US is designed around the idea of competition and freedom to compete. Everyone gets a chance to wrestle to the top of the heap, instead of being forced to stay lower class or upper class.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DD found her people at her school. She is surrounded by fun, social kids who are smart and hard-working. They are at a rigorous school, so they all understand that people have to grind, and they’ll often study together in between meals and social activities. It has made it much easier to balance social life and studying because everyone understands and is in the same boat.

And yet she and her peers are going to be working alongside, and probably even managed by, the kids who are content to study a reasonable amount at a lower ranked school, and who also actually HAVE hobbies, interests, and a social life.

Says you?

There's a whole "elite tier" of careers.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DD found her people at her school. She is surrounded by fun, social kids who are smart and hard-working. They are at a rigorous school, so they all understand that people have to grind, and they’ll often study together in between meals and social activities. It has made it much easier to balance social life and studying because everyone understands and is in the same boat.

And yet she and her peers are going to be working alongside, and probably even managed by, the kids who are content to study a reasonable amount at a lower ranked school, and who also actually HAVE hobbies, interests, and a social life.

Hopefully their reading comprehension will be better than yours.

Everybody Wants to Rule the World

Anonymous wrote:DD found her people at her school. She is surrounded by fun, social kids who are smart and hard-working. They are at a rigorous school, so they all understand that people have to grind, and they’ll often study together in between meals and social activities. It has made it much easier to balance social life and studying because everyone understands and is in the same boat.

And yet she and her peers are going to be working alongside, and probably even managed by, the kids who are content to study a reasonable amount at a lower ranked school, and who also actually HAVE hobbies, interests, and a social life.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Once you get out of areas where everyone is obsessed with prestige and comparing themselves with everyone else, your life gets vastly better. Go to a good school, live in a moderate-sized city with real people, and quietly be a big fish in a smaller pond with little pressure to constantly compete with others. It’s heavenly.

This was me growing up. Hated it. Wasn’t just a big fish was a fish out of water. Much happier now in a community that values education, intelligence and hard work. My kids have academic peers in school and doing well in school is valued here.

+1

Anonymous wrote:Why is everyone fighting so hard to get their kids into a "top 30-ish" school?

Less than 5% of college students attend a top 50 college. About 2.4% of college students in the US attend a top 30 college. Roughly 1% attend a "top 20" college. What is the point in fighting to be such a tiny fraction of college students.

Where is your citation for this? Top 30 nat’l universities and SLACs?

Anonymous wrote:Why is everyone fighting so hard to get their kids into a "top 30-ish" school?

Less than 5% of college students attend a top 50 college. About 2.4% of college students in the US attend a top 30 college. Roughly 1% attend a "top 20" college. What is the point in fighting to be such a tiny fraction of college students.

Simple math: 2-3% go to the top30ish. Most parents with top 20% kids think their kids are top 2-3% and thus entitled to it. Grade inflation has made the problem much worse, when 10-15% of students at many high schools graduate with 4.0uw, over 50% with 4.0+ Weighted. 25-30 years ago, one kid maybe two would have 4.0uw.
Same with the Top10/ivy, under 1% of college students attend: Most parents with top 10% kids think they are top1% and thus entitled to a spot. Factor in hooked spots and unless you are truly a 99%ile kid you have no realistic shot nor would the school be a great fit. If parents were able to more accurately assess where their student stood relative to the pool it would cause less wasted reaching.
As a parent with a 99.9%ile kid, top everything academically+creative, as well as a 98%ile kid as well as a 92-93rd%ile kid, the difference between their academic potential is clear, despite the fact that all qualified for at least some portion of the academically gifted and talented program in our public schools. We moved to private for 4th-6th-7th and all were tracked into different math groups and the differences were suddenly very apparent.

Anonymous wrote:Once you get out of areas where everyone is obsessed with prestige and comparing themselves with everyone else, your life gets vastly better. Go to a good school, live in a moderate-sized city with real people, and quietly be a big fish in a smaller pond with little pressure to constantly compete with others. It’s heavenly.

This was me growing up. Hated it. Wasn’t just a big fish was a fish out of water. Much happier now in a community that values education, intelligence and hard work. My kids have academic peers in school and doing well in school is valued here.

Great for people whose kids can access the T-10’s or T-5 LAC’s. I went to two of those, am
Doing well, so this isn’t envy or sour grapes. But the vast majority don’t go to those kinds of schools and it’s important for kids to know that that’s ok- those schools aren’t the only golden ticket to things (and sometimes they’re not a ticket to anywhere for those who have bad experiences).

Anonymous wrote:DD found her people at her school. She is surrounded by fun, social kids who are smart and hard-working. They are at a rigorous school, so they all understand that people have to grind, and they’ll often study together in between meals and social activities. It has made it much easier to balance social life and studying because everyone understands and is in the same boat.

Exactly my ivy kid's experience.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Once you get out of areas where everyone is obsessed with prestige and comparing themselves with everyone else, your life gets vastly better. Go to a good school, live in a moderate-sized city with real people, and quietly be a big fish in a smaller pond with little pressure to constantly compete with others. It’s heavenly.

I did this for a while, and I hated it. I hated being a big fish in a small pond because I felt there wasn’t any room for me to grow.

The key for me is that I never feel like I’m competing against others. I’m only ever competing against myself. What I like about competitive places is that they usually provide opportunities to try all kinds of things, because they attract an expansive energy. I like swimming in an ocean, not a pond, because there is just so much more to see.

I get this for preferring universities to LACs. What’s odd about the American college system, though, is that the so-called “ocean” is broken up into small ponds, while most of the schools you are deriding as “ponds” are many times larger. People could be forgiven for thinking there is “more to see” and more “expansive energy” at NYU than at Dartmouth.

Anonymous wrote:Once you get out of areas where everyone is obsessed with prestige and comparing themselves with everyone else, your life gets vastly better. Go to a good school, live in a moderate-sized city with real people, and quietly be a big fish in a smaller pond with little pressure to constantly compete with others. It’s heavenly.

This is a function of just geography more than anything.

If you moved Harvard to the middle of Iowa, then no suprise, everyone in Iowa and surrounding states would be obsessed with Harvard.

To this day, 86% of all college students attend college within 500 miles of home.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why is everyone fighting so hard to get their kids into a "top 30-ish" school?

Less than 5% of college students attend a top 50 college. About 2.4% of college students in the US attend a top 30 college. Roughly 1% attend a "top 20" college. What is the point in fighting to be such a tiny fraction of college students.

People like to be with their peers. 1% like to be with 1%, 5% be with 5%. 50%tile kids in a 1%tile environment would not be happy, and vis versa.

True.

Anonymous wrote:Once you get out of areas where everyone is obsessed with prestige and comparing themselves with everyone else, your life gets vastly better. Go to a good school, live in a moderate-sized city with real people, and quietly be a big fish in a smaller pond with little pressure to constantly compete with others. It’s heavenly.

I did this for a while, and I hated it. I hated being a big fish in a small pond because I felt there wasn’t any room for me to grow.

The key for me is that I never feel like I’m competing against others. I’m only ever competing against myself. What I like about competitive places is that they usually provide opportunities to try all kinds of things, because they attract an expansive energy. I like swimming in an ocean, not a pond, because there is just so much more to see.