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> My neighborhood and social circle have a number of high school age children, some aiming for high ranking universities. > None of them have these grueling 15

> My neighborhood and social circle have a number of high school age children, some aiming for high ranking universities. > None of them have these grueling 15 hour day schedules you’re describing. Hate to break it to you mate but none of them are getting in. Anyone who lives in a neighborhood with a high proportion of kids making it to the Ivy league and other top schools knows exactly what this guy is talking about. If you think it's a fib just because you're not aware of it that's not exactly robust social commentary.

toast0 2mo ago
Like, ivies and whatever are great. But overscheduling and overstessing to get into one isn't. Many states have a guaranteed acceptance path to a state school and/or a path where you do two years at community college and can transfer into a state school to do two more and get a bachelors. A great school on your degree can open doors at the beginning of your career, but missing out on that isn't some terrible tragedy.
- godwinson__4-8 2mo ago
  I agree with you. I didn't go to those schools. That doesn't mean the environments the original comment that started this chain mentioned don't exist. That was my only point. Whether they are desirable or not is another question. But I don't think we should pretend it's one with an obvious answer for parents. Yes, you don't want to stress out your kids. But I'm not sure it's so easy to blame parents from those hypercompetitive neighborhoods. We are living in a world of self interest were increasingly everyone has a college degree, thereby devaluing the credential at a basic supply/demand level. The very best schools are in a class all their own, and (rightly or wrongly) have been largely immune to this downward pressure. Talk about bubbles is also not really useful. Wealth is a bubble. Software engineering is a bubble. A neighborhood where everyone goes to a state school is a bubble. Poverty is a bubble. But at the macro level if people don't think the world is getting more cooperative and is just getting more competitive, doing whatever they can to keep or send their kids to the best bubble possible is at the very least defensible. I think there are also a lot of parents who don't seem to have a robust concept of the future. I assume anyone being born today is entering a far more competitive and frankly, brutal world by the time they are college age. The world is getting smaller. And not enough people seem willing to do the work required to make sure all kids do well. In such a world, pushing your kids in high school so they can get the best shot makes sense. This can be true even if it doesn't make other people morally wrong. In the same way wealth doesn't make you a better person. But let's not pretend that in a world where (in the United States at least) many people among us if they lose their job won't be able to afford healthcare, that wealth is entirely without virtue. Suggesting that is indicative of the same sort of "they'll be fine" thinking that frankly, strikes me as the most "bubble" idea possible. From where I sit, it's simply the case that the world is not getting easier.
  - ndriscoll 2mo ago
    Surely these hyper competitive neighborhoods are full of already wealthy people? I hear about people "needing" to spend a ton of money on kids as part of this competitive scene and I just don't get it. If you're that worried about them, why not invest that money into a house (which costs the same as e.g. 4 years at Yale, but you could potentially rent it out until they're old enough, and finance it) for them so that they basically start life on barista-FIRE mode?
    - godwinson__4-8 2mo ago
