence and hustle makes a huge difference.

Agree. The difference between people often comes down to the willingness to hustle and put yourself out there and take risks. That's why the bright girl with the great grades and scores in high school but who is quiet and shy and retiring will never amount to be anything more than a librarian or similar living in a townhouse in Columbia while the outgoing sporty kid with mediocre grades but engaging personality ends up the SVP of a major sales account and a $2M house in Bethesda.

There are some career tracks where the grinding and risk averse people can take that will pay financial rewards, such as medicine. But advancement in the real world is closely correlated with the ability to hustle and a "just do it" attitude.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel like a lot of people measure success by how much money you make, what neighborhood you live in, or how nice your house is. There are plenty of people who do good valuable work and don't make much money. They can be happy, content, don't overconsume, advocate for a better world, have time to engage in their communities, and donate to worthy causes. They can be great successes. A quality education can be a big part of this.

Cool. In the real world, the public understanding of the meaning of success is heavily correlated with financial outcomes.

I don’t know about that. I know a lot of miserable rich people.

Based on my 50 years of experience, I would say that marrying someone fun, functional, and kind, and avoiding bad luck, are the key elements in being “successful” as a human being.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't know - I think there is a lot of element of luck that goes into how "successful" people are -right timing/opportunity/exposure as well as high EQ as well as IQ. Of my high school friends, I was probably the least paper perfect, but I make maybe 4X what the other 1600 SAT friends make through some hustle and also some luck, to be honest, and exposure of putting myself out there. The scrappy, lucky kid wins.

There’s always luck involved and great timing but the persistence and hustle makes a huge difference.

Agree. The difference between people often comes down to the willingness to hustle and put yourself out there and take risks. That's why the bright girl with the great grades and scores in high school but who is quiet and shy and retiring will never amount to be anything more than a librarian or similar living in a townhouse in Columbia while the outgoing sporty kid with mediocre grades but engaging personality ends up the SVP of a major sales account and a $2M house in Bethesda.

There are some career tracks where the grinding and risk averse people can take that will pay financial rewards, such as medicine. But advancement in the real world is closely correlated with the ability to hustle and a "just do it" attitude.

I desperately hope that this is a parody post.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The most successful young adults who are now 27 or 28 years old were the top students in their high school class, no matter where they went to undergrad. From Ivies to tiny liberal arts college to fairly regional public universities, they all zoomed through undergrad, sometimes in three years, many went to grad or professional school, and they all have great careers. It seems all of them are married.

The handful of middle of the pack students and student-athletes who surprised everyone when they got into elite T20s regressed to their mean and have totally normal careers, at best.

It seems smart ambitious highly-motivated teens become smart ambitious highly-motivated adults. And if your teen is not those things, Tiger Mom'ing them into an elite college probably isn't going to change anything about their life and professional trajectory.

Okay I guessing your post has caused a lot of stress including to parents on this forum who have a 28 year old who is struggling and not considered perfect

Soooo. It took me to my thirties to find my footing and really come into myself. My career took off in my thirties and I didn’t get married until almost 40 and had a kid just before forty and one fright after. I was not an academic genius in hs

What I had was parents who loved me through my insecurity and helped me along the way. They absolutely supported my dreams even if the dreams went off the rails.

What would I do over? Not much. I think for college you make sure your kid is happy in the environment for their college. Look at things like weather and community because it matters. This matters more than ranking. Sorry it does. If you get seasonal depression do not go where there is no sun. You do not need to be miserable to be successful. Also some kids learn better in a small environment and some it does not matter.

Oh one thing I would change. It took me to almost 50 to not care what other people think. That would have been helpful in my 20s. I was so upset that I was not a far along in my 20s and now found some of my far along friends from then were just as miserable as I was but looked better on paper because they had a wall street job or were starting tenure track etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I feel like a lot of people measure success by how much money you make, what neighborhood you live in, or how nice your house is. There are plenty of people who do good valuable work and don't make much money. They can be happy, content, don't overconsume, advocate for a better world, have time to engage in their communities, and donate to worthy causes. They can be great successes. A quality education can be a big part of this.

