> When you force high school kids to work days that are significantly longer than a normal adult to achieve a good GPA and get into a good college,
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.
I don’t even know of a high school around me that starts at 7:30AM.
What universities are you targeting with such an extreme schedule?
There are some parallels here to the people who say that everyone in tech is working 80 hour weeks: If you get pulled into one of these bubbles you are surrounded by others doing the same thing and it starts to feel like everyone is doing it. You assume everyone, everywhere is having the same experience. The people outside the bubble are left puzzled by these descriptions.
It’s been a while, but when I was in high school, I was up at 6:30 so that I could run through the shower, get to 7AM jazz band late, be at school until 4ish, then off to my minimum-ish wage job until it was time to go to evening jazz/symphony/other bands. Home at 8 or 9; bullshit some homework for a passable grade; and then do it again (I was often doing homework during band practices). Weekends were music events.
I did not go to a top tier school, and I did not live in a top tier place. The stories I’ve heard from others indicates to me that my experience was not unique. I wasn’t even the most busy of the people I knew.
This wasn’t every single day, but it was more on days than off days. Contrarily, I had a great time in college because the pressure of classes actually felt like less than I was doing in high school.
this closely matches my experience graduating with a C average and getting accepted to a branch campus of a public university. I then crashed hard out of that school because, as you said, suddenly I actually had a lot more agency and a lot less responsibility.
> 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.
> 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.
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.
It's because it's risky and also requires actually being exceptional at something. So people choose the arduous brute force method because they know they can do it and it has a lower bound in terms of outcome.
In any case, this isn't unique to college admissions. The same story plays out in terms of career and all facets of life.
> 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.
Still seems like a much more risky and challenging strategy with low chance of success.
What is the chance that a mediocre or talentless student can grind Regional success? What is the chance that mediocre and talentless parents can support that?
Grinding grades and academics is absolutely a path the top tier universities like Berkeley or UCLA, even if you won't get in the S tier private schools.
I've seen several ESL immigrant parents simply lock their kids up and make them study their way to Berkeley, despite having never graduated high school themselves.
> Grinding grades and academics is absolutely a path the top tier universities like Berkeley or UCLA, even if you won't get in the S tier private schools.
Yeah. We are talking about different types of schools.
For one, Cal and UCLA both admit a lot of students. It’s just not as competitive. Additionally, it’s fairly easy for a decent grinder student to go to a feeder JuCo and transfer to either of these schools (which would be a fine outcome for the “ESL immigrant parents” you gave as an example).
Second, while Cal and UCLA are top-tier public schools (along with schools like UMich, UVa, and UTexas), I don’t consider them elite in terms of undergrad programs [1]. Any resident of California who gets into Stanford or an Ivy would be able to get into either of those (excepting anomalies like unusually high departmental requirements at some UC schools like Cal).
So sure, if the goal (esp. for California residents) is to get into a UC school, going the grinder route is fine — overkill in most cases, but fine. This will be less than ideal if they are also considering elite schools like Stanford or Ivies.
[1] What makes an undergrad program elite? The short answer is drive and the ability to get things done.
If you take the top 1000 admits from Stanford and compare them to the top 1000 admits at Cal, you may not see much difference in terms of raw intellect — plenty of super smart people in both groups. But the Stanford students will be more ambitious, they will push each other much harder (and in most cases learn more), and they will achieve more than the Cal students. Note that this isn’t a knock on Cal students — it’s just a different way of approaching school and life that is quite apparent when you interact with enough folks from each group.
Stanford, an elite school, can and does select for these traits. Cal just can’t be as picky due to the large number of admits and certain state policies.
I understand the distinction, and agree the students are different.
I just don't think every student has what it takes to be a good fit at Stanford.
For this reason and the low admission, I don't think betting the farm on an academic strategy tailored for Stanford is a good idea for most students or parents.
Until recently you would not be correct; the covert way that elite schools did AA would disqualify lots of Asian applicants who DIDN'T have extraordinary test scores and coursework.
At some point, when the competition are starting nonprofits and playing Carnegie Hall at 13, you either end up getting in effortlessly or running the rat race.
> Until recently you would not be correct; the covert way that elite schools did AA would disqualify lots of Asian applicants who DIDN'T have extraordinary test scores and coursework.
Please don’t spread propaganda.
I’ve seen admissions evolve over decades. Your take strikes me as very uninformed and shaped by certain agenda-driven media narratives.
A generous interpretation supporting your thesis is that AA spots took away spots from very marginal asian and white students. Marginal asian and white admits even at Harvard are usually not terribly impressive, such that I’m not sure that this trade is a loss for the school or the student body.
An interpretation that doesn’t support your thesis is that the admissions process at elite schools put a tremendous amount of value on community involvement for AA candidates.
