Reply to do college admissions get ugly at the Big3 when all the parents are Ivy grads?

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[quote=Anonymous]As one PP noted, one typically hot-house subset of parents are first-time parents. I would add to that Venn diagram the overlap between first-time parents and parents who both went to Ivies or similar. Or even second- or third-time parents where both parents went to Ivies or similar. Neither parent realizes that (gasp!) you can be as successful, perhaps more successful (double gasp!), from a good school that's a good fit. Or even a less-good school that's a good fit. Or a good school that's a less-good fit. In our experience, and we've been around the DC "top" private school scene for awhile, many of these parents think that admissions to a lesser school than the ones they attended just means catastrophe--for the kids' happiness, for the kids' success, for the kids' future career prospects, for the kids' marriage prospects, and yes, for the parents' egos. Hang with parents at your school who have a broader perspective. Or pick a school that isn't heavily comprised of Ivy-or-similar parents. Parents where one or both are very successful but didn't go to an Ivy League school (some even went to state schools! The horror!) Parents whose oldest kid didn't go to an Ivy but is thriving at a school that's a really good fit. Parents who didn't grow up here or in the Northeast, and who understand that a great public k-12 plus education at the flagship university at the state is often a great educational path, and on some metrics, a better path. You get the picture.

To be clear, we've found a good contingent of parents with a broader view at our kids' "big" whatever school. So it's not that this rules out the "big" DC privates completely, and probably all of them could be in the mix on this score for particular classes. On the whole, though, if you really do your research, you'll find that some of these "big" schools have a higher concentration of narrow-perspective-for-college families than others. At least we did. And we avoided the one(s) that were hot-houses in that way. [/quote]

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