Agree people like OP are only going to look at certain external markers because that's the only info they can get their hands on. Like how much could she possibly know about the lives of people her kids went to high school with a decade ago? Very little. Plenty of people who look "successful" at 27 or 28 because they have an impressive sounding job and are married may not actually be happy at all or be desperately looking for a change of career or whatever she has no idea

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The most successful young adults who are now 27 or 28 years old were the top students in their high school class, no matter where they went to undergrad. From Ivies to tiny liberal arts college to fairly regional public universities, they all zoomed through undergrad, sometimes in three years, many went to grad or professional school, and they all have great careers. It seems all of them are married.

The handful of middle of the pack students and student-athletes who surprised everyone when they got into elite T20s regressed to their mean and have totally normal careers, at best.

It seems smart ambitious highly-motivated teens become smart ambitious highly-motivated adults. And if your teen is not those things, Tiger Mom'ing them into an elite college probably isn't going to change anything about their life and professional trajectory.

Okay I guessing your post has caused a lot of stress including to parents on this forum who have a 28 year old who is struggling and not considered perfect

Soooo. It took me to my thirties to find my footing and really come into myself. My career took off in my thirties and I didn’t get married until almost 40 and had a kid just before forty and one fright after. I was not an academic genius in hs

What I had was parents who loved me through my insecurity and helped me along the way. They absolutely supported my dreams even if the dreams went off the rails.

What would I do over? Not much. I think for college you make sure your kid is happy in the environment for their college. Look at things like weather and community because it matters. This matters more than ranking. Sorry it does. If you get seasonal depression do not go where there is no sun. You do not need to be miserable to be successful. Also some kids learn better in a small environment and some it does not matter.

Oh one thing I would change. It took me to almost 50 to not care what other people think. That would have been helpful in my 20s. I was so upset that I was not a far along in my 20s and now found some of my far along friends from then were just as miserable as I was but looked better on paper because they had a wall street job or were starting tenure track etc.

All of this

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The most successful young adults who are now 27 or 28 years old were the top students in their high school class, no matter where they went to undergrad. From Ivies to tiny liberal arts college to fairly regional public universities, they all zoomed through undergrad, sometimes in three years, many went to grad or professional school, and they all have great careers. It seems all of them are married.

The handful of middle of the pack students and student-athletes who surprised everyone when they got into elite T20s regressed to their mean and have totally normal careers, at best.

It seems smart ambitious highly-motivated teens become smart ambitious highly-motivated adults. And if your teen is not those things, Tiger Mom'ing them into an elite college probably isn't going to change anything about their life and professional trajectory.

Parents want their kids at elite colleges so they meet a (wealthy/ambitious) spouse. If your kid goes to Yale but returns home without a serious bf or gf, it was pointless.

This. At least the grandbabies will have a chance

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't know - I think there is a lot of element of luck that goes into how "successful" people are -right timing/opportunity/exposure as well as high EQ as well as IQ. Of my high school friends, I was probably the least paper perfect, but I make maybe 4X what the other 1600 SAT friends make through some hustle and also some luck, to be honest, and exposure of putting myself out there. The scrappy, lucky kid wins.

There’s always luck involved and great timing but the persistence and hustle makes a huge difference.

But that has nothing to do with grades.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel like a lot of people measure success by how much money you make, what neighborhood you live in, or how nice your house is. There are plenty of people who do good valuable work and don't make much money. They can be happy, content, don't overconsume, advocate for a better world, have time to engage in their communities, and donate to worthy causes. They can be great successes. A quality education can be a big part of this.

Cool. In the real world, the public understanding of the meaning of success is heavily correlated with financial outcomes.

NP--There is no 'public understanding', only individual beliefs. Yes, there are many people whose 'real world' views financial outcomes as definitive of success. IMO, those people are missing out on a lot that's good in life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The most successful young adults who are now 27 or 28 years old were the top students in their high school class, no matter where they went to undergrad. From Ivies to tiny liberal arts college to fairly regional public universities, they all zoomed through undergrad, sometimes in three years, many went to grad or professional school, and they all have great careers. It seems all of them are married.

The handful of middle of the pack students and student-athletes who surprised everyone when they got into elite T20s regressed to their mean and have totally normal careers, at best.