      It's a good question I would just suggest to you a lot of the behavior around wealth doesn't really make sense if you are just doing that kind of back of the napkin math. Like all the wealthy workaholics who just don't stop. They've so clearly made it and don't have to work anymore, but they can't even take it easy on themselves never mind their kids. I suspect there is a lot in the psychology of an overachiever that isn't simply turned off when one hits a financial benchmark or has a child. In the latter case, this often seems to make things worse. A parents duty is to care for their child. Having your kid end up being the wealthiest barista sounds about as good a strategy as thinking someone will have good financial sense after winning the lottery. A fool and his money are easily parted. If you worry about what will happen to your kids after you die, as many parents do, simply passing down a bag of money often doesn't feel like enough, even if to others lacking such a luxury this appears indulgent. But I agree it's a good question and also perhaps has similar implications for broader questions of public policy, such as state driven income redistribution, etc. It's also good to remember that you never really know what is going on inside other people's homes. Wealthy neighborhoods have all sorts of wrinkles and disparities, even if on balance they are clearly privileged compared to whatever the national mean is. Perhaps the more opulent the neighborhood the more the scenario you lay out is prevalent. There are plenty of neighborhoods with overachievers who have done well that don't yet represent the sort of people you might say posess "generational wealth", where this sort of thing is basically the whole idea. But then again, it's a matter of perspective. I mean you could also probably live in a cheaper neighborhood and spend less money. Questions of work and wealth have always been tied to questions of morals and power. Top schools aren't just about earning potential. They are about access and prestige. They simply don't attract people who just want to get by.
- sph87 2mo ago
  I want to add that the UC schools system has (had?) something like this. I know a good number of very intelligent people who did 2 years at a Community College and ended up going to UC Berkeley, UCLA. Not Harvard but West coast ivys at the very least.
  - s1artibartfast 2mo ago
    I have 6 bay area nieces and nephews that recently went to UC ( Three Berkeley, one Irvine, two Davis). Their school schedules largely resembled the long days described above Plus they had summer school every year as well. It is basically a suffering and compliance competition to get into college. I think this is a big part of why young women now outnumber young men 2:1 in college enrollment
    - badc0ffee 2mo ago
      > It is basically a suffering and compliance competition to get into college. I think this is a big part of why young women now outnumber young men 2:1 in college enrollment How does one follow from the other? Young men are less willing than young women to put up with this?
      - s1artibartfast 2mo ago
        Yes. It is strongly documented that the sexes have different levels of conscientiousness, and this holds up accross cultures, countries, and time. The most clear example of how female high school students have higher GPA and homework completion rate then males, but both perform similarly on standardized test or cognitive tests. As academic success increasingly depends on grind, organization, and consistency, the young men either fall behind or quit entirely.
  - csa 2mo ago
    Not only that, but there are specific JuCos that specifically feed into these schools with an incredibly high acceptance rate.
matthewdgreen 2mo ago
The Ivy League (and top-tier) situation is out of control, and genuinely raises questions about whether institutions like this should exist.
- eli_gottlieb 2mo ago
  It's not, IMHO. When I have kids, I will not send them to any such institution, and I do not advise students that I mentor to go to such institutions.
- impendia 2mo ago
  What would it mean for them to not exist? The issue, as I see it, is that elite credentials are overvalued, and that we live in a society which is becoming more and more unequal, and where housing prices in particular are skyrocketing. Without solving that, the alternatives to the Ivy League (e.g. undisguised nepotism) seem to be even worse.
- locknitpicker 2mo ago
  > The Ivy League (and top-tier) situation is out of control, and genuinely raises questions about whether institutions like this should exist. You're posting in a discussion where a hefty share of all posters are openly stating these schools being by far their top choice. Don't you think this correlates with demand for one of the limited spots they open each year? What do you think would happen if Ivy League schools suddenly vanished from the face of the earth?
  - matthewdgreen 2mo ago
