Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You don't have to go to the same HS to know each other. They might have met on their travel soccer team, their middle school robotics club and/or at horseback riding or theater camp.

"Hundreds? What high school is sending hundreds of kids to UVA?"

Other than maybe T.J. in a good year, I don't know what this person is talking about. Our high school sent two (yes NOVA). No one comes in from NOVA knowing "100s".

Anonymous wrote:It's a common complaint made in novels written by former Ivy Leaguers. So the perception that true middle class kids struggle a bit socially when surrounded by many with extreme wealth must have some basis in reality.

Anonymous wrote:You don't have to go to the same HS to know each other. They might have met on their travel soccer team, their middle school robotics club and/or at horseback riding or theater camp.

"Hundreds? What high school is sending hundreds of kids to UVA?"

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's hard for everybody to make friends at Ivies. I just toured Yale with my son and one of the first things I noticed was that almost everyone was alone. Walking alone, eating alone, studying alone. In the 2.5 hours I was on campus, I saw literally only three groups of friends. It was strange, and kind of disheartening.

I'm an introvert, and I found it pretty easy. I got in to a school filled with people like me. Nothing is that different today.

Anonymous wrote:The filthy rich cosmopolitan kids find each other immediately. Everyone is friends of friends, has that carefree rich kid vibe.

The upper middle class strivers can feel excluded and "poor".

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's a common complaint made in novels written by former Ivy Leaguers. So the perception that true middle class kids struggle a bit socially when surrounded by many with extreme wealth must have some basis in reality.

Do you mean like F. Scott Fitzgerald?

Because now it's more like the kids from "extreme wealth" are surrounded by middle and upper middle class kids (and have to adjust to the fact that the latter typically work harder and are more ambitious than they are).

No modern novels. The Love Affairs By Nathaniel P. by Adelle Waldman made this complaint.

I haven't read the book - perhaps I should - but be mindful that it's a bit of a rite of passage for middle and upper middle class kids to emphasize their adjustments to the Ivy League to underscore that they were not themselves "to the manor born."

It's left to others, of course, to point out that they may have been "to the very nice subdivision born" or "to the highly-ranked suburban high school bred."

Oh the author is actually really careful to point out Nate's privileges and blind spots. It's sort of the point of the novel (the way a "nice" guy raised progressively in the supposedly feminist 90s sees and treats women). It's a really good read, if you like fiction.

As to a point that a PP made, in the novel it's not really money that trips Nate up but more the cultural knowledge he lacks: how the other kids dress, what kinds of cars they drive, what they talk about, where they've traveled. Also the extended social network based on boarding school, certain exclusive independent day schools, and summer camps up and down the east coast that he's not tied into.

I think kids who get into Ivies tend to pick up some of this "cultural knowledge" by osmosis, and that it's probably not as relevant today as it might have been even 20-30 years ago. But in any event, the fact that some fraction of Ivy kids come from such "extended social networks" won't stop others from making plenty of friends.

Anonymous wrote:I know there are strivers from all over the world at the Ivys, but I heard the largest, most social bunches are NE, NYC, California private school kids that sort of know each other going in, making it a challenge for unconnected random kids. My colleague's daughter went to Brown because she wanted to start fresh, but then transferred to UVA because she struggled to make good bonds. In retrospect she preferred knowing a lot of people on campus. Wondering if that's a common complaint.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's a common complaint made in novels written by former Ivy Leaguers. So the perception that true middle class kids struggle a bit socially when surrounded by many with extreme wealth must have some basis in reality.

Do you mean like F. Scott Fitzgerald?

Because now it's more like the kids from "extreme wealth" are surrounded by middle and upper middle class kids (and have to adjust to the fact that the latter typically work harder and are more ambitious than they are).

No modern novels. The Love Affairs By Nathaniel P. by Adelle Waldman made this complaint.

I haven't read the book - perhaps I should - but be mindful that it's a bit of a rite of passage for middle and upper middle class kids to emphasize their adjustments to the Ivy League to underscore that they were not themselves "to the manor born."

It's left to others, of course, to point out that they may have been "to the very nice subdivision born" or "to the highly-ranked suburban high school bred."

Oh the author is actually really careful to point out Nate's privileges and blind spots. It's sort of the point of the novel (the way a "nice" guy raised progressively in the supposedly feminist 90s sees and treats women). It's a really good read, if you like fiction.

As to a point that a PP made, in the novel it's not really money that trips Nate up but more the cultural knowledge he lacks: how the other kids dress, what kinds of cars they drive, what they talk about, where they've traveled. Also the extended social network based on boarding school, certain exclusive independent day schools, and summer camps up and down the east coast that he's not tied into.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's a common complaint made in novels written by former Ivy Leaguers. So the perception that true middle class kids struggle a bit socially when surrounded by many with extreme wealth must have some basis in reality.

Do you mean like F. Scott Fitzgerald?

Because now it's more like the kids from "extreme wealth" are surrounded by middle and upper middle class kids (and have to adjust to the fact that the latter typically work harder and are more ambitious than they are).

No modern novels. The Love Affairs By Nathaniel P. by Adelle Waldman made this complaint.

I haven't read the book - perhaps I should - but be mindful that it's a bit of a rite of passage for middle and upper middle class kids to emphasize their adjustments to the Ivy League to underscore that they were not themselves "to the manor born."

It's left to others, of course, to point out that they may have been "to the very nice subdivision born" or "to the highly-ranked suburban high school bred."

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's a common complaint made in novels written by former Ivy Leaguers. So the perception that true middle class kids struggle a bit socially when surrounded by many with extreme wealth must have some basis in reality.

Do you mean like F. Scott Fitzgerald?

Because now it's more like the kids from "extreme wealth" are surrounded by middle and upper middle class kids (and have to adjust to the fact that the latter typically work harder and are more ambitious than they are).

No modern novels. The Love Affairs By Nathaniel P. by Adelle Waldman made this complaint.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's a common complaint made in novels written by former Ivy Leaguers. So the perception that true middle class kids struggle a bit socially when surrounded by many with extreme wealth must have some basis in reality.

Do you mean like F. Scott Fitzgerald?

Because now it's more like the kids from "extreme wealth" are surrounded by middle and upper middle class kids (and have to adjust to the fact that the latter typically work harder and are more ambitious than they are).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Figure 50-75 a year at the best nova high schools get into UVA, plus the kids old and younger than you. Plus local kids you know from sports, clubs, church, family connections. Easy to get to UVA and know a few hundred faces.

versus getting to an Ivy and loosely knowing maybe 1-3 kids.

Big difference.

I went to an Ivy from a private school (the only kid from my class at that particular Ivy for that particular year, maybe a max of 10 from my school were at the Ivy at any given time and we averaged 75 kids a year). That aside, was it strange and scaring going to a college where I didn't know anyone? Sure. And I coped.

Every college is going to have incoming freshmen who struggle to settle in. Sometimes it's personality (shy, reticent), sometimes it's sheer bad luck (placed into a dorm where, for some reason, person has nothing in common with the rest of the floor and can't make friends). And each year there are students who transfer to other schools for a fresh start.

Coming from NOVA, which in the eyes of the rest of the country is already a privileged area that sends hundreds of students to the Ivies each year, is no different than coming from anywhere else in the US (substitute affluent suburb of X city for NOVA).

When articles talk about "middle class" kids struggling to fit in at the Ivies they're really talking about lower middle class kids from anonymous places or small towns where very few people go to the Ivies, let alone the flagship state university. NOVA does not fit in this category.