It seems smart ambitious highly-motivated teens become smart ambitious highly-motivated adults. And if your teen is not those things, Tiger Mom'ing them into an elite college probably isn't going to change anything about their life and professional trajectory.

Once again proving that "where you go matters less than what you do while you are there". 99% of those with "a resume for T25" will excel in life, no matter where they attend college. It's their drive, attitude towards life and school and desire to excel that will get them far in life.

Shocking that more people do not understand that and still continue to go into massive debt for undergrad because of "a higher ranked school"

[Anonymous]

This DCUM blog post is incorrect. The bolded was not the takeaway at all. The takeaway 10 years later is that the smartest and most ambitious teenagers go to college anywhere and they will be successful because they seem to have the brainpower, motivation, competitive spirit and ambition to be successful. It is pushing back—with a decade of firsthand insights—on a DCUM striver obsession that your teen has to go to an elite T20 university or they are doomed.

The final thread that I will discuss today was posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. Titled, "It's been 10 years since our oldest graduated from high school. The most successful are", this poster did the old "continue the topic into the body of the post" routine. The completion of the subject line was a statement that the most successful students in high school turned out to be the most successful adults, regardless of the caliber of the university they attended. If stretching the topic into the body of the text was not enough to irritate me about this post, the tone of the post certainly did it. Just about everything in this post bothered me, from the condescending attitude to the know-it-all posture demonstrated by the original poster. The original poster's conclusion, based on who knows how big of a sample size, is that top high school kids will be successful no matter what and middle of the road high school kids are doomed to a life of mediocrity, regardless of where they go to college. The original poster warns so-called "tiger moms" that their efforts to get their loser kids into top schools will be futile. Even if they succeed, it will be of no help. Their children will still be no more than mildly successful. The original poster judges "success" by the quality of jobs obtained and marriage. Getting married directly out of college is highly esteemed by the original poster. Needless to say, many of those responding take issue with the original poster. They question the breadth of her knowledge of "success rates" and whether she is familiar with enough students to come to her conclusions. The type of tracking of others that is suggested by the original poster is considered a bit weird even if it were done on a small scale, let alone for a large number of students. Posters especially take issue with the original poster's insistence that marriage is a key indicator of success. Posters go on tangents addressing various factors related to marriage. When some posters questioned whether marriage at the fairly young age the original poster applauds is actually very common, the original poster provided examples of two celebrity children. Personally, I am suspicious that the original poster is on the up and up. This familiarity with celebrity children and other aspects of her posts suggest that, rather than being a parent, she is a student and that some of her analysis might actually be wishful thinking. At any rate, a number of posters disagree with her overall point and have a number of examples of less than excellent high schoolers blooming in college and exceeding expectations. Overall, this is a pretty disappointing thread that, frankly, is really not worth anyone's time to read.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The most successful young adults who are now 27 or 28 years old were the top students in their high school class, no matter where they went to undergrad. From Ivies to tiny liberal arts college to fairly regional public universities, they all zoomed through undergrad, sometimes in three years, many went to grad or professional school, and they all have great careers. It seems all of them are married.

The handful of middle of the pack students and student-athletes who surprised everyone when they got into elite T20s regressed to their mean and have totally normal careers, at best.

It seems smart ambitious highly-motivated teens become smart ambitious highly-motivated adults. And if your teen is not those things, Tiger Mom'ing them into an elite college probably isn't going to change anything about their life and professional trajectory.

Once again proving that "where you go matters less than what you do while you are there". 99% of those with "a resume for T25" will excel in life, no matter where they attend college. It's their drive, attitude towards life and school and desire to excel that will get them far in life.

Shocking that more people do not understand that and still continue to go into massive debt for undergrad because of "a higher ranked school"

It's not just the debt, it's nutty parents spending years of their life and large sums of money trying to scheme their dime a doze above average aimless teenagers into an elite university as if it's a winning Powerball ticket for their family. An elite degree is a waste on such a kid. It will just bring additional attention and embarrassment on your family when everyone sees the young adult working a normal job or worse yet, failing to launch, after you schemed them into such a university.