    What I think should happen is that these schools should increase their class sizes to match demand, rather than keeping them artificially low in order to game acceptance criteria. I think it’s a systematic societal failure that we’ve created the incentives for educational institutions to optimize for these metrics and exclusivity, rather than to educate people.
csa 2mo ago
> Anyone who lives in a neighborhood with a high proportion of kids making it to the Ivy league and other top schools knows exactly what this guy is talking about. The person whose view you endorse supports what many parents believe. I’ve seen how the sausage is made, and he has it (mostly) wrong. Many people seem to think that being more above average is the key to elite school admissions. It helps, and it’s directionally correct (one needs to show academic competence), but the key is to be truly exceptional in something. Five extracurriculars is almost the same as one or even none if there was no demonstration of exceptional performance or leadership. Taking the max load of AP classes versus just a few is not as helpful as people seem to think. Using one’s time to do something unique and/or exceptional would be time much better spent. I beat this drum as often as I can here and elsewhere, but the upper middle class folks in that particular rat race don’t seem interested in hearing what I’m saying.
- verall 2mo ago
  It's worse, this is mostly just to be a shoe-in for a good state school, with a "maybe I'll get lucky and an ivy will accept anyways", unless you're really exception in at least one of these areas. > Using one’s time to do something unique and/or exceptional would be time much better spent. The fact is that most high schoolers are just not unique or exceptional but still want a shot to break out of currently very poor job prospects or hourly labor. I think many of these kids are capable of much more once they have some time to grow up, but the system is such that they need to show their color by roughly 17 to be "exceptional" along the traditional route. I was in high school not that long ago, I understood the point you make then, but it didn't make me unique or exceptional. Most kids just want to be good enough, to do okay.
- s1artibartfast 2mo ago
  The catch is that it is harder to brute force being truly exceptional in one thing. That often requires talent and predisposition. Grinding 15 hours a day is a more realistic option for most children and parents.
  - csa 2mo ago
    > The catch is that it is harder to brute force being truly exceptional in one thing. That often requires talent and predisposition. That’s true for sports, music, and academics, but I think “grinding” exceptional leadership can be a thing. It’s very learnable, and effort often times makes the difference. Some simple examples I’ve seen in various forms: - starting a meaningful business or non-profit - starting a meaningful arts or sports experience (literary magazine, regional film festival, regional sports event/tournament, etc.) - many/most substantial Eagle Scout projects (not all are substantial enough) The heuristic I tell people to use is this — the reader of the application will go “no kidding… I’d really like to talk to this person and learn more about this” (aka “have a beer with them” type of sentiment) > Grinding 15 hours a day is a more realistic option for most children and parents. See above… grind at the right thing. Full-time grinding academics is a fools errand unless the applicant can demonstrate their competence at a regional level, if not national or international level.
thatfrenchguy 2mo ago
The fact that everyone in your peer group does it (looking at you, people who are faking research paper contributions by high schoolers) does not mean that it is a criteria for actual college admissions.
BeetleB 2mo ago
> Hate to break it to you mate but none of them are getting in. If they're not getting in, they're applying to the wrong places. Even now, I know plenty of high school kids getting into multiple universities with a very average schedule and not particularly good grades. Not everyone has to go to a top 10, or even a top 50 school. I want to a very average state school (not even in the top 100) for undergrad, and a top 5 school for grad school. For undergrads, the primary benefit of the top grad school was networking. The differences in curriculum were minor, and the low ranked school taught much better. Most employers really don't care that much about the ranking of the university. If anyone is working crazy hard and only targeting the top universities, the injury is self inflicted.

