E. Boyer
I’ve been thinking about the pressure our kids today have to endure due to the rumblings that say they’ll never get into college without a 56.8 GPA, a 4- year history of participation at the White House and are direct descendants of Albert Einstein. I went to a presentation for an SAT prep course at the end of which, I felt like someone should lock me up for “cruelty to children” for even thinking about putting my child through this insanity. They recommended that the kids study a book, which was the size of a Smart Car! (Not kidding. I could barley lift it), study for 10 months prior, take AP classes, summer college classes, start putting together their resume, volunteer every week starting in 9th grade, be the president of something and of course, be an accomplished athlete. Question. If they can do all that, couldn’t they just skip college all together and go straight to being Superheros? My daughter thought that being a superhero sounded like a fun career path and called one of the UC’s and asked if they offered a Superhero program. They said “no, but that if she actually was a superhero they would very seriously consider her for admission.” Curses! Now we’re back to square one with the prep course. So what does this mean for our children? Well, it means that they have a few choices.
1) They can do as their parents suggest and meet with a college counselor twice a week…every week beginning in 9th grade, meet with all 8 of their tutors at least once per week…every week beginning in 9th and continuing through to 12th, take AP Spanish during the summer of their freshman year, AP Algebra the summer of their sophomore year, AP honors Chem and AP honors physics the summer of their junior year (all at Cal…duh!?), complete the 12 week SAT prep courses with Ivy West, Kaplan, Study Smarter and a private coach (Yale grad…double duh!?) for a total of 48 weeks of prep, and of course go to Mexico for a week to build houses with their bare hands for poor people once a year…every year…9th through 12th. Of course, they played varsity sports all 4 years. So, that’s their first choice and, believe it or not, a very popular choice!
2) They could have their parents committed to an insane asylum for which they would easily meet the requirements, tell the school district that their parents are “unavailable” whenever they try to reach them, raise themselves with the cash they’re able to withdraw from their parents Schwab account because they’re brilliant and have known how to access all the accounts since they were twelve and didn’t simply because all of their needs were being met.
3) They could fall into a deep, dark depression because there is no way in hell any one but the Spawn of Chucky would inflict such grotesque horror on a child and they would buckle under the realization that this is actually their reality. After their melt-down they would be carted off to a soft and fluffy place where they would one day, with prayer and medication, regain their strength and courage (but never their original luster), notify the “evil spawn parentals” that they will never again be subjected to such atrocities and raise goats on the parcel in the Tibetan countryside that they bought with the royalties from the book they wrote about their experience.
4)They could have a chat with their parents(preferable in a public place) about the ridiculousness of their anxiety and assure them that they will go to and graduate from college, get a job, make mistakes, enjoy success, endure failure, fall in love, suffer rejection, bounce back and basically have a totally awesome time on the planet because that’s sort of the natural course of things. They could explain to them that even without all of their obsession regarding their academics, deep down all kids want to succeed in high school, college and later in life and while they appreciate the concern, what they really want is just a helping hand along the way instead of an International Harvester plowing them through the process. They could tell them that even though Mom and Grandpa went to Stanford and both became giants in the world of finance, what they really enjoy is reading the classics and were thinking about a cozy spot at Whittier and a future in literature and education and p.s. their younger sibling is a talented musician and majoring in music is not the same as majoring in monkey business! For the love of God, do Leonard Bernstein and Myles Davis mean nothing to you!? Is Julliard merely a vocational school?!
I think I saw a parent hyperventilating in front of the post office. She was concerned that her daughter’s 16th application was not getting in on time for “early decision.” That’s right. 16 applications. Is this not starting to seem a little strange to anyone but me?? Just the same, you may want to review #2 …this may be a good time to switch banks.
