Why Going to Your Safety School Will Make You A Better Parent
We've often linked to Karen Stabiner's blog on college admissions at the Huffington Post, all the time referring to her as Karen Stabiner (author of 8 books!) as her bio does at the top of the page. Well now the author of 8 books is about to be the author of a 9th. Her next, Getting In, is a work of college admissions fiction. I'm not sure if that has its own Dewey Decimal entry yet, but it undoubtedly will shortly.
Her latest post on it at Huffington, talks about what the book is really about, discussing the need for parents to provide a better life for their kids. This, of course, comes replete with the typical baby boomer generational apology of "sorry our lives were so much better than yours will ever be". (Oh, really? You think life was better when you were young, virile and valued by society for more than your ability to consume cholesterol medication?? Shocking!) And she goes on to note that the best way for a parent to make their child's life better is to ensure that they get into a better college.
Perfect. So essentially she's saying that the unnecessary strain and stress of the ludicrously over-competitive college admissions process can be attributed to the fact that people of her generation feel like they've screwed up the world enough (the sexual revolution brought AIDS and other STDs, years of economic progress ruined the environment), so they need to screw their kids lives up in order to feel better about themselves. Well...thanks.
But if that is how the world and getting older works, I guess the take away from this is to learn from her example. If you get yourself into an Ivy League school how are you going to ensure that your kids have a better life? If you go to Princeton or Harvard what happens if they end up at Brown? How will you cope with the fact that you've failed them as a parent? Just keep that in mind when you open up those letters later this month. Don't think of getting into only your safety school as a disappointment, think of it as setting yourself up for success as a parent.
Her latest post on it at Huffington, talks about what the book is really about, discussing the need for parents to provide a better life for their kids. This, of course, comes replete with the typical baby boomer generational apology of "sorry our lives were so much better than yours will ever be". (Oh, really? You think life was better when you were young, virile and valued by society for more than your ability to consume cholesterol medication?? Shocking!) And she goes on to note that the best way for a parent to make their child's life better is to ensure that they get into a better college.
Perfect. So essentially she's saying that the unnecessary strain and stress of the ludicrously over-competitive college admissions process can be attributed to the fact that people of her generation feel like they've screwed up the world enough (the sexual revolution brought AIDS and other STDs, years of economic progress ruined the environment), so they need to screw their kids lives up in order to feel better about themselves. Well...thanks.
But if that is how the world and getting older works, I guess the take away from this is to learn from her example. If you get yourself into an Ivy League school how are you going to ensure that your kids have a better life? If you go to Princeton or Harvard what happens if they end up at Brown? How will you cope with the fact that you've failed them as a parent? Just keep that in mind when you open up those letters later this month. Don't think of getting into only your safety school as a disappointment, think of it as setting yourself up for success as a parent.
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