Favorite Teen Problems

[ricevermicelli]

The kids, today, are having trouble with colleges. They can't figure out what they want or where to apply.

I selected the colleges I applied to by aiming darts at my hometown on a map of the U.S., and then applying to colleges near where my darts landed. Since I have terrible aim, after I wrote off the darts that landed in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, I was pretty much applying to colleges in California.

Someone recommended the Princeton Review's Counselor-o-Matic, and being a responsible adult, I went to check it out. I fed the dang thing my information from back when I had information (I used my actual SAT scores where possible, my actual high school, my actual major and actual talents - what talents there were, which is to say, not many). The thing spat back three lists of colleges. For some strange reason, Harvey Mudd was on the "good fit" list.

Which makes me think that the Princeton Review is broken. Me, with my grades, my interests, and my talents, could maybe have gotten in to Harvey Mudd if the dean had been interested in blowjobs from applicants. And even then, I'd have had to fight my way through the crowd of applicants willing to give blowjobs who were actually interested in majors that Harvey Mudd offers. And then I'd have flunked out.

The Princeton Review's recommendations didn't get a whole lot better. They suggested that I could, perhaps, apply to MIT, or RPI. Scripps did show up on the list somewhere or other. It was way far down though.

So in case anyone's wondering - Counselor-O-Matic is fucked in the head. That is all.

Comments

[robbbbbb.livejournal.com]

It tells me Lehigh University (where I now have a friend on the faculty). HMC is also high on the list. Convenient, that. It also recommended the military academies. I'd considered applying.

It fits me okay. Another data point for your consideration.

Meh...

[valkyriefire.livejournal.com]

Scripps was #1, then Harvey Mudd, then CMC (Eeeewwwww!), Occidental and I forget the last one. I'm surprised it didn't list Pitzer before CMC.

Then again, I was always looking for a women's college, so that narrows it a bit. I'm a masochist and I read the Scripps You-Aren't-Performing-to-Expectation mag (also known as the Alumnae magazine). If the new stats are to be believed, my application would be laughed into the trash these days.

Re: Meh...

[ricevermicelli.livejournal.com]

I had to stop reading the Alumnae rag a few winters back. The pictures of the pretty weather were just too painful.

I included, in my info, my actual concerns about male-female ratio (I wanted to go someplace with lots of boys). That may be how I wound up with a list so highly skewed to engineering schools.

Re: Meh...

[valkyriefire.livejournal.com]

What can I say? I must be addicted to comparing myself to those plastic trophy-husband seeking soul-less skeezes, 'cause they're the only ones who ever get in there. "Oh, hi! I've got my advanced degree(s), perfect husband (who's the CEO of an environmentally friendly and fiscally saavy company) and 1.5 children who are prodigies and I'm pleased to announce I just saved the world last Tuesday between building houses for Habitat for Humanity and the big Breast Cancer benefit. Miss you, ladies! Smootches!" I should start the "We suck and people like us that way" alumnae magazine.

I always had a women's college in mind because sex and men scared me enough into being an overbearing bully about such matters. Why change for higher education?

Re: Meh...

[ricevermicelli.livejournal.com]

Ah. You read the class notes. Honestly, I didn't seeing the trophy-husband seeking or the soullessness, just that no one wants the alumni mag to print the boggier details of their real lives - "My dear husband (Mark Staniswatson, HMC '92) and I just moved to a smaller apartment, following the crash in the tech market. The new place is great - no more granite countertops to refinish! We've put our plans to have children on indefinite hold, pending an uptick in the market, or an end to outsourcing. In the meantime, I'm retraining for an exciting new career in absolutely any field in which I can find a job that offers health insurance."

As for trophy husbands - I'm not seeing so many of those, and my opinion on marriage is that no amount of money is enough to make anyone put up with a spouse's random crap. A marriage without affection is destined for either divorce or homicide. If no one dies and they stay married, odds are that they actually like each other.