The Supreme Court has ruled that the latter is discrimination. I’m not a lawyer, so maybe it is, but I don’t think I’ve ever met an AA candidate that wasn’t bringing something else quite compelling to the table. That said, I’ve met plenty of asian and white marginal admits that did not bring much to the table (student: “woohoo, I study a lot” me: “yes, you do, and you’re bad at it”).
People act like so many deserving asians and/or whites were denied spots due to AA, when the reality is that the folks who theoretically “lost” a spot were already so marginal that admission was a bit of a crapshoot anyway. They would have just been warm bodies used to fill out the class with very low expectations of contributing to the school or the community. Snarky take, but that’s the reality.
Harvard has used tests of "character" to exclude racial and religious minorities for more than 100 years. The heart of this scandal is another test of "character" that systematically disadvantaged Asian kids. Call me misinformed if you want, but I'm going to accuse you of sticking your head in the sand.
> Your take strikes me as very uninformed and shaped by certain agenda-driven media narratives.
Please actually respond to what I'm saying. I have had these opinions for a while, definitely before the current president. I think I'm pretty well-informed (at least as well-informed as you!)
> An interpretation that doesn’t support your thesis is that the admissions process at elite schools put a tremendous amount of value on community involvement for AA candidates.
I know lots of Asian kids who volunteered, founded clubs, participated in extracurriculars, had excellent test scores, and were still rejected by Harvard. I know plenty non-Asian kids who did half that and got in. I don't believe that Asian students are systemically less personable than non-Asian kids; I do believe that a sufficiently woke admissions office can hold a lot of shitty racist opinions about Asian people.
> That said, I’ve met plenty of asian and white marginal admits that did not bring much to the table (student: “woohoo, I study a lot” me: “yes, you do, and you’re bad at it”).
So that's why Asian admits need to score 150 points higher than white kids on their SAT to get in at Harvard? Because everything else about them like their personality and achievements outside of school are so "marginal?"
> The Supreme Court has ruled that the latter is discrimination. I’m not a lawyer, so maybe it is, but I don’t think I’ve ever met an AA candidate that wasn’t bringing something else quite compelling to the table.
> They would have just been warm bodies used to fill out the class with very low expectations of contributing to the school or the community. Snarky take, but that’s the reality.
The Supreme Court correctly called a spade a spade because there was obvious racial discrimination in those admissions processes. When an Asian kid needs to score 450 more points on the SAT than a black kid to get in, there is no other reasonable conclusion.
I am finding a lot of your statements to also be sort of offensive. Asian kids are just as witty, personable, community-oriented, etc. as anyone else. Harvard lost because THEY COULD NOT PROVE OTHERWISE.
Discrimination based on that stuff is legal, discrimination based on race is not - all that Harvard actually had to do was prove this stuff you're saying, and they couldn't.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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
> 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?
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.
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.
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?
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.
I mean I've done very well in my life; my wife and I both moved up several classes, but I take ownership of educating my kids. My oldest started kindergarten today, but she's already a couple years ahead, and she's only really in school for social reasons. I don't think school is going to help you to avoid being duped. In fact, if these "elite" educations cost as much as a house, that is the first scam to avoid. Poor first lesson to fall for the upper middle class version of a gucci bag!
Similarly, I plan for my kids to go to university, but for social reasons (it's the best place to find a spouse IMO), and that's exactly because I can see that the rational economic choice in the face of uncertainty is not to buy (or finance!) an expensive credential, but to buy a house and not fall for materialism. Books are free if your goal is to learn. An "elite" university is therefore less important than one with strong social pressures against things like casual relationships.
Right, if you're at the level where you could afford the fanciest credentials, you don't actually need them. Then if you're upper middle class (so you don't have unlimited money, but they don't need the credentials), you need to ask why you'd send your kids to college at all. If you've raised an Ivy-calibre kid, presumably they can self-teach with the infinite resources available, so it's not about education.
So the obvious reason for a decently well off family to send their kids to university is because it is far and away the best way to find the person they will marry. Casual dating squanders that opportunity (and promiscuity is linked to higher divorce rates if they do eventually find someone), and they'll never have that chance again. No different from giving your kid a trust to live on and watching them spend it on drugs and partying.
If you're economically secure, immersion in a culture that normalizes positive values is the most important thing you can buy. In fact from that perspective, the hyper-competitive and ambitious culture (to the detriment of e.g. a fulfilling family life) of the Ivys is likely undesirable.
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.
> 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?
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.
> I don’t even know of a high school around me that starts at 7:30AM.
Within 30 minutes in each direction this was the normal start time for practically all high schools in my area growing up. Where I live now my niece who I occasionally drive to school when weather is bad starts at 7:30. We need to leave her house by 6:45 to make it on time with traffic.
