Reply to "The majority of your children are average. And so are you."

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The majority of the people who lives in McLean are NOT average. That statement is stupid.

(No, I don't live there.)[/quote]

I take it that you were one of those shocked, appalled, gasping parents in the crowd then? Yes, the majority of people who live in McLean (and elsewhere) are average. As stunning as this may seem, about 1-2 of all of the brilliant, awesome, perfect kids from McLean High School will get into Harvard each year. 1-3 more (or the same ones, more likely) will get into Yale, Princeton, Stanford, MIT, Chicago, Columbia, and CalTech. A few more than that will get into Penn, Cornell, Brown, Dartmouth, Northwestern, and Georgetown. That leaves . . . well, you can do the math. Almost EVERYONE ELSE. The conclusion here is that all of these awesome, amazing, brilliant straight A kids . . . actually aren't that special. This shouldn't be that stunning of a revelation.

Those of you that went to Harvard, maybe your kids will get in. But they probably won't.

This, of course, doesn't make them idiots. And it doesn't mean they are destined for an unhappy life. But this entitled, blind, unrealistic attitude of seemingly every parent in this area that "my kid is clearly destined for greatness" is precisely what the PTA pres in the article is railing against.[/quote]

LOLOL how many kids at an [b]AVERAGE[/b] high school in America get into HYPS or MIT / CalTech?

That tells you right there that these kids are not average![/quote]

McLean has an average SAT score in Reading, Math and Critical Writing that is about 100 points each above the national average. That's nice, but it's not all that. It's exactly the amount of improvement that you would expect for the SES background that these kids come from.  The SAT and ACT are strongly biased to favor wealthy SES students, and McLean students do about average for that group. It's great that these kids get into HYPS and MIT/Caltech, but it's not because they have natural talent. Their parents prep them obsessively. They know how to play the game and how to package their kids.

These kids aren't uber-special. They're average for who they and where they come from. They're not going to set the world on fire. They're really kind of boring people. They do everything just right. They follow the rules. I wonder if they're going to get to 40 and have a huge midlife crisis because they've been following the rules the whole time and never took a chance or did a single creative thing or a single unexpected thing in their whole lives. They don't follow their hearts. I'm not even sure they know their hearts.  They experience identity foreclosure or identity diffusion at high rates, either becoming little cookie cutter versions of their parents or never committing to anything at all.

[/quote]

[b]You took something that had a grain of truth in it, and then ran way too far with it.[/b]  [b]So the impression I'm left with is that you're either really resentful or you're trying very hard to validate your own life experiences, whatever they may have been[/b].  You don't know those kids that well.  Some are, in fact, brilliant, and will go on to do some pretty amazing things.  Others may not, but it doesn't mean their futures are bleak.[/quote]

Completely agree, especially with the bolded part.  I detect a whole lot of resentment in PP's post.[/quote]

Here's what you detect: experience. I advise a student organization at a top 10 university.  I am an alumna of that university. I am also a first generation college graduation.  Thes kids that I work with are highly successful by any stretch of the imagination. 90% of them are from high SES families. However, many of them drift aimlessly. They don't have a plan, except the one their parents gave them. They haven't really formed an identity outside the one that their parents chose for them. They aren't committed to anything, other than doing what their parents tell them to do.  The rate of failure to launch after graduation is pretty high, because these kids are only working to make their parents happy. These kids have all the talent in the world, but don't have the slightest idea what they want to do.  They're excellent at achieving the goals set by their parents, but those goals are pointless if they aren't goals set by the kids. Parents like the parents in that article piss me off.  [/quote]

You "advise a student organization" at a university.  Wow - I'm totaly blown over by your expertise and depth of knowledge.   :roll:

Thanks for confirming that you view the world through your own prism to justify your own experience.   I'm sure you can sell that to others, but  I know too many kids from this area who are succeeding and forging ahead in life to buy these platitudes.  Most of them are quite appreciative of the advantages they've enjoyed, although they are certainly bright enough to talk about how stressful things were in HS if they know that's what you want to hear from them.   [/quote]

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