Anonymous wrote:Why is it such a crime to want your child to get into a top school? Obviously “top” can mean different things, but whether it’s HYPSM or Ivies or even T50s, it shouldn’t be a horrible thing for parents to want their children to meet certain academic standards. It’s annoyed when people are attacked for wanting their kids to get a good education.
My hypothesis is that the people criticizing these parents are the parents of children who aren’t high-achieving enough to get into good schools. Otherwise, why does it matter to them so much?
Thoughts?
It isn't a crime to eat at McDonalds every day either, but people can criticize it. Versus hypothesizing, you would be better off parsing their criticism and take out of it what is of value and discard the rest. If you did so you might find the useful criticisms to be:
1. Those who are obsessed about ranking T20s/T50s should realize that a good education can come from anywhere and successful people come from less ranked universities too (eg., Tim Cook went to Auburn #97).
2. A fit for the child is important too. eg., Look up student feedback on Cornell, Columbia or Chicago in the areas of competition vs cooperation, student happiness, workload, balance... these schools are good for some students but others will be miserable there. The parent's ambition or ignorance could hurt the child if forced into the wrong schools.
3. It's the child's life not the parent's. Some parents brush aside the thinking of their children assuming they don"t know much or even worse assuming they are lazy or not ambitious. It is important to guide not decide for the child here