Reply to “I’d rather have a happy kid at UMD than a miserable one at Harvard”

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[quote=Anonymous]I was reading a thread in the Teens forum and saw this sentiment posted:

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1128635.page

“A happy, confident, smart kid from a middling college will be more successful than a depressed, burned out, resentful kid with no social circle from Harvard.”

“There are kids who go to Harvard because their neurotic parents have structured every facet of their lives to such a degree that the kids are empty shelled puppets. That will eventually have devastating effect on the kids.“

But I don’t think that’s true at all. I think this is a false fallacy. Like if you end up depressed, burnt out, resentful, and with no social circle from Harvard, you probably would’ve ended up similar situated from UMD or a liberal arts college. If you’re miserable at an Ivy, you probably would’ve been miserable elsewhere, whether that’s UMD or UVA or VaTech or a SLAC.

One of the other commenters mentioned that there was a thread on the career forum a while ago from a college student at Columbia who wanted to leave the school because it made her “depressed, burnt out, resentful, and socially isolated.” But it was very obvious from the post and the comments that this young woman was maladjusted to begin with. Going to a specific college is not going to fix that, whether it’s an Ivy, a state school, or a LAC.

I think it’s time to dispel the myth for once and for all that high schoolers who are pushed by their parent to go to elite colleges and be high-achieving both academically and professionally are somehow miserable. That’s totally not true IME. Most of the kids I know whose parents pushed us into aiming for the Ivies and going into lucrative careers are very grateful that they did so. I went to a “pressure cooker” public high school in the Bay Area that many white parents avoided because it was “too intense.” But that intensity definitely pays off when it comes to academic and professional success. [/quote]

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