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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I think y’all are being needlessly tough on OP/her daughter.

The amount of energy it takes to be a top high school student at a top school (especially in an intense area like DCUM-land!) is immense. One’s entire identity is wrapped up in being a good student and striving for the best. The sum of a full school day, extracurriculars, homework, basic self care, etc. is more intense — and involves more competing priorities — than most other busy periods in ones life.

OP’s daughter probably realized she worked to the point of deteriorating her QOL. She has a right to be frustrated with the situation even if the outcome is objectively fantastic. [/quote]

[b]I think one issue is that OP doesn't realize that coming from a "Big 5" doesn't carry the same weight it might have once. [/b] This country is full of kids in public schools in areas outside of major urban centers who also work really hard, do extracurriculars, sports, and so forth, and also have great grades and test scores.  Elite colleges want more of these kids, have the funds to subsidize their educations, and are less and less interested in hot-housed private school kids.  Basically, take away "top 5 private" and OP's kid looks just like thousands and thousands of other kids around the country; nothing special or standout. She sounds like a smart, hard-working kid, and is getting accepted into exactly the match schools that suit her level of achievement. [b] The issue is she thought she was better than that, but she really isn't.  [/b]

[/quote]

This is it exactly.  OP has told her daughter that she's made of magic because she was accepted to a well-known private.  I chuckled to myself when the other pp chimed in about how hard they worked in a Big 3 twenty years ago, the hours, the stress, the extracurriculars.  We all did, bub.  There are bright, driven kids at public and parochial schools in cities and towns and suburbs all over America staying up until 1 to finish homework for 5 APs and run their lines for the school play and then getting up at 6:30 to make it to cross-country practice.  The problem isn't that these private school kids work uniquely hard in a "pressure cooker" or whatever they tell themselves.  The problem is that they think don't realize it's happening everywhere, and they believe that they could have put in far less effort and ended up in the same, or nearly the same place.  OP's kid should be glad she busted her hump in high school, because it affords her the opportunity to choose among very good schools for college.  She should not believe, as she evidently does, that she was guaranteed a spot at a school like Grinnell or W&M simply by virtue of her alma mater, and that extra effort meant she was destined for an Ivy.  [/quote]

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