For purposes of college admissions, should I have raised my child elsewhere?

[Anonymous]

This is sometimes alluded to in some of the other threads on this forum, but for purposes of college admissions would I have been better off raising my child somewhere outside the DC metropolitan region? Some years back, I had a friend who had an excellent government position (think deputy assistant), and who sent her children to one of the Big 3 private schools. After she finished her position, she could have worked anywhere in DC, but she chose to take a federal job elsewhere and moved her family to another state (as someone said in another thread on the forum, like Montana or Nebraska). The children attended high school in their new home state, and went on to Ivy League schools.

[Anonymous]

Most top schools like to have geographic diversity, but it's getting harder and harder to distinguish yourself on even that basis anymore as the college applicant pool gets stronger everywhere. You'd have a better shot applying from Omaha or Des Moines than anywhere in the Acela corridor, sure, but not sure how significant an advantage that would be anymore.

[Anonymous]

I don't know the answer, but this is a great, provocative question. I often wonder the same thing.

[Anonymous]

Alaska, sure.

Ohio- eh.

[Anonymous]

There's no question that for purposes of college admissions, we could not have chosen many worse places to raise our kids.

[Anonymous]

OP here again. I realize that my post may have betrayed some of the Washingtonian ambition by referring to the reward of Ivy League admissions specifically, and college admissions generally.

Thinking it over more, I also wonder whether the high school "journey" would have been more beneficial for my child, aside from the admissions destination, if I had raised them elsewhere.

My friend's children attended high school with a diverse group that included the children of farmers, agricultural workers, and immigrants -- which gave them a different perspective from their DC days. She tells me that her children felt the freedom to take some elective classes that genuinely interested them, rather than only AP electives, and that they did not feel overt pressure or competition from their classmates. Same with their extracurriculars, they did things they wanted to do and not in order to build a resume, one became a cheerleader in hs.

My own child definitely chose the AP electives over other subjects that they might have preferred to study, because their "peers" were also doing so to boost their GPA. And the pressure sometimes boiled into overt tension. I just don't know the answer.

[Anonymous]

There is a certain cultural pressure that one gets in certain suburbs/private schools of large cities like DC, Chicago, New York, SF, etc. where college is 100% expected, you know from birth which schools are ivy league, parents freak out about where to buy a house so their kid will get the highest quality education, and you know people who have gone to excellent schools. Even if you are not Harvard material, you still hear of the many many excellent selective small liberal arts schools (Carleton, Swarthmore, Macalaster, Kenyon, Grinnell, Reed, Amherst, Pomona, Oberlin, etc.) or other highly selective colleges. Your parents more or less know or figure out how to play the game, people advise you on what exams you need to take, your school offers all the APs the college board offers, and there is a critical mass of educated people. Your college counselors are more or less competent. You know people who went to excellent schools, even if you don't end up there yourself.

This can happen in affluent suburbs/top private schools in smaller cities, but there is less of a critical mass--less of a pervasive cultural pressure. It is really doesn't happen in remote rural areas at all. These values/impressions can certainly be instilled by parents, but it's different when it's coming from your parents, your school, your peers, and everyone around you.

So while on paper, you might be able to get in looking slightly worse on paper, the you have to be even more exceptional of a person to figure out how to play the game. It's nebulous, and it is highly dependent on the person and the exact location (if you are in some remote rural town vs. a nice area of Omaha), but I don't think it's as simple as people like to bitch and moan about.

[Anonymous]

Maybe Wilma Bowers has a point.

[Anonymous]

^16:12 here

I don't think this is a good or bad thing, it just is. Some of the competitiveness is unhealthy, creates unrealistic standards, and makes people who by most measures are relatively successful feel like failures, and burns people out. It doesn't always reward creativity, deep thinking, or really much of substance. However, more kids from affluent communities that experience that sort of pressure do end up in college (across the spectrum of prestige), and having higher paying careers just by nature of having advantages in life. I grew up in that sort of environment, and nearly every one of my friends from growing up has a degree and at least some sort of career that requires a degree (or graduate degrees).

My husband grew up in a rural town with generational cycles of poverty, where few people get out, and fewer people have non-blue collar careers. He got out of that environment. He thinks that even with all the negativity that comes with being in a competitive environment, the benefits far outweigh the negatives.

I've lived in a variety of places across the country, and there is a whole lot in the middle between affluent DC suburbs and my husband's small rural hometown, but I think a lot of this "oh it would be easier to get into Harvard if we were in Omaha" is somewhat sour grapes and whiney. There are major advantages in life and in ones education to being in a major metropolitan city with a highly educated population .

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^16:12 here

I don't think this is a good or bad thing, it just is. Some of the competitiveness is unhealthy, creates unrealistic standards, and makes people who by most measures are relatively successful feel like failures, and burns people out. It doesn't always reward creativity, deep thinking, or really much of substance. However, more kids from affluent communities that experience that sort of pressure do end up in college (across the spectrum of prestige), and having higher paying careers just by nature of having advantages in life. I grew up in that sort of environment, and nearly every one of my friends from growing up has a degree and at least some sort of career that requires a degree (or graduate degrees).

