We gunned our kid for an ivy and it looks like we'll miss

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My thoughts:

-I'm going to be frank and say that top20s and even UVA are just as hard admits from the DMV as the Ivies are. The only kids getting into UVA from our private are also getting Ivy admits.

-I regret all the time spent playing sports. All those weekends that we could have been spending more time together as a family (yes, we did drive to games but it's not the same). All that money wasted. That is my one parenting regret.

Don't totally disagree but what would you have been doing instead? Sitting home solving math problems and learning a fourth language isn't a good answer.

I agree that the hard core travel sports can be a bit much, especially when your kid is the worst on the team. But my kids spent tons of time playing rec sports and it was great. They enjoyed it. They made friends. We made friends. They learned a lot about teamwork, socializing, winning, losing. Skills that translate to college and the workplace. Core capabilities that Tiger parents don't appreciate or value. It provided some structure and routine for our lives. But it also didn't take over our lives.

Shame on you for your ignorance and racial implication regarding a certain group. Pushy parents of every ethnicity exist in every discipline, team sports included. Also core values like you mention can be developed outside of sports, in robotics teams, youth orchestras and chamber music, etc.

You need to bleach the bolded sentence out of your brain, PP. It's untrue at every level.

Stop jumping to conclusions. I know many white Tiger parents. I'm Jewish and the quintessential Tiger parents I am referring to are fellow Jews. So shame on you. And no, robotics and orchestra are not the same. Sorry. My kids do both. Each has a lot of value. But the denial of the value of sports is setting your kid up to fail. But you can just call me a lazy "mediocre" American and continue to complain about why the system doesn't work for you. The system is what it is. Adapt or stop whining. My kids play sports with countless wonderful kids from a huge diversity of backgrounds and ability levels who are open-minded people.

You continue to be hateful. You continue to make wrong assumptions Stop it. No one said you were lazy or anything (and I don't care that you're Jewish or American). But you really need to accept that any activity, taken with rigor and to the top level, will teach all the core values. Perhaps your children did competitive sports and less competitive or less rigorous non-sport activities. I am here to tell you that my kids did the opposite, which meant that their team building, work ethic, etc, developed in their intensive activity, and not the non-intense sports one. They are young adults and high schoolers. We can see the outcomes already.

I don't like posters such as you who are so convinced they are right when they haven't actually had enough experience to know what they're talking about. Sports is not the be-all, end-all.

Never said there is a right way or a wrong way. Just annoyed with the many posters here who refuse to accept that there are many redeeming values to sports and that they teach skills in a unique way and that it can complement some of the other wonderful activities you are mentioning. I fully agree with you - there are too many know-it-alls who are dead set on how awful sports are, and it drives me nuts. I strongly believe in well-rounded kids exposed to diverse experiences, people, etc. Too many people stick to their own and refuse to meet anyone else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Rice, Tufts, Duke, Northwestern, UCLA, Carnegie Mellon, NYU, LACs …. Soooooo many options aside from state school

FYI UCLA is a state school.

True STATEment.

[Anonymous]

Kudos to OP for generating exactly the chaos they were aiming for.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From when DC was little, we did it all. Lessons, tutoring, coaching, sports, extracurriculars, private school from when they could walk, you name it. We were gunning for those ivied walls.

And then the SAT score came back. A great score, and one to be proud of. But not 1500+. More prep, still no dice.

DC will likely end up at their state flagship or somewhere similarly ranked. The same as a lot of kids who didn't grind as hard. They'll get a good education. If the work ethic we tried to install in them through that grinding holds up, they'll get a great education. Or will DC melt like a hothouse flower once Mom and Dad aren't there to supervise? I don't know.

Do I have regrets? Ideally I wish DC could have spent more time with friends. Then again, people at our private aren't that social outside of school, at least not with us, so I didn't know if that was an option. I don't think DC needed more time playing video games or watching TV. The one thing I realistically could have given them is more time for pleasure reading, and I regret that.

So I didn't know, I feel kind of adrift. Our enterprise was a failure in its primary and unreasonable aim (getting DC into an ivy) and has yet to be tested on its secondary and reasonable aim (instilling a good academic work ethic). Has anyone been in this boat?

Why is it Ivy or state school? Why either or? Is kid a senior? Sounds like a kid like this would so well at a SLAC or a large private more than a state school.

Same question. There are several T10s that are not ivies. Chicago, Washu, Vandy, JHU. Why ivy or state?

since when was washu or vandy T10? or did people forget to count?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From when DC was little, we did it all. Lessons, tutoring, coaching, sports, extracurriculars, private school from when they could walk, you name it. We were gunning for those ivied walls.

And then the SAT score came back. A great score, and one to be proud of. But not 1500+. More prep, still no dice.

