Tuesday's Most Active Threads

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "I am sad for DD--this past weekend" and was posted in the "Tweens and Teens" forum. The original poster says that almost every kid she knows went to Viva Vienna with someone this weekend but neither her 13-year-old daughter nor her 15-year-old son, despite reaching out to friends, were able to find someone with whom to go. Moreover, they saw on social media that those same friends attended without them. The original poster feels sad for her kids and wants to remind parents to teach their kids to be inclusive. For those like me who had previously not heard of Viva Vienna, it is a three day festival in Vienna, Virginia that includes food, entertainment, amusement rides, and venders selling all sorts of things. I was prepared to be sympathetic to the original poster, especially when most of the responses were not very supportive and, in some cases, downright hostile. But then I noticed that the original poster had extensively sock puppeted responses, including her first reply in which she criticized the way girls at the event were dressed, calling them "low brow". The original poster's sock puppeting was quite bizarre actually. She posted with many different personas. At various times she was the parent of other kids who had been excluded, the parent of a kid who had attended, but without her good friend, and the mother of teen girls (as opposed to a girl and a boy as in the original post). I am not sure what the goal of the original poster might have been other than to guilt trip other parents. If so, she was not very effective. Most posters could not have been less receptive to her pleas to be inclusive. Moreover, if the original poster's sock puppeted posts can be believed, her kids have a history of being left out of this event. The original poster even claimed that previously they purposely planned to be out of town for the weekend so that they would not have to deal with the stress. Many of the other posters in the thread come across as uncaring or even mean. As a whole, this thread does very little to promote Vienna and I suspect that after reading this thread, more than one person may consider it a place to avoid. The carnival itself also got mixed reviews. In contrast to the importance the original poster placed on it, others didn't consider it to be much of an attraction. The basic tenor of the thread is, yes, it is sad to be left out but learning to deal with that is part of growing up. Moreover, posters cited multiple actions the original poster's kids could have taken to find others with whom to attend. As I read through the thread I kept hoping to learn why, if both of the original poster's kids had been left out, she only felt sorry for her daughter. But, sadly, this question was never answered. I suspect that, like many of the identities used by the original poster when sock puppeting, the son is a figment of the original poster's imagination. That would also explain why the two kids simply didn't go to the event together.

The next most active thread was posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. Titled, "To submit or not submit? That is the question….", the original poster says that her child has a score of 1460 on the SAT. The child has good grades from a rigorous public high school, decent extracurricular activities, but no hooks. The original poster asks whether her child should submit the test score or apply test optional. I am surprised that we are already getting into college application discussions when the previous application period just ended. Posters point out that 1460 is a pretty good score but whether or not to submit it should be made on a case by case basis. Several posters suggest that colleges will know that the student likely took the exam and will, therefore, suspect that not submitting it means that the score was low. In that case, not submitting it might cause admissions officers to assume the score is worse than it is. Posters advise that the student apply during the Early Decision process, submit the score, and be realistic. Two things always surprise me about threads like this. The first is the confident statements that posters make about schools such as "school x likes test scores" or "school y is not hostile to test optional". Similarly, some posters are completely certain that an applicant with the stats described by the original poster has no chance at certain schools while other posters are equally sure that the student is almost guaranteed admission at the same school. I am skeptical that any of these posters have as clear cut understanding of the admissions priorities as they would like us to believe. The second is the amount of planning and scheming some posters put into college applications. They make General Eisenhower's planning for D-Day look amateurish. They plan out strategies for Early Decision, Early Decision 2, Early Admissions, Regular Admissions, and probably a few other admissions options with which I am not familiar. Posters also advise taking future trends regarding test scores into consideration. There is a general feeling that as test optional policies either end or become less popular, average test scores will fall due to low scores no longer being withheld. I like to poke a bit of fun at the posters who are obsessed with college admissions, describing them as the College Application Fantasy League, but all in all they tend to have really good advice. Sometimes, though, I am most struck by a poster who simply seems to be able to cut through it all and make a simple but completely solid point. I really appreciated a response saying:

FWIW, if it were my unhooked kid, I would submit a 1460 from a public school in this environment. Not because I have any insight into the actual game theory of admissions but because it's a great score, I'd want my kid to be proud of it, and screw any college that would decide to use the test optional policy to manipulate their selectivity optics.

