There’s an interesting story on page one of today’s Boston Globe that relates to our recent discussions about high schoolers and stress. Apparently, some kids who want to get into highly competitive colleges plan their summers around building their resumes.
Here’s an excerpt:
Children are going to $4,000-plus boot camps where they practice taking the SATs, and are spending sunny days inside, learning how to write code. Some parents are paying $275 an hour to consult professional summer advisers, looking for programs they hope will be attractive to admissions officers or at least lead to an inspiring personal essay on the Common Application.
Now let’s look at a (made-up) scenario:
You are a teenager who can’t afford these kinds of programs or you need to work during the summer or you want to savor some time off. You know from Naviance that your #1 choice — let’s say Amherst College — takes, on average, x number of kids from your high school every year. You want one of those slots but you’re competing against someone who has been working at getting into college since elementary school.
There are two ways parents and schools can help:
1. Parents can chill out, look inward and realize that they’re making their children’s education about themselves, not their kids. (Magic 8 ball says: Highly doubtful).
2. Guidance counselors can help kids understand that life isn’t all about college and if they don’t get into their top choices, they’ll survive and do fine. They can emphasize that, for the most part, their success is not going to be determined by what college they attend; it’s going to be determined by what they do once they get to college.
Gail — You’re provoking a good discussion But the guidance counselors can’t lie — if you want to be an investment banker or a partner at a big law firm, top firms ain’t gonna place interviewers at lesser schools. They didn’t do it in the 1980s/90s when hiring was deep — they certainly don’t do it these days when they’re highing a couple dozen students, not a couple hundred
Hoss – law firms care where you go to law school. They aren’t recruiting undergrads. In general, where you do your graduate work is far more important than undergrad. And you can get into top grad schools without going to a big name undergrad school.
Unless kids know exactly what they want to study, it doesn’t matter that much where they go to college. They’ll get just as good an education at some of the top tier non-Ivys as they will at an Ivy. And they can get a good education from the next tier of colleges as well. If they know what they want to study, they should pick based on the department, not the perceived reputation of the school.
You know what the worst part of this is? Once you do all this tutoring, test prep, naviate, apply, get accepted, carefully place sticker on back windshield, attend, graduate and then take your first job and live with 3 losers in some cockroach-infested apartment in Allston, the next employer is going to place 99% of credence on what you did with your first job.
And then, you will have only just started your career.
Have a great day!
@Bill: And if you’re a journalist, you’ll have to get a second job waiting tables!
For the kids that genuinely want to learn something or explore a possible career, some of these programs are fine. But a lot of them are borderline scams to separate anxious parents from their dollars. A lot of the “come study at Ivy League U!” are companies renting space at a college and students will have no contact with an actual employee of the college.
Paying to do something to burnish your resume is foolish and the college admissions offices will generally see right through these. A better choice may be an “old-fashioned summer job” (as mentioned in the article) to show maturity and responsibility, volunteering with a worthwhile organization, or pursuing a non-academic passion.
I just wonder if things are this crazy now, what will they be like 10 or 15 years from now.
Agree with Bruce. A lot of this looks like a con game by educational charlatans playing on parents fears that their child will wind up in America’s growing underclass if they don’t claw their way to the very top, or that they (the parents) will somehow be perceived as failures by other parents if their kid isn’t at the top.
$4,000 SAT Boot Camps ? And we wonder why kids are killing themselves ?
Bob: I think that this particular bubble is not sustainable.
Most people can’t afford to pay $40-60K/year now for college; technology is already changing the educational delivery system; demographically, boomers will no longer be creating demand pressure for college; and not to mention, the ROI on an undergrad degree is under re-assessment in the existing economic climate.
I’m not saying that people should forego college (not that most anyone here would). However, the cost and value of a particular choice for that degree should require some very serious consideration.
What blueprint bill said.
I’ll reiterate what I have said before. Newton students are done a huge injustice by not having proper career counseling on military service and the concurrent benefits. 4 years in the armed forces dramatically increases your chance to getting into schools, especially if one did well in high school. Furthermore, it is essentially a free ride to any state school. The “front lines” BS was a myth during the surges in Iraq and Afghanistan, and it’s BS even more-so now.