toast0 2mo ago

Like, ivies and whatever are great. But overscheduling and overstessing to get into one isn't. Many states have a guaranteed acceptance path to a state school and/or a path where you do two years at community college and can transfer into a state school to do two more and get a bachelors. A great school on your degree can open doors at the beginning of your career, but missing out on that isn't some terrible tragedy.

godwinson__4-8 2mo ago
I agree with you. I didn't go to those schools. That doesn't mean the environments the original comment that started this chain mentioned don't exist. That was my only point. Whether they are desirable or not is another question. But I don't think we should pretend it's one with an obvious answer for parents. Yes, you don't want to stress out your kids. But I'm not sure it's so easy to blame parents from those hypercompetitive neighborhoods. We are living in a world of self interest were increasingly everyone has a college degree, thereby devaluing the credential at a basic supply/demand level. The very best schools are in a class all their own, and (rightly or wrongly) have been largely immune to this downward pressure. Talk about bubbles is also not really useful. Wealth is a bubble. Software engineering is a bubble. A neighborhood where everyone goes to a state school is a bubble. Poverty is a bubble. But at the macro level if people don't think the world is getting more cooperative and is just getting more competitive, doing whatever they can to keep or send their kids to the best bubble possible is at the very least defensible. I think there are also a lot of parents who don't seem to have a robust concept of the future. I assume anyone being born today is entering a far more competitive and frankly, brutal world by the time they are college age. The world is getting smaller. And not enough people seem willing to do the work required to make sure all kids do well. In such a world, pushing your kids in high school so they can get the best shot makes sense. This can be true even if it doesn't make other people morally wrong. In the same way wealth doesn't make you a better person. But let's not pretend that in a world where (in the United States at least) many people among us if they lose their job won't be able to afford healthcare, that wealth is entirely without virtue. Suggesting that is indicative of the same sort of "they'll be fine" thinking that frankly, strikes me as the most "bubble" idea possible. From where I sit, it's simply the case that the world is not getting easier.
- ndriscoll 2mo ago
  Surely these hyper competitive neighborhoods are full of already wealthy people? I hear about people "needing" to spend a ton of money on kids as part of this competitive scene and I just don't get it. If you're that worried about them, why not invest that money into a house (which costs the same as e.g. 4 years at Yale, but you could potentially rent it out until they're old enough, and finance it) for them so that they basically start life on barista-FIRE mode?
  - godwinson__4-8 2mo ago
    It's a good question I would just suggest to you a lot of the behavior around wealth doesn't really make sense if you are just doing that kind of back of the napkin math. Like all the wealthy workaholics who just don't stop. They've so clearly made it and don't have to work anymore, but they can't even take it easy on themselves never mind their kids. I suspect there is a lot in the psychology of an overachiever that isn't simply turned off when one hits a financial benchmark or has a child. In the latter case, this often seems to make things worse. A parents duty is to care for their child. Having your kid end up being the wealthiest barista sounds about as good a strategy as thinking someone will have good financial sense after winning the lottery. A fool and his money are easily parted. If you worry about what will happen to your kids after you die, as many parents do, simply passing down a bag of money often doesn't feel like enough, even if to others lacking such a luxury this appears indulgent. But I agree it's a good question and also perhaps has similar implications for broader questions of public policy, such as state driven income redistribution, etc. It's also good to remember that you never really know what is going on inside other people's homes. Wealthy neighborhoods have all sorts of wrinkles and disparities, even if on balance they are clearly privileged compared to whatever the national mean is. Perhaps the more opulent the neighborhood the more the scenario you lay out is prevalent. There are plenty of neighborhoods with overachievers who have done well that don't yet represent the sort of people you might say posess "generational wealth", where this sort of thing is basically the whole idea. But then again, it's a matter of perspective. I mean you could also probably live in a cheaper neighborhood and spend less money. Questions of work and wealth have always been tied to questions of morals and power. Top schools aren't just about earning potential. They are about access and prestige. They simply don't attract people who just want to get by.
sph87 2mo ago
I want to add that the UC schools system has (had?) something like this. I know a good number of very intelligent people who did 2 years at a Community College and ended up going to UC Berkeley, UCLA. Not Harvard but West coast ivys at the very least.
- s1artibartfast 2mo ago
  I have 6 bay area nieces and nephews that recently went to UC ( Three Berkeley, one Irvine, two Davis). Their school schedules largely resembled the long days described above Plus they had summer school every year as well. It is basically a suffering and compliance competition to get into college. I think this is a big part of why young women now outnumber young men 2:1 in college enrollment
  - badc0ffee 2mo ago
    > It is basically a suffering and compliance competition to get into college. I think this is a big part of why young women now outnumber young men 2:1 in college enrollment How does one follow from the other? Young men are less willing than young women to put up with this?
    - s1artibartfast 2mo ago
      Yes. It is strongly documented that the sexes have different levels of conscientiousness, and this holds up accross cultures, countries, and time. The most clear example of how female high school students have higher GPA and homework completion rate then males, but both perform similarly on standardized test or cognitive tests. As academic success increasingly depends on grind, organization, and consistency, the young men either fall behind or quit entirely.
- csa 2mo ago
  Not only that, but there are specific JuCos that specifically feed into these schools with an incredibly high acceptance rate.

matthewdgreen 2mo ago

The Ivy League (and top-tier) situation is out of control, and genuinely raises questions about whether institutions like this should exist.

