Elite College Admissions Pressure

I volunteer tutor teens in the SAT and the problem is a bit deeper than just parents. A few of my students have a similar amount of base intelligence as me, and if they studied as much as I did, they would have no problem with finding a path of least resistance to the upper-middle/lower-upper class. The problem is that even if I'm 100% sure this path exists, they are skeptical because it seems like I'm in a entirely different world from them, so I'm not different than an MLM

Not everyone else is doing it. OP article is about the top 1% of high school students with elite ambitions. In your country, this might be like highlighting an Olympian's training vs. your average recreationist. The vast, vast majority of US students go to university with acceptance rates of 50% or higher where your GPA is the determinant.

My kids go to a stem focused magnet school. I realize different cultures value different things but its depressing to me how many kids are pushed to dedicate their whole childhood to get into top Universities. We'd go to the beach and their friends couldn't come because they were doing extra APs or science fair or Math Olympics or similar. These kids got good grades but never went on a date, couldn't drive or go anywhere by themselves.

One thing that excites me when I worry about the US losing its status is how competitive young people are.College admissions are absurd, and good grades are a necessity. People take the SAT several times just to get a slightly higher score. Kids are fighting really hard to get into good schools, and so when I think of the younger generation being video gaming, tweeting, facebook addicts, I'm also happy to remember how much harder we work at school than our parents did.

It represents kind of mindset. If early on in life(13-14 when grades start to matter)you wanted to excel in education and are willing to go to a top university where you are crushed with workload, it demonstrates a sense of drive and passion. You definitely can have that same drive and passion and go to a very mediocre school, but there are less of you statistically. you may even have more self-discipline since you must go above and beyond you peers, but from a recruiters perspective, when the

I think the advice of the article is targeted to high school students who aren't smart enough to get scholarships and are not necessarily guaranteed admission into a top Ivy. The type of students who are engaged in an AP arms race. The students who have parents who are living vicariously through their kids' academic performance, in pursuit of the ultimate bragging prize: an Ivy. The students who go to a very competitive high school an hours drive away in hopes that they can do well in this large

FWIW, this isn't so much a story of "being young in 2020" as it is "being young in 2020 in the hyper-competitive culture of major coastal metro areas of the US". This phenomenon is actually pretty unique to a handful of metro areas, which happen to be over-represented on HN. In most of the country, bright high school students are focused on getting into their state's flagship public university, and exceptionally successful ones might be focused on getting into the h

Yes and no. It's not great that people start the rat race so young now. Especially since it doesn't actually make that much of a difference: extra "accomplishments" in HS are only loosely associated with better colleges, and the college you go to is only loosely associated with how well your life actually goes afterward. The things that really end up mattering are a) choosing a field that the economy happens to want at that point in time, b) developing a good network, and c)

That seems normal. My friends and I did the exact same thing w. top grades and top schools 2 decades ago, turns out life is not a easy ride.

My issue is it seems to be you have to dedicate your childhood to getting into a top 10 college.I have teenage children who are looking at starting high school. I've been looking at Youtube videos reading books etc. It seems the only way is if you get straight As, start charities, get national awards, write amazing essays and have "significant impact" in your community with leadership positions. No normal 14 year old naturally does this, realistically it seems you can only get