Reply to Do you ever worry that your child might not be "elite college material"?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My parents never made it out of the 10th grade. My mom was disabled most of my childhood and my dad was a laborer.  None of my 9 aunts or uncles went to college - and only a couple of my 20 cousins did.

I went to a top 20 school from undergrad to PhD.

If I can't find a way to get my kids into a top 20 school with all the advantages they have over me (starting with a parent who knows something about college), I must have done something wrong.

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Maybe, maybe not.  On the one hand, some elite schools are focused on attracting candidates like you (were) -- they want to change lives and, to do so, they admit kids who are first generation college, come from disadvantaged backgrounds, didn't have access to excellent schools throughout childhood, etc.  Your kids aren't that kind of applicant.  And they may or may not be one of the other kinds of candidates elite schools are looking for (athletes, potential major donor (or even full pay), national award winner, student from an underrepresented group/state/country).  Second-gen legacy is a weird place to be -- kind of betwixt and between.

On another level, your kids aren't you. They may or may not be as bright, as motivated, as resourceful as you were at their age.  Some of that's genetic lottery, some of that's environment.  I guess you could put environment in the something you've done wrong category, but it's arguably the price of upward mobility.  I grew up lower middle class, got into an elite college, did well there, and, as a result, am raising an upper middle class kid.  I've worked hard to blunt some of the UMC characteristics I find most problematic (sense of entitlement, pressure to conform) but some things come with the territory (so many demands/imperatives/opportunities = very little time/need for independent exploration of interests; batshit crazy definitions of what constitutes success).

So yeah, through little or no fault of your (or their) own, your kids may not end up at "top 20" schools.  The good news is that even though those schools were crucial to your success (and mine) -- they won't be to our kids'.   They are already on a different path with different resources.  Top colleges matter a helluva lot more for kids who are have no other advantages.  And, even then, "top" isn't limited to a list of 20 highly selective undergrad programs.  To put this all more succintly, my point is it'd be really counterproductive to treat securing your childrens' acceptance at such colleges as your mission or as a standard for evaluating your success or failure as a parent.

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