4 ms·

"hours of nightly homework, daily sports practice and band rehearsal..." Maybe adults should stop telling teenagers that their performance in these things matt

"hours of nightly homework, daily sports practice and band rehearsal..." Maybe adults should stop telling teenagers that their performance in these things matters that much? Sports / Music are great if you enjoy them, and learning the high school curriculum is important, but outside of the top 1%, there's little reason to compete in these tournaments.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
nradov 11y ago
The theory is that participation in sports and music will be the crucial factor that gets those teenagers admitted to elite colleges. There's some truth to that, but probably not quite as much as many parents seem to think.
- jonnathanson 11y ago
  There is a common misconception that elite schools want "well rounded" students. In fact they want well rounded student bodies, composed of extremely lopsided students who excel in individual domains. It is far better for your child to be a world-class swimmer, for example, than for her to be a participant in swimming, tennis, student government, the school newspaper, etc. Parents urge their kids to take up as many extracurriculars as possible in the hopes of creating the impression of well-roundedness. Students resent it, but they bear the burden because they believe their parents know what they're talking about. Add to this the unfortunate reality that not everyone gets to be world-class at something. What do you do if you don't excel at any one thing? Work your ass off to create the impression of excelling at as many things as possible. It's a shitty treadmill to run. But what's the alternative? Excellent grades are a given; they are basically table stakes. So above and beyond great grades, you need some sort of extracurricular presence to burnish your college applications. But your chances of admission are basically a crapshoot at that point, so you pile on the extracurriculars in an attempt to get more darts to throw at the board.
  - pizza 11y ago
    I couldn't have said it better myself.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

nradov 11y ago

The theory is that participation in sports and music will be the crucial factor that gets those teenagers admitted to elite colleges. There's some truth to that, but probably not quite as much as many parents seem to think.

jonnathanson 11y ago
There is a common misconception that elite schools want "well rounded" students. In fact they want well rounded student bodies, composed of extremely lopsided students who excel in individual domains. It is far better for your child to be a world-class swimmer, for example, than for her to be a participant in swimming, tennis, student government, the school newspaper, etc. Parents urge their kids to take up as many extracurriculars as possible in the hopes of creating the impression of well-roundedness. Students resent it, but they bear the burden because they believe their parents know what they're talking about. Add to this the unfortunate reality that not everyone gets to be world-class at something. What do you do if you don't excel at any one thing? Work your ass off to create the impression of excelling at as many things as possible. It's a shitty treadmill to run. But what's the alternative? Excellent grades are a given; they are basically table stakes. So above and beyond great grades, you need some sort of extracurricular presence to burnish your college applications. But your chances of admission are basically a crapshoot at that point, so you pile on the extracurriculars in an attempt to get more darts to throw at the board.
- pizza 11y ago
  I couldn't have said it better myself.