DC will likely end up at their state flagship or somewhere similarly ranked. The same as a lot of kids who didn't grind as hard. They'll get a good education. If the work ethic we tried to install in them through that grinding holds up, they'll get a great education. Or will DC melt like a hothouse flower once Mom and Dad aren't there to supervise? I don't know.

Do I have regrets? Ideally I wish DC could have spent more time with friends. Then again, people at our private aren't that social outside of school, at least not with us, so I didn't know if that was an option. I don't think DC needed more time playing video games or watching TV. The one thing I realistically could have given them is more time for pleasure reading, and I regret that.

So I didn't know, I feel kind of adrift. Our enterprise was a failure in its primary and unreasonable aim (getting DC into an ivy) and has yet to be tested on its secondary and reasonable aim (instilling a good academic work ethic). Has anyone been in this boat?

Why is it Ivy or state school? Why either or? Is kid a senior? Sounds like a kid like this would so well at a SLAC or a large private more than a state school.

Same question. There are several T10s that are not ivies. Chicago, Washu, Vandy, JHU. Why ivy or state?

since when was washu or vandy T10? or did people forget to count?

You get their point. Stop nitpicking and being so literal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Rice, Tufts, Duke, Northwestern, UCLA, Carnegie Mellon, NYU, LACs …. Soooooo many options aside from state school

100 plus.

[Anonymous]

These things have a way of working out. And there's always grad school to shoot for . . .

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is what happens when you try to mold your kid into the one you want, rather than parent and love the kid you have. I feel so bad for your kid, who surely knows they have disappointed you.

+1

[Anonymous]

If you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with.

To quote a great song that more people should listen to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is why some of us choose not to push our kids and let them decide what kind of student they choose to be. If a kid is very academic and ambitious, we'll support and make sure they have the opportunities to pursue that, and maybe that will result in going to a top school. I won't hold a kid back. But I'm not going to hound a child for years, stack their schedule based on an "Ivy or bust" mentality, or keep them out of what I view to be valuable coming-of-age activities (hanging with friends, pursuing passions that might not look good on an Ivy application, etc.). They only have one childhood, one adolescence.

Sure, a kid I raise might later say "why didn't you push me harder? maybe I would have gone further if you'd pushed me." So there's no silver bullet. But for me, I value letting my kid be themselves, making sure they understand there is value in life whether you are a super star or just a regular person, and that there are many paths to success and fulfillment.

This is way too healthy an attitude to be on this forum

[Anonymous]

What you did as a parent wasn’t parenting it was control .

In your description you are worried your kid might not be motivated at a flagship . You were most likely the type of parent yo do their college apps and review everything. Massive fail on your part. . If you had parented that would not be a thing. You didn’t teach them confidence in themselves and is their own skill sets you didn’t allow them the grace to find who they were. Instead you tried to control them .

Your kid is most likely a great kid even with your controlling behavior .

They are not a kid after 18 you need to support when they ask not control .

You are the dissatisfied one not your kid. If your kid is they got that from you which is sad.

[Anonymous]

That's a childhood and learning how to handle school and recreational time and tasks that the kid will never get back.

Lousy parenting. Fortunately it's a 5 percenter problem. The rest of the population will be less helicoptered and will outperform such kids in real life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a weird post. And seems fake?

I have 2 kids. Both private K-12. Did not gun for Ivy at all.

Frankly, they had slow to develop academic interests in middle school, and when they did develop, they were out of left field and kind of strange. We let them go deep - weird hobbies and interests that neither parent knew anything about. Both were involved in their HS in various (and different) capacities. Including leadership. But a lot of their interests were outside of school.

Oldest only got a 34 on ACT by super scoring and refused test prep (watched YouTube videos for tests each night before the exam and took the test 3 times, each time focused on a different section). Didn't want to sit through and practice the test bc thought DC thought it was a waste of time when DC could be tinkering with their "true interests".

Second kid bombed the math section of the test, though perfect on English. Humanities major. Both kids who frankly don't seem like the poster children for "top schools".

Oldest at Ivy. Younger at private T20. Both got in during RD.

We were SHOCKED. It's not about grooming them from birth. Let their interests develop organically. Nurture the weird and unusual.

You must have been both horrified and demoralized by that ACT score. Do you permit him to still use your last name ?

You clearly missed the point on the super scoring. The point was leave the kids to their own devices. It does work out wherever they end up.

[Anonymous]

OP too bad it's too late to take them back to the pet store.

[Anonymous]

1500 SAT isn’t hard. If they couldn’t reach after tries, IVYs would be a bad fit anyway. To make OP feel better, DC got 1580 SAT first try but chose to attend state flagship over T20.