I don't know if this is good advice or not, but I really like it anyway.

Next was a thread titled, "Anyone on here with a current student at Princeton or very recent grad?" and, like the previous thread, posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. The original poster says that her child who is a rising junior at Princeton University has not been able to establish a social group and is so miserable that the child is considering transferring. The original poster asks if anyone with experience at the school can offer advice. I was completely confused by the original poster's post and assumed that it must be full of typos. For instance, I was confounded by this sentence, "Went through bicker and did not get into eating club". But, it turns out that I have apparently not read enough F. Scott Fitzgerald. "Bicker", in this context is not the sort of thing that DCUM posters do endlessly, but rather a process of being interviewed for selective eating clubs which, in turn, are sort of combination dining halls and social clubs. The student can still join a "sign-in" eating club which are non-selective, but has not identified one as a good match. Based on the responses, Princeton can be a tough school socially for non-athletes. The best bet for the student seems to be one of the sign-in clubs which, by nature of being non-exclusionary, have members who are all types of students. Some posters fault the original poster's child for not being more open to joining one. Other posters seem to think transferring is a better option though some posters argue that all schools will have social challenges. But still other posters argue that, while this is true, it is not true to the extent that it is at Princeton. Some posters suggest that things tend to get better at Princeton during the Junior year, giving some hope to the original poster. There are quite a bit of different suggestions for the original poster. Many posters value a Princeton degree and argue for simply toughing it out until graduation. Ideas for making survival easier include doing a semester abroad or bickering again in the Fall. Some posters were not sure that the original poster was completely on the level with one even suspecting that she was trying to encourage recently accepted students to choose other schools and create space for someone on the waitlist. That seems unlikely to me, especially since there are no indications whatsoever that the original poster is not legitimate. There is also a debate about the happiness of Princeton students with some posters suggesting that it is not a very joyful place. But a number of posters, most with experience at the university, argued exactly the opposite. They admitted that some students might find the school's social scene hard to navigate, but for those who are able to, it is a great experience.

The final thread that I will discuss today was originally posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum, but I moved it to the "Beauty and Fashion" forum where it is more appropriate. Titled, "Do women ever look better after 40?", the original poster says that she believes that she looked her best at ages 30 and 40, but since the age of 43 she has started to feel old and, apparently, less attractive. She links the decline in women's appearance to their loss of fertility and asks if women ever look better in their 40s. A number of posters in this thread insist that they look great in their 40s or 50s. Others don't say much about themselves, but say that they know women of those ages who are still good looking. A number of posters don't doubt that there are women who look good in their 40s or 50s, but question whether they look better at those ages than they did when they were younger. This thread may take the cake for DCUM threads in terms of vanity. I don't think I ever seen a thread in which so many posters were so sure of their own beauty. At the same time, these posters were often quite hard on themselves. The original poster seems somewhat obsessed with analyzing the beauty of those around her, providing a number of descriptions of friends and acquaintances with an accounting of their beauty strengths and weaknesses and how those characteristics have changed with age. A number of posters seem to have gotten through the child-rearing ages, or at least the younger ages, and then made an effort to get thenselves together. This has included eating better, exercising and, in some cases, cosmetic interventions. They also dress better. These posters say that they look better now then they did ten years ago, but they don't claim to be more attractive then they were in their 20s. A few men weighed in to comment on their wives' appearances or their own looks. They tended to agree that nobody, male or female, looks better in their 40s or 50s then they did in their 20s, but in most cases, they were still able to vouch for their wives beauty. The men tended to emphasize that there is more to beauty than outward appearances and that other characteristics of their wives contributed to their attractiveness. Throughout the thread I kept wondering what the point of the discussion was and why posters were so interested in it. In many respects physical beauty is a result of luck in the gene pool. We all have to work with what we have and for some, that is a lot more than it is for others. For a few of these posters, it looks like their previous luck has finally run out and they are having difficulty coping. Others just accept it as nature running its course. Some posters argue in favor of submitting men to the same scrutiny. But there seems to be a general acceptance that by those ages men are bald with beer bellies. So men have the advantage of low expectations.