The class notes that disturb me are the ones from people who claim that their children are their lives. What on earth will they do when the kids grow up and move out?

Re: Meh...

[valkyriefire.livejournal.com]

Not just the class notes... I read the articles about exceptional women who have Excelled in their Fields and students who have done Something Amazing before even graduating.

Went I went to Jen Baylor's wedding last year, all of her Scripsie cadre had trophy husbands who sat there like lumps. They were married yet they didn't dance together, talk to each other, nor did the husbands mingle with any unknown people. If you weren't actually TOLD they were married, you wouldn't have been able to guess they had even come together. It was like they all got taken out of storage, spruced up for the occasion and then promptly placed in the corner and ignored the rest of the evening, totally creepy.

Children are simply the most acceptable renunciation of all that pesky selfhood, but husbands and careers rank up there as well. I don't actually mean to impugne marriage, I've simply had too many classes about marriage, family, and divorce. It's scary.

Re: Meh...

[ricevermicelli.livejournal.com]

Children are simply the most acceptable renunciation of all that pesky selfhood, but husbands and careers rank up there as well.

So what are the available self-affirming activities?

Re: Meh...

[valkyriefire.livejournal.com]

I think my language has been too absolute. I meant that I think societally, giving up ones self for children is not only acceptable, but preferred.

Self-affirmation is a state of being, in my opinion, and any activity that one does or any part of one's life can be self-affirming. This includes marriage, children, and career. It can also disclude those things. Self-sacrifice can be self-affirming. The difference is perhaps in boundaries. Being a social worker is who I am, it's the most self-affirming part of my life. Giving that part of myself up for something less affirming would be unacceptable to me.

I've known people whose highest affirmation of self in their role as a parent or spouse. I've also known those who removed, subsumed, or killed a part of themselves to fit into a role someone else prescribed for them. Both have the potential for harm. I prefer to believe that we're all trying to live our lives in the best way we know how and that even maladaptive behavior can have its strength.

I'm no paragon of absolute selfhood. I'm still trying to figure out parts of who I am and I feel like I'm so far behind in a some areas that I have to find those parts without any tools or supports. I'm not comfortable with making decisions without knowing the outcome first and I'm even more uncomfortable realizing that about myself.

It always seemed to me that the Scripps ideal (or whatever it was I thought the Scripps ideal to be) was something I could never aspire to without giving up essential parts of myself, so I suppose I assumed no one else could and still be happy. Of course statistically speaking, that must be untrue.

Re: Meh...

[(Anonymous)]

What on earth will they do when the kids grow up and move out?

Try to spoil their grandchildren? Or bring up everything the kids are doing "wrong" in parenting?

/CHip

[cabanasloth.livejournal.com]

Harvey Mudd slightly edged out Scripps for me, too.

And on behalf of those of us who know the admissions staff at HMC, that image was entirely unnecessary. :)

[supercheesegirl.livejournal.com]

It wasn't too bad for me. It put Lehigh as #1 for me, and I actually applied there. Its short list for me also had Gettysburg College and Colgate University, where a good friend of mine went and was really happy.

But it thought Cornell was a good match school for me. It put Princeton and UPenn as reach schools, and Villanova as a safety school. I didn't go to Villanova because they gave me no money. And Susquehanna, where I actually went, didn't show up at all. That's pretty funny.

[ricevermicelli.livejournal.com]

Coincidentally, it also put Lehigh at #1 for me. And for user. And for robbbbbb above. The plethora of Lehigh recommendations (and the fact that Lehigh had a lower percent match than a bunch of schools that showed up below it) leads me to suspect some sort of paid placement deal.

[175560.livejournal.com]

I suddenly have some extremely hilarious images in my head, like you trying to offer Deren Finks a blowjob as part of your personal interview, and then later trying to "convince" Bob Keller that, yes, there is a lot to be said in a senior thesis about the relationship between database management, graph algorithms, and Cthulhu.

Thanks for making my day. =)