| the only reason this is a problem is if helicopter parents and Daddyball types are brainwashing the kids with their own dreams "I'm going to be in the MLB. I'm going to an Ivy League school" rather than it being a kid dreaming about kid things. |
Huh? I don't think you can equate "I'm going to be in MLB" with "I'm going to an Ivy League school". Also, sound like these kids are in 8th or 9th grade. If your goal is an Ivy, not a bad time to start thinking about how you're going to get there. |
Why not? Kids talk about their dreams all the time. What's the difference? |
| Come back in a couple years when most of them are rejected from UMD. |
| My kids' friends who said this 4 years ago are headed to the Ivy-reject tier schools (T30ish). Not bad schools whatsoever, but they had bad outcomes. |
You think getting into an Ivy League school is as "lofty" a dream as getting onto a major league sports team? I don't think they compare. Plenty of kids get into Ivy League schools every year - it's not impossible. How many kids get drafted? I'm an Ivy grad (Penn, so not HYP) and no one thought I was reaching for the stars when I said I wanted to go there. |
You are an Ivy grad, and you should know that really isn't the point, right? Kids dream, heck, we all dream and there is nothing wrong with that. |
At 13 it is pretty clear which kid would have the capacity to learn and shine in academics. Their abilities already differ in late elementary schools. Not just their talents but most important, family environment. |
But dreaming to go to the MLB is like dreaming you win the powerball…there is a chance but it’s likely you don’t personally no anybody playing in the MLB while I am sure this kid knows tons of parents who went to Ivy schools and tons of kids who are current seniors accepted into an Ivy school. I guess if you attended IMG it may be the reverse…lots of kids going pro but few going to Harvard. |
As a Stanford and UChicago grad, I think it’s healthy (and potentially face-saving) to have a certain amount of humility about college admissions. I still remember more than 20 years later the kid who planned his getting-into-Harvard party senior year of high school, which he had to cancel. The best goal at the beginning of high school is to succeed at all your classes and pursue other academic pursuits for the sake of learning and acquiring knowledge. If you meet those goals you can begin thinking about your Harvard or Stanford application. My goal freshman year was to be valedictorian, not to get into Stanford. By junior year it was clear that I would probably achieve the valedictorian goal, I’d developed a pretty interesting set of extracurricular academic activities, and Stanford was within reach. But it definitely wasn’t even on my radar at age 14. |
You sound sort of cruel. Let your kids have high aspirations!! Just encourage her and say that is great!!! |
I actually grew up around some very intense baseball parents and actually know a very chill as a person, but you would definitely know his name if I said it member of the MLB... the vibe of baseball parents and my kid is going to the Ivies is actually really similar 🤣 |
It's always weird when people on DCUM aren't willing to name a person who is a public person. You claim to know an MLB player...how in the heck is anyone going to know who you are? There are actually a decent number of us who know James Wood. See...I named him...you can probably sleuth that a bunch of SJC kids and family know him from his time at SJC and he is from Olney. The fact of the matter though is only 800 people on the planet play in the MLB...while as we speak there are like 40,000 kids attending Ivy schools. What's more, there are 10,000 kids each year cycling through an Ivy school, while only like 50 are called up to the MLB each year. |
I think you’re mixing lifetime totals with annual intake. The relevant comparison is how many are seriously in each pipeline vs how many make it through each year—and both end up being extremely selective with a lot of ‘qualified but not chosen.’ That’s why the parent dynamics feel similar. Also I did not name because it would have been a distraction from the main point plus it could have removed my anonymity, because the one I know is not DC grown. |
So true |