Flaming out at "Dream School"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You need to help your kid understand that colleges have more similarities than differences and that for every school, there are at least 5 or 10 other schools she’d like just as much or more. And probably 100 from which she could launch into healthy, happy, successful adulthood.

I take Peterson’s College Guide’s word for it: there are hundreds from which a kid can launch. I like Peterson’s as a guide to the top 10% of colleges and universities - 387 out of about 4,000 or so. Don’t limit yourself to just the “top 100.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can empathize with a kid going through this and feeling the need to leave school. I can. However, I can't help thinking of all of the immigrants in my family that moved here for grad schools, sight (site?) unseen (often, never having been to the US, let alone complaining about the specific weather or culture). No matter what the difficulties were, they made it work, as so much was on the line. And they were all better for it. I know it has been discussed on other threads, but I honestly think the concept of 'fit' and 'happy' has made these youngsters a bit too precious.

Anyway, OP, tell your DD that the school is a great choice, but try to discourage the fixating as much as possible. Introduce schools to her that are at different levels, and the benefits of attending each. I think the skills that make a HS student successful generally prep you for college. At least that's how it's supposed to work!

I think because they had goals other than their own happiness. Our kids today have so much. They want for so little. They’re groundless in many ways. All they have left is their own introspection. They’re set up to believe they’re own happiness is the most important thing, when truthfully, that can be very hard to achieve.

There was some other thread where a poster talked about immigrants and the idea of thinking generationally. That one generation makes sacrifices for the benefit of the next one. I’m a first gen American and am acutely aware of the poverty my parents were born into and the sacrifices they made for my sibling and I. I hope I’m providing a grounding for my own children and a sense of the world being bigger than just themselves and their own interests at any one moment.

Thank God for the humble immigrants’ children, because the kids from upper middle class, multi-generational American families are generally selfish and unwilling to work hard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You're right, all the clients of mine who feel like idiots are lying to me. It's a conspiracy. From inferior high schools to average UMC high schools to elite magnet and prep schools, every 12th grader in the top 10% of their respective class leaves equally prepared to set the world on fire at college.

Well, that’s certainly the way large universities look at candidates now. Absent the SAT, how can they possibly differentiate academic potential among all the 4.0 students out there?