My husband grew up in a rural town with generational cycles of poverty, where few people get out, and fewer people have non-blue collar careers. He got out of that environment. He thinks that even with all the negativity that comes with being in a competitive environment, the benefits far outweigh the negatives.

I've lived in a variety of places across the country, and there is a whole lot in the middle between affluent DC suburbs and my husband's small rural hometown, but I think a lot of this "oh it would be easier to get into Harvard if we were in Omaha" is somewhat sour grapes and whiney. There are major advantages in life and in ones education to being in a major metropolitan city with a highly educated population .

PP, this is spoken like a parent whose children have grown up locally and attend good universities. I agree that there are obviously many advantages to growing up affluent in a major metropolitan area, as your children obviously have, but I do not consider the OP's question "whiny" at all. With all the expectations and pressure we parents, the schools, the administrators and teachers, and the students themselves place on each others, is it healthier to step back and stop sending the message that life should be defined by achievements, awards, prizes, the Ivy League, marketing yourself, and other uber-ambitious, career-focused measures of self-worth. I grew up in a mid-sized southern city, and I think that in this area we sometimes lose our perspective regarding the have-nots, and have-much-less of this world, and the things that really matter. Straight As and standardized test scores are important to strive for, but they should not define you. Success is measured not just in terms of your title, your connections, or how much you earn. People who live very simple lives are no less good than we are, and we should not look down on others because of their circumstances. Empathy and awareness of the "real" world around us is an important thing.

[Anonymous]

I grew up in a mid-sized southern city, and I think that in this area we sometimes lose our perspective regarding the have-nots, and have-much-less of this world, and the things that really matter. Straight As and standardized test scores are important to strive for, but they should not define you. Success is measured not just in terms of your title, your connections, or how much you earn. People who live very simple lives are no less good than we are, and we should not look down on others because of their circumstances. Empathy and awareness of the "real" world around us is an important thing.

PP here. This is absolutely true--we do not need to lose perspective on this. This is not to say that the "simple life" means that people are any worse in character at all. But many of their lives are certainly far less secure and tough in all kinds of ways--I've seen my in-laws struggle--and all other things being equal, I would not want my kids to grow up in an environment where they needed to be an outlier to achieve a certain level of professional success and life security that is essentially the median in some other communities.

This PP isn't really whiney so much--perhaps I was harsh, but other posts that mention this over and over again seem to all be about how you can game the numbers to get into Harvard and getting into Harvard from Sidwell vs. getting into Harvard from flyover country, and I find it tiresome.

I focused on affluent, educated people in major metropolitan areas, because that is the demographic this forum largely represents--obviously struggles exist among the less fortunate in major metropolitan areas.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There's no question that for purposes of college admissions, we could not have chosen many worse places to raise our kids.

+1
Thinking seriously of moving far, far away for just this reason.

[Anonymous]

Couldn't you just move to a DC Public High School? I would think that would raise your chances over area privates and suburban publics?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is a certain cultural pressure that one gets in certain suburbs/private schools of large cities like DC, Chicago, New York, SF, etc. where college is 100% expected, you know from birth which schools are ivy league, parents freak out about where to buy a house so their kid will get the highest quality education, and you know people who have gone to excellent schools. Even if you are not Harvard material, you still hear of the many many excellent selective small liberal arts schools (Carleton, Swarthmore, Macalaster, Kenyon, Grinnell, Reed, Amherst, Pomona, Oberlin, etc.) or other highly selective colleges. Your parents more or less know or figure out how to play the game, people advise you on what exams you need to take, your school offers all the APs the college board offers, and there is a critical mass of educated people. Your college counselors are more or less competent. You know people who went to excellent schools, even if you don't end up there yourself.

This can happen in affluent suburbs/top private schools in smaller cities, but there is less of a critical mass--less of a pervasive cultural pressure. It is really doesn't happen in remote rural areas at all. These values/impressions can certainly be instilled by parents, but it's different when it's coming from your parents, your school, your peers, and everyone around you.

So while on paper, you might be able to get in looking slightly worse on paper, the you have to be even more exceptional of a person to figure out how to play the game. It's nebulous, and it is highly dependent on the person and the exact location (if you are in some remote rural town vs. a nice area of Omaha), but I don't think it's as simple as people like to bitch and moan about.

What was the point of this? So it is good to raise kids in DC or not?

[Anonymous]

Well, whether or not it is a good place to raise kids depends on whether it is a good fit for your family or not, and is highly personal.

But in general, I think growing up relatively affluent with educated parents who care about sending you to high quality schools, in a major metropolitan area that is full of other educated people (DC being one of many in this country) gives you a huge advantage when it comes to opportunity. Such a huge advantage in terms opportunity that any gripes about how competitive and cutthroat the atmosphere is are relatively minor in comparison to how much opportunity one has growing up in an area like DC with parents of relative means.