The perils of going to a hyper competitive HS. Unless your kid can seriously be in the top 1-5%, it

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yup it’s called special snowflake syndrome.

It also explains why people continue to go to law school and grad school for the humanities even though it’s been a long time since those paths led to material success for other than the top 1-5% of applicants.

Everyone thinks they’ll be the one.

However, going to a “bad” school with truly poor teachers isn’t a great alternative either unless you have the time and energy to teach your kid everything yourself. Most don’t.

I graduated from an Ivy League law school many years ago, and I do lots of hiring duties for my organization. When I meet young people considering law school, I tell them not to bother right now, unless they can get into a top school. Some think I am a snobbish ogre, but I am just being honest. They will graduate with a mound of debt, and dim employment prospects. It is just not worth it.

That’s still true for law but other fields are realizing that their most creative employees, the ones who are open to others’ ideas and willing to take risks—didn’t go to Ivy League schools or play it safe and get all As all the way through. Tons of articles about this places like google, mckinsey etc. —there are places for everyone, just help your kid figure out what they’re good at and what they like and where those two things meet. The world is changing and all of you worrying about Ivy League etc. still won’t be able to predict what’s going to happen. But your kid will be successful if they’re passionate about what they do and are able to leverage it into a career of some sort. I say this as someone with three Ivy League or “top” school credentials who could care less if my kids go that route. I didn’t follow a traditional path post school and it wouldn’t have mattered for me either had I got to East Nothing U. Lots of ways to get a good education, and not all of them are even in traditional school. And by the way, my kids really believe that I believe this, and so when they work hard, it’s becaude they’re motivated. They’re not doing anything to please me academically, they hustle for themselves. That will pay off more than riding your kid about homework and grades.

Yeah, because all kids are brilliant and highly motivated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:can work against you. Too many type A parents think if they buy a house in "the Best" district, their kid will be at an advantage. Same goes for Specializes HSs, the pool of kids is very hard to compete against, and you may or may not know, top colleges evaluate apps BY SCHOOL. So if 30 kids from the same HS apply to Harvard, they are all compared against each other. The same kid who did extremely well, but not tops, could have lived 10 miles away in a "mediocre" SD, and had much better odds.

You literally don't know what you're talking about. More importantly, admission to school is only one part of the equation -- high school should prepare you to succeed in college. And a mediocre school is less likely to do that than a top school.

But this notion that the same proportion of kids from a mediocre school are going to be accepted at a top university as the proportion from a top high school is just false and wishful thinking. It really doesn't work that way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is posted on here every couple of weeks.

Going to a strong HS is not about getting into a selective college, it is about getting out of whatever college they go to with a high GPA.

Yeah but why go to a strong HS when it actually decreases your chances of getting into a selective college?

You have not read any responses have you, OP. Geez.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DD is glad she didn't get into TJ. The friends she knows there are struggling to make Bs while she has an unweighted 4.27 at her local HS.

How is unweighted 4.27 possible on a 4.0 scale?

Lots of A-pluses?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We joke that we should've moved to a podunk small town USA. But seriously, I tend to agree about the big fish/little pond theory, but part of the issue is that if your DC does get into an elite university, you also want your DC to be well prepared and not behind, and I feel like the "lower" tier HSs wouldn't prepare a student as well as a competitive and/or magnet type HS. We are trying to find the right balance, but we are also not hankering on having our kids go to Ivy leagues. If they get in, wonderful but that's not what we're shooting for.

You sound terribly conflicted.

He sounds incredible stupid .

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is posted on here every couple of weeks.

Going to a strong HS is not about getting into a selective college, it is about getting out of whatever college they go to with a high GPA.

Yeah but why go to a strong HS when it actually decreases your chances of getting into a selective college?

You have not read any responses have you, OP. Geez.

OP is a bubble headed bot.

[Anonymous]

In the public school district where I live in south central pa, in the senior class of about 350 ish, we already have 6 kids going to top 15 schools.

None were urm or athletically hooked.

That number will certainly go up to 10+ for top 25 schools when rd comes out.

That’s pretty impressive for this area.