One of my buddies I am graduating Umass with was a Korean linguist in the Marine Corps. 2 of his 5 years of service were at the defense language school. He had the opportunity to deploy to Korea and the Phillipine Islands, and went on to turn down an 80 thousand dollar re-enlistment bonus. After all this he started college as a Junior majoring in linguistics, got his BA completely paid for, and has about 2 and a half years of benefits remaining for grad school.
Hiring preference is a whole other conversation.
I did the infantry thing, and I am happy with my decision, but 80% of the military is support roles, ranging from food prep to the more glamorous engineering, electronics, linguistics, and intelligence stuff. Never mind that even joining the Mass National Guard means a free undergrad education, without ever having to be on active duty. One can absolutely get a low risk vocational or academic education in the military that will more than pay for itself 10 times over when it comes time to go to school and then enter the job market. The attitude I was overwhelmingly exposed to in Newton was a bunch of ignorance fueled elitist garbage. I’m fortunate that my parents, despite having no military background, were supportive. I can’t tell you how many friends from Newton were for all intents and purposes prohibited from talking to a recruiter, and are now sitting on 60K+ of debt with no job.
So my advice to all the nervous parents here would be to never shoot that down as an option. You probably know much less than you think you know, though I of course recommend you do research (message boards are really helpful). I don’t want to say recruiters are liars, but they work for the military, it is your job to work for yourself. The key thing to know is if one is to score high enough on the various tests (ASVAB, DLAB, FIST, etc) they absolutely have the power to decide what career field they end up going in to… And most jobs in the military are safer than being a store clerk. That’s going to be much more realistically helpful in terms of finances and skills gained than a $4000 dollars worth of SAT prep.
Mike
We need to start putting Xanax in Newton’s water supply.
Neurotic parents are creating neurotic kids.
Mike (not Striar) – my grad school advisor was in college during the Vietnam War. He became fluent in Russian, figuring that when he got drafted they’d have much better use for him in Europe than Asia and ended up happily in Germany for his stint.
just wait for the first state to make public colleges free (with a auto-paycheck withdrawal repayment program), the influx of residents and then companies will change the dynamic and the bubble on tuition will burst. then only the truly rich need worry about elite undergrad institutions, like the good old days
in the meantime, it’s a cold day in hell when my kids do an SAT boot camp over summer
they have their whole adult life to be stressed and miserable:)
Thanks to all the people that told us about your military experiences. Newton people often have tunnel vision when their kids plan for college. There are many different ways to prepare for the work place.
It helps to have a focus of interest; but after that it is hard work and commitment that determines success both in post secondary education and the work world.
Here’s further discussion from this morning’s Huffington http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/06/raising-sat-score_n_4907444.html
That huff article simply correlates wealth with higher test scores. (Who would have pondered such an outcome?) What I find really bothersome with this College Board SAT test change announcement is that they say they are responding to the perception that test prep provides an unfair advantage. One might expect that their concern would be whether the test credibly gauges a student’s abilities to succeed with a college level curriculum.
There was a study done a few years back that essentially demonstrated while test prep companies claim that they boost scores by 200-300 points, on average, test prep provides marginal advantage. http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB124278685697537839
Colleen, my point wasn’t to emphasize professional/vocational training as much as it was to emphasize military service as college prep. I believe Umass Amherst has somewhere between 400 and 500 students using GI bill benefits. The military in many different regards can be a great means of college prep and also set students apart on their applications. The fact that many times it results in a free ride is an added bonus.
Many students take “gap years.” Some are productive, I know many more just basically take an extended vacation with some meaningless part time work. I understand that traditionally the military is a “4 year” gap year, but if one joins the National Guard or reserves for example, they can spend 6 months to a year of that “gap year” in training, and in the case of the National Guard, have free tuition at any state schools. The reserves offer fewer benefits unless one has deployed, but having “United States Marine, Army Intelligence, Air Force Jet Mechanic, etc” on your college application tends to be looked at harder than “occupied wall street to fight the injustice of my parents being millionaires while I work at CVS.”
