Reply to What's at the end of the learning rainbow?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The end of the rainbow for me is a thoughtful, inquisitive kid who can think for themselves by using their acquired base of knowledge and extending off of that with logic, deductive and intuitive reasoning.  I want them to be better than me.

I think most highly successful people around these parts expect their kids to go to the Ivies and equivalents (UVA, WM, Cal, Duke, Rice, Vandy, NU, etc etc) and they probably sort of expect a graduate degree in addition to that.

Maybe I'm foolish and naive, but I expect my K kid to be in AAP if that program is taking the top 10-15% of their cohorts.  I also expect them to have a decent chance at getting into TJ (50%?) but whether they get in or whether they choose to go is not as important.

I mean, basically, if you grew up and attended GT programs, went to Ivies, did well for yourself then you pretty much see that as a reasonable, attainable baseline for your kids as well.  [/quote]

Except as many parents who went to Ivies are finding, it's gotten so much more competitive that their kids are not going to find that an attainable baseline.    I'm not sure I'd get into my top 10 college now and I can bet my kids wouldn't.  As smart and bright and inquisitive as they are, they're not the brightest kids with the most unique talents and impressive extracurriculars.  They don't spend every waking hour trying to get all A's and make sure they're the president of every organization they're involved in.  And increasingly, from competitive HS schools in this area, those are the kids who are cherry-picked to attend, what I guess are called elite schools.

As for TJ, currently the admissions rate is about 16%.

[/quote]

I don't know about your school, but my school's admission classes have grown pretty much with the rate of population growth in the US - yes, there are more foreign students in the incoming class than 25 years ago, but relatively minuscule in the grand scheme of things and the number of slots pretty much has kept pace with population, so if the kids are in the top X% of their cohorts then they will have a slot and get in.

Are incoming freshman SAT/ACT etc scores improving over time - certainly, but that is because everyone is doing better.  The same schools are taking the same group of 99%tile kids.  You really should not look at scores but rather percentiles.  Did your college average move from taking 90%tile to 95%?  If so then that school has changed and has gotten tougher - I would bet most schools that are "elite" have not become more selective percentile wise.  You see admission rates decrease because you're seeing a higher number of people applying to (more and more) schools, not the schools being more selective.

Would my SATs get me into my college 25 years later?  No.  But if I grew up 25 years later my SAT scores would have improved.  Why?  I have no idea - grade inflation, easy testing, better schooling, lots of reasons.

And TJ admission rate is 16% but that is because a lot of kids who should not apply are applying.  There is nothing wrong with kids on the fringe giving it a shot and putting their name in the hat.  But admission rates for kids who on paper 'look' like a TJ kid [based on scores on standardized testing] would be much higher than that I imagine.  [/quote]

Positive thinking is good, I suppose.  Who knows what the landscape will look like when today's kindergartner's go to college.  When my kids were young they were saying that things would be less competitive by now.  They're more competitive than ever.

But I think you're going to be surprised that the elite schools in particular are much tougher to crack then they used to be.  [/quote]

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