eli_gottlieb 2mo ago
It's not, IMHO. When I have kids, I will not send them to any such institution, and I do not advise students that I mentor to go to such institutions.
impendia 2mo ago
What would it mean for them to not exist? The issue, as I see it, is that elite credentials are overvalued, and that we live in a society which is becoming more and more unequal, and where housing prices in particular are skyrocketing. Without solving that, the alternatives to the Ivy League (e.g. undisguised nepotism) seem to be even worse.
locknitpicker 2mo ago
> The Ivy League (and top-tier) situation is out of control, and genuinely raises questions about whether institutions like this should exist. You're posting in a discussion where a hefty share of all posters are openly stating these schools being by far their top choice. Don't you think this correlates with demand for one of the limited spots they open each year? What do you think would happen if Ivy League schools suddenly vanished from the face of the earth?
- matthewdgreen 2mo ago
  What I think should happen is that these schools should increase their class sizes to match demand, rather than keeping them artificially low in order to game acceptance criteria. I think it’s a systematic societal failure that we’ve created the incentives for educational institutions to optimize for these metrics and exclusivity, rather than to educate people.

csa 2mo ago

> Anyone who lives in a neighborhood with a high proportion of kids making it to the Ivy league and other top schools knows exactly what this guy is talking about. The person whose view you endorse supports what many parents believe. I’ve seen how the sausage is made, and he has it (mostly) wrong. Many people seem to think that being more above average is the key to elite school admissions. It helps, and it’s directionally correct (one needs to show academic competence), but the key is to be truly exceptional in something. Five extracurriculars is almost the same as one or even none if there was no demonstration of exceptional performance or leadership. Taking the max load of AP classes versus just a few is not as helpful as people seem to think. Using one’s time to do something unique and/or exceptional would be time much better spent. I beat this drum as often as I can here and elsewhere, but the upper middle class folks in that particular rat race don’t seem interested in hearing what I’m saying.

verall 2mo ago
It's worse, this is mostly just to be a shoe-in for a good state school, with a "maybe I'll get lucky and an ivy will accept anyways", unless you're really exception in at least one of these areas. > Using one’s time to do something unique and/or exceptional would be time much better spent. The fact is that most high schoolers are just not unique or exceptional but still want a shot to break out of currently very poor job prospects or hourly labor. I think many of these kids are capable of much more once they have some time to grow up, but the system is such that they need to show their color by roughly 17 to be "exceptional" along the traditional route. I was in high school not that long ago, I understood the point you make then, but it didn't make me unique or exceptional. Most kids just want to be good enough, to do okay.
s1artibartfast 2mo ago
The catch is that it is harder to brute force being truly exceptional in one thing. That often requires talent and predisposition. Grinding 15 hours a day is a more realistic option for most children and parents.
- csa 2mo ago
  > The catch is that it is harder to brute force being truly exceptional in one thing. That often requires talent and predisposition. That’s true for sports, music, and academics, but I think “grinding” exceptional leadership can be a thing. It’s very learnable, and effort often times makes the difference. Some simple examples I’ve seen in various forms: - starting a meaningful business or non-profit - starting a meaningful arts or sports experience (literary magazine, regional film festival, regional sports event/tournament, etc.) - many/most substantial Eagle Scout projects (not all are substantial enough) The heuristic I tell people to use is this — the reader of the application will go “no kidding… I’d really like to talk to this person and learn more about this” (aka “have a beer with them” type of sentiment) > Grinding 15 hours a day is a more realistic option for most children and parents. See above… grind at the right thing. Full-time grinding academics is a fools errand unless the applicant can demonstrate their competence at a regional level, if not national or international level.

thatfrenchguy 2mo ago

The fact that everyone in your peer group does it (looking at you, people who are faking research paper contributions by high schoolers) does not mean that it is a criteria for actual college admissions.

BeetleB 2mo ago

> Hate to break it to you mate but none of them are getting in. If they're not getting in, they're applying to the wrong places. Even now, I know plenty of high school kids getting into multiple universities with a very average schedule and not particularly good grades. Not everyone has to go to a top 10, or even a top 50 school. I want to a very average state school (not even in the top 100) for undergrad, and a top 5 school for grad school. For undergrads, the primary benefit of the top grad school was networking. The differences in curriculum were minor, and the low ranked school taught much better. Most employers really don't care that much about the ranking of the university. If anyone is working crazy hard and only targeting the top universities, the injury is self inflicted.