This was never talked about or explained in any guidance meetings when I was at NNHS as they shielded us from recruiters. If the school wanted to actually benefit students, rather than the elitist residents of Newton who like to make a lot of noise, when discussing college, they would have discussed IN DEPTH the ways the military can offer training and make education more affordable down the line, or at the same time. As I mentioned earlier, recruiters work for the military, but its not hard to learn how the system works as a civilian and educate prospective enlistees as to the various branches of service as an educator with the students best interests in mind. This was never done at NNHS to what was likely the detriment of many students. The only process they had was one of the guidance councilors would host a meeting upon a students request that the student set up. This is different than proactively telling students with financial issues, or who aren’t very competitive, or simply aren’t ready for college about the professional training and benefits the military can provide.
Whenever I hear some unemployed recent college grad complaining about all his debt I have no sympathy. It sucks, and was completely their own doing. They were an adult, they took obscene loans, they didn’t strive to make themselves marketable to their job field. When you ask about the military and 9 times out of 10 the answer was “well I didn’t want to go to Iraq” you know their educators and guidance councilors failed them.
Mike
Volunteeering and community service is free and looks excellent on a college application
Mike, thanks for the terrific follow up about the opportunities provided by the military. Not many people in Newton would be sep up to make this salient point about military service. My sons were frightened away from any thoughts of military service by the stance taken in the 1990’s by our school administrators. For a number of years the recruiters were badly treated and banned from talking to the students. However, I did know personally several people who followed the path you describe. All were proud and thankful to have served in the m. forces and went on to college afterwards.
I guess this conversation still falls under “boot camp.” It’s interesting that our current mayor, who attended NNHS in the ’90s, somehow found his way to the military and ultimately served a tour in Iraq. He must have had a different guidance counselor.
Mike (not Striar): Could you provide an example of a school system that does provide the sort of in-depth navigation of the military that you describe?
Setti graduated in the mid 1980s.
According to Wikipedia (I can cite that here), our mayor was born in 1970, which makes a mid-’80s or ’90s attendance equally unlikely. His high school tenure aside, the point is that people from Newton do find their way into military service without guidance counselors or administrators.
My question remains whether there are any high schools — high performing ones in particular — that provide the navigation of military options that Mike (not Striar) describes.
One alternative that includes a military path and cheap schooling not mentioned by Mike is ROTC. I had a lot of ROTC classmates in college, including some of the brightest and most upstanding people I knew there.
I’d like to also second Mike’s mention of vocational options. Not all kids will do best by going to college and there are vocations in high demand that can’t be outsourced (car mechanic, carpentry, plumbing). These don’t get the respect they should, but can be excellent paths for many kids.
Bill, yes, our mayor served in Iraq. As I mentioned, I also graduated from NNHS and I ended up in Afghanistan, along with a couple classmates. I didn’t say nobody in Newton joins the armed forces, I said Newton does not offer a good support or knowledge system for it, that’s a fact as far as NNHS 04-08 is concerned. No need to be snide about it, but you have no idea what you are talking about it, unless you graduated from NNHS post 2008. The school offered little by way of aid to those of us joining the military. Even when administering the ASVAB, I had to be notified by my recruiter as the school failed to do so until the day of the test in a morning announcement. They had guidance upon request put not proactive education on the subject. Furthermore there was a serious stigma among students towards military service, that was in no manner helped by the school.
I honestly don’t know about other “high-performing” high-schools and military service or guidance, though I imagine JROTC programs exist at “high-performing” schools. I’m not quite sure why it should matter.
It is my opinion that JROTC is something that should be explored for NPS. DADT has been lifted, and the relative provisions of DOMA struck down, so the only real argument against JROTC no longer exists. Usually, as I understand it, JROTC instructors have the best interest of the students in mind and are usually former or retired military who work as school staff to help prepare students to excel in the armed forces. They work for the school and students, not the military.
This of course is not the only option, I would expect someone or all in the guidance department to be able to be tasked with educating themselves on military recruitment, benefits, and training, and take a more proactive role in suggesting this as a possibility for all. One guidance councilor was relatively helpful when I was there, but the system was not set up at all to support those joining the armed forces. It’s not something which can be learned overnight (partial understandings would not be appropriate), but it isn’t something overly difficult to understand. I’m sure they could meet with the VA to better understand education benefits, as well as members of the military and online resources to better understanding various services, missions, jobs, and related education. As I mentioned the military offers everything from the stereotypical combat roles to what makes up the majority of the military: vocational and academic jobs (mechanics, intel, linguists, logistics, etc)
This is just my 2 cents on the issue.