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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'm really depressed by everything I'm hearing about the essay.  The thing is that in my family we're pretty boring.  We go to church and we eat dinner together and we eat vegetables and we mow the lawn.

I honestly don't think if you met my kid you'd think "Wow, what a fascinating individual!"  You'd say -- Look, it's a white kid who plays the violin and takes advanced math.  You probably wouldn't find me very fascinating either.  None of us has eleventy thousand followers on Instagram.  We dress in regular clothes -- nobody has dreadlocks or a nose ring or a tattoo.

In my mind, people who are charismatic and fascinating and quirky and funny are  usually extroverts (which we're not in my family), and extremely self-confident (which no one in our family really is.).  We're timid nerds who read books.

It feels a bit like you're saying that being invited to attend your university is like being invited to sit at the popular kid's table in the cafeteria in high school lunch period.  I never sat there, but I always regarded that more as an accident of circumstance than as something I had to or could work on.  Some of us are just less interesting.  Kind of sad that these days you need to be brilliant AND fascinating, all by the age of 17.[/quote]

PP (above) -- I totally relate.  I've come to the conclusion that kids like ours go to state schools or non-competitive private schools.  I admire and I'm impressed by the credentials of these applicants who are all around all-stars.  "Where You Go is Not Who You'll Be" - gets me by.  Read it.[/quote]

Kids like yours go to excellent public schools and to many selective private schools where they can get great educations.  They probably just don't go HYPS -- at least they're unlikely to if they come from an area like DC, NYC, LA, SF and don't have something exceptional going for them.  So what?  Why does everyone (smart? UMC?) need to go to HYPS for college?  Even the smartest HS students will be intellectually challenged and have access to more resources than they can possibly make use of at a host of other very good schools.  Go forth, timid nerds, and explore whatever city of learning you find yourself in!

I hate the popular kids' lunch table metaphor, but there's one aspect that's probably on point about it.  It's the mopey, but for a fluke of fate, I coulda been among the chosen ones mentality it embodies.  Don't pass that on to your kids!  Tell them college is a great adventure, especially for book-loving nerds.  No need to be timid, this is an environment where you can find people who love the things you love and where you will have the time/freedom/independence/resources to figure out what you want to do with your life.  (Which probably isn't have lunch with the popular kids, LOL!).

Sorry for the tough love, but as a non-timid introverted book-loving nerd (who has taken or taught courses at a host of different colleges, from community college to HYPSs), it's a topic I feel really strongly about.[/quote]

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