Reply to America's Top Colleges Have a Rich-Kid Problem

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[quote=Anonymous]

I'm the 5:16 p.m. poster. OP, thanks for your later message clarifying your intent and your perspective.

[/quote] Here's what bothers me the most. Why is it that colleges value extracurriculars over work experience? Hasn't anyone made a correlation between the "work ethic" problems of recent college grads and the fact that kids no longer grow up with paper routes, jobs at the local diner, or other typical summer jobs? I'm NOT impressed with the kids from Bethesda  who go on exotic "summer study" trips.  All that tells me is that Mumsy and Daddy could afford the fees.

When hiring for my small business, I took the kid who started his own business. I'd much rather find a kid who has put in a real work day and understands the value of a dollar. Working minimum wage jobs taught me to value my college education. Yes, of course ere is a fine line, and some degree of extracurricular participation is valuable,  but it seems that today's kids no longer deign to do mundane work. Try to find a high school babysitter! They're all too busy with extracurriculars. My kids protest because we make them help us with yard work. Everyone else in our neighborhood has a yard service. But what does this teach our kids? So many of my friends - with yard services - lament the fact that THEY cut the grass when they were kids, yet their kids aren't asked to do the same.

Sorry for going a bit off tangent here, but my point is that colleges should also value the kids who work after school and can write meaningful essays about the value of that work. A work ethic is what made this country strong.  [/quote]

How true! Even worse than the summer trips to exotic locals would be the rich parents who instead of making their kid work or take some community college course while awaiting the second semester acceptance to the elite school sends them to "study" abroad instead.  No wonder these kids "chat effortlessly" about their lives to college interviewers, everything has been so easy, so the words come easily too.  My upper middle class daughter was completely intimidated by the encounter with this kid as all she could say was she was waiting it out at MC.

I grew up in this area and had a great high school education, multiple APs in the late 70s, etc, etc.  Its all about the kid and how hard they are willing to work as time goes on.  I know a top surgeon whose high school didn't even offer the courses I took.  He made up for it later at a so, so college, being the top of his class.  He knew how to work.  I really don't know what will happen to these pampered kids in the work world.[/quote]

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