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There was a community similar to Palo Alto close to me (affluent, very achieving- their high school everything was supposed to be the best at everything). The c

There was a community similar to Palo Alto close to me (affluent, very achieving- their high school everything was supposed to be the best at everything). The children were supposed to be perfect - academically, socially, spiritually, etc. When I hung out with kids from there, it seemed like they were living their entire lives inside of a giant pressure cooker. There was always an underlying social pressure that everything they did should be perfect -- nothing would be accepted but the best. Their football team went 10-3 one year, and the football coach got fired. It was insanity. The brutal thing is that not everybody can be the best. Even if the basketball team is winning the state title every year, only a select handful make the basketball team. The smartest ones in that community were the ones that rebelled enough that the expectations were lower for them. One of my buddies bought a one-way ticket to Thailand without telling his parents, and came back a few months later. He said he felt appreciated for the first time; it was heartbreaking that it took something like that. For the others - no matter how much they excelled, it wasn't enough. I want my kids to be able to live in a high-quality environment, but at a certain point it's just not worth it anymore. Palo Alto, full of tech millionaires/billionaires and the highest-achieving of the overachievers, must be absolutely brutal.

rralian 11y ago
Oof, not to bring down the level of conversation, but fuck that (the environment you describe, not your comment). I am concerned for my kids' future lives, but I'm not overly concerned about perfect scores or anything like that. I would prefer to instill in them a passion for something--anything really. I went to a pretty good school (Northwestern), and while I don't regret it, I also don't think it's particularly affected my life one way or another. A state school diploma could have gotten me into my first position, and from there on out it was my performance that led me from one step to the next. It wasn't until I started to learn and build things for the love of it that I really started to create bigger and better opportunities. I now live in a community in Austin that has some similarities to what you're describing. Super-competitive, high-achievers. But I think it's important to maintain a healthy appreciation for the artifice of it all. And while we encourage and try to feed the strengths and interests of our kids (I am helping my 6-year-old prep for an advanced math class), I think it's more important to try to raise happy, well-adjusted, non-jerk kids.
- javert 11y ago
  > But I think it's important to maintain a healthy appreciation for the artifice of it all I don't think it's artifice. If you want to get into the best universities, you have to have perfect grades and stand out. I think the culture being described in Palo Alto is a direct function of that. You can raise happy, well-adjusted, non-jerk kids, but they won't get into good schools, because they won't sacrifice literally everything in high school. Your choice: well-adjusted kids or getting into good universities, not both. I think it's horrible that this is the situation---we need to reform university admissions. My idea would be to have an over-achievement threshhold, above which students won't get accepted. I had a perfect GPA in high school, and that's because there was something profoundly wrong with me.
  - rralian 11y ago
    To be fair, I haven't tried to get into a good school recently, so my perspective may be out of date. But I don't think perfect grades actually stand out at all. Doing something noteworthy because you are following your passion however would. I also think there is ample opportunity for really smart people to do incredible things without going to a "good" school. Honestly, university is not a goal, it is a means towards your later life, and it gets less and less important as you live your life. If my kids find something they care about and follow it early, I would not be disappointed at all if they never went to college.
    - tsotha 11y ago
      Yeah, part of the problem is perfect grades no longer stand out much. Top tier colleges continually turn away students with perfect grades and very high test scores. I have nieces and nephews that age, and from what I can tell getting in to a good college is an unpaid full time job now. Instead of working part time at McDonald's summers for spending money, these kids are being pushed to do things like create nonprofits for whatever "social justice" fad is in this year, or spending a month feeding people in Haiti. That kind of stuff is fine if the drive is coming from within, but I would sure as hell have chafed at being forced into sainthood at age 16 in order to have a chance at being accepted to an Ivy.

rralian 11y ago

Oof, not to bring down the level of conversation, but fuck that (the environment you describe, not your comment). I am concerned for my kids' future lives, but I'm not overly concerned about perfect scores or anything like that. I would prefer to instill in them a passion for something--anything really. I went to a pretty good school (Northwestern), and while I don't regret it, I also don't think it's particularly affected my life one way or another. A state school diploma could have gotten me into my first position, and from there on out it was my performance that led me from one step to the next. It wasn't until I started to learn and build things for the love of it that I really started to create bigger and better opportunities. I now live in a community in Austin that has some similarities to what you're describing. Super-competitive, high-achievers. But I think it's important to maintain a healthy appreciation for the artifice of it all. And while we encourage and try to feed the strengths and interests of our kids (I am helping my 6-year-old prep for an advanced math class), I think it's more important to try to raise happy, well-adjusted, non-jerk kids.

javert 11y ago
> But I think it's important to maintain a healthy appreciation for the artifice of it all I don't think it's artifice. If you want to get into the best universities, you have to have perfect grades and stand out. I think the culture being described in Palo Alto is a direct function of that. You can raise happy, well-adjusted, non-jerk kids, but they won't get into good schools, because they won't sacrifice literally everything in high school. Your choice: well-adjusted kids or getting into good universities, not both. I think it's horrible that this is the situation---we need to reform university admissions. My idea would be to have an over-achievement threshhold, above which students won't get accepted. I had a perfect GPA in high school, and that's because there was something profoundly wrong with me.
- rralian 11y ago
  To be fair, I haven't tried to get into a good school recently, so my perspective may be out of date. But I don't think perfect grades actually stand out at all. Doing something noteworthy because you are following your passion however would. I also think there is ample opportunity for really smart people to do incredible things without going to a "good" school. Honestly, university is not a goal, it is a means towards your later life, and it gets less and less important as you live your life. If my kids find something they care about and follow it early, I would not be disappointed at all if they never went to college.
  - tsotha 11y ago
    Yeah, part of the problem is perfect grades no longer stand out much. Top tier colleges continually turn away students with perfect grades and very high test scores. I have nieces and nephews that age, and from what I can tell getting in to a good college is an unpaid full time job now. Instead of working part time at McDonald's summers for spending money, these kids are being pushed to do things like create nonprofits for whatever "social justice" fad is in this year, or spending a month feeding people in Haiti. That kind of stuff is fine if the drive is coming from within, but I would sure as hell have chafed at being forced into sainthood at age 16 in order to have a chance at being accepted to an Ivy.