The reason for the absurd starting times was always explained that bussing schedules forced it. They did not want to start grade school so early, and the same busses ran routes for both. One or the other had to start 60-90 minutes before the other.
I’d sleep in my clothes and try to make it out the door to be at my bus stop by 6:40 every morning. Luckily I had a really great bus driver who knew where I’d live and if I was running late would stop outside my house and honk.
You spent the entire morning extremely tired and a lot of kids slept through study hall or classes. The early study hall was coveted for this reason - additional time to sleep.
This was pretty much every bog standard public or private (think catholic schools) high school in the area.
> The reason for the absurd starting times was always explained that bussing schedules forced it.
This sounds yet another problem created by urban planning, or lack thereof.
Being forced to do a 2 hour commute each day is not normal, regardless whether you are a kid going to school or a grownup going to work. It's not school that has a demanding schedule. It's requiring a 60 minute drive to attent said school that creates a demanding schedule.
Thats the amenity trap. People want all sort of amenities that smaller neighborhood schools can't provide. Therefore bigger schools are built which had large centralized facilities for sports, recreation and all. So naturally now it need more commute times.
No, it's not. In some countries, if you drive 1h in a direction you'll be in another country. Don't tell me that most western Europe doesn't have decent schools.
> I don’t even know of a high school around me that starts at 7:30AM.
Local high school runs 7:30 to 2:30. It's one of the better scoring high schools in the state, so we have some students who commute 45min-1hour to attend here (at least I had friends who did that when I went there).
When I was younger I lived in Albuquerque, and I believe that high school started at 7am, they had staggered start times of 9am for elementary, 8am for middle school, and 7am for high school.
It has to be. And I think it is same everywhere we want everyone to attend high school. Nowadays we want college and universities degree for everyone too.
For the 7.30 start, its possible its a 0 period class( class before school starts, what a blast these were) and they start earlier then the rest of the student body.
At my high school that was the normal start time for all of our classes, which were 90 minutes. Most of us had to be at the bus about 45 minutes to an hour before start because many of us came from more rural areas with acreage between roads.
Hi from Germany here I have had to for the largest part of my School life grt up at 6:15 so i could be in school at 8:00 then i often had school until 15-17 and had to do homewerk after aswell. Only in my 11th to 13th grade did it relax a bit because I changed schools and also got better due to redoing some of the basics.
And mind you in germany Extra Curriculars are not realy necessary.
I had this same schedule at a mediocre school in small town USA in the 80s. The AP science course started at 7:30am to give us time for lab work (e.g. dissection in biology). After school activities continued until 4:30, longer if it’s an away game. Homework, part-time job, one off events. It didn’t feel overwhelming at the time, but kids today are soft.
I think magnet school and/or outside school /rec-league sports can easily bring that 15h number.
Overall I think you are right it is indeed bubble and once one is in, it is difficult to see not everyone is doing that.
I have a friend in town both husband, wife work from home and extremely busy with their elementary/middle school kids school/activities that I haven't seen him in years.
Being out of their bubble I only know whats happening but don't get to be tutored in how all these activities are essential. And even rare back out once in a while can be serious digression that affects child's future.
> I don’t even know of a high school around me that starts at 7:30AM.
My high school had us in the building and starting homeroom at 7:30AM, back in ~2003-2007, and that was in upstate NY for a B+ student with nothing special going on.
I was at school from 6:45 AM to about 4:30 PM every day, and had extracurriculars and homework on top of that. This wasn't considered an extra stressful or difficult schedule, it was just what you did.
> None of them have these grueling 15 hour day schedules you’re describing.
I have contact with a lot of teens. This schedule is not unusual, although the truth IMO is that long hours and poor productivity form a vicious cycle.
> I don’t even know of a high school around me that starts at 7:30AM.
Irrelevant to the argument. NYC has 8am start times.
Notice that the hours were driven by involvement in sports, though.
> What universities are you targeting with such an extreme schedule?
Every highly selective school.
Plus they have no clue what’s really necessary so there’s a lot of “cargo culting”.
Plus, they don’t even know what they’re targeting until year 3 or 4 of high school, years after the long hours pattern starts.
> bubble
You are also universalizing your experience, no?
Frankly, looking at the map of educational achievement, most people are not going to college or not successful there, so this whole discussion of “student doesn’t want to attend their state university” is already a rarified atmosphere.
I agree that this is behavior destructive and unnecessary.
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.
I don’t even know of a high school around me that starts at 7:30AM.
What universities are you targeting with such an extreme schedule?
There are some parallels here to the people who say that everyone in tech is working 80 hour weeks: If you get pulled into one of these bubbles you are surrounded by others doing the same thing and it starts to feel like everyone is doing it. You assume everyone, everywhere is having the same experience. The people outside the bubble are left puzzled by these descriptions.