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Post by celawson on Jun 7, 2017 11:23:28 GMT -5
Yup, they have always wanted more than pure academic grind. That helped me get into Dartmouth Med School, so I know it from a personal perspective. And of course not ALL kids are like that. But have you gone through the college application process with anyone lately? It's VERY different from when I applied and I assume from when you applied. I just went through it with my daughter. The common app has significantly increased the number of applicants to each school, and the academic pressure on kids these days is immense. Way worse than a decade or more ago. Kids are taking 5 AP classes at a time. That's more than a normal college load! And with that sort of academic load plus music or sports, who has time for a real job? Or an authentic teen life? Some kids do, but certainly the minority if I look at my daughter's high-achieving peers. (We live in an affluent area where Ivy/Stanford/Berkeley et al are highly sought after) The helicopter parent situation has increased, and a lot of the extracurriculars aren't very real-world. Of course I'm not talking about ALL Ivy League kids. But it's an unhealthy situation for college-bound kids these days.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 7, 2017 11:31:58 GMT -5
I don't disagree. Haven't gone through the app process recently, but a friend owns a high-end tutoring business, so I know how heavy the pressure is, and I do see a good many recent ivy law grads. You do get some who need some remedial social skills, but I honestly do not think the problem is worse with ivy kids than it is with non-ivy kids.
A bunch of my friends have teens and tweens, and many of them, at all levels, seem to lack basic manners and coping-with-the-world skills. (Not all, of course, but too many.) I think that goes back much farther and deeper than the pressure to get high test scores -- I think it starts with parents being afraid to ever let their kids out of their sight for one minute. At kindergarten age, I was crossing streets on my own and walking a few block to school. That's considered child abuse now. (And no, the world is not statistically more dangerous -- many parents just seem to think it is).
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Post by Vince524 on Jun 7, 2017 11:48:37 GMT -5
When I was a kid, in Brooklym (Yo) I would play with friends up, down and around the block when I was 1st, 2nd, 3rd. By 6th grade, which was around the time KISS released Lick It Up I'd be on buses all over Brooklyn. I remember because I had to get to the record store to buy that record on my own.
I live upstate NY in Saratoga Springs. Low crime rate, yet we were much more careful with our own kids. They're in college and my wife still wants to know where they are, when they leave their dorm room, etc. It was a big adjustment for our foster as she was allowed to go wherever, whenever and for however long she wanted for years. She'd go to someone's home and stay several nights, and whichever parent was around or not around, never noticed. Sometimes I think we're a little too careful.
Having said that, I get why Harvard did this, but I still think they could have done a probation thing. I get these kids are 17, 18and not little ones, but screw ups happen. I do feel for them. They brought it on themselves, but still.
My 2 cents.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 7, 2017 11:55:38 GMT -5
They haven't even started at the school yet. Suspending them isn't really an option. Starting them in September on probation...yeah, I don't really get doing that, given how many other tremendous kids there are lined up for this spot who have NOT done this.
And it certainly sends a valuable message to thousands of other high-performing kids: don't be a jackass or you might lose your spot. They can spend the time they would have spent on a "horny bourgeois teens" site instead acquiring valuable life and social skills.
Meanwhile these kids will go to some other perfectly acceptable school, hopefully a wee bit wiser.
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Post by Vince524 on Jun 7, 2017 12:04:32 GMT -5
They haven't even started at the school yet. Suspending them isn't really an option. Starting them in September on probation...yeah, I don't really get doing that, given how many other tremendous kids there are lined up for this spot who have NOT done this. And it certainly sends a valuable message to thousands of other high-performing kids: don't be a jackass or you might lose your spot. They can spend the time they would have spent on a "horny bourgeois teens" site instead acquiring valuable life and social skills. Meanwhile these kids will go to some other perfectly acceptable school, hopefully a wee bit wiser. Again, I can't say that you're wrong. I'm assuming that Harvard did it's due diligence here, and didn't revoke acceptance for a kid who may have gone into the meme room, but didn't post.
But they easily could make a fuss, threaten, and then tell them that if they want to come to Harvard they have this noted on their record and if there were any other incidents, they'd be expelled.
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Post by Vince524 on Jun 7, 2017 12:05:12 GMT -5
Keep in mind, I'm a soft touch.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 7, 2017 13:23:32 GMT -5
They haven't even started at the school yet. Suspending them isn't really an option. Starting them in September on probation...yeah, I don't really get doing that, given how many other tremendous kids there are lined up for this spot who have NOT done this. And it certainly sends a valuable message to thousands of other high-performing kids: don't be a jackass or you might lose your spot. They can spend the time they would have spent on a "horny bourgeois teens" site instead acquiring valuable life and social skills. Meanwhile these kids will go to some other perfectly acceptable school, hopefully a wee bit wiser. Again, I can't say that you're wrong. I'm assuming that Harvard did it's due diligence here, and didn't revoke acceptance for a kid who may have gone into the meme room, but didn't post.
But they easily could make a fuss, threaten, and then tell them that if they want to come to Harvard they have this noted on their record and if there were any other incidents, they'd be expelled.
My guess, given there were only ten, is that they only revoked acceptances for those who posted stuff that was really over the top. I tend to doubt only ten people posted, and I'm sure far more than that visited. To note: revoking an acceptance will not follow these kids through life. (I haven't seen the kids names listed anywhere.) But being expelled might. Also, it would come too late for those ten waitlisted kids pacing by their mailboxes. Keep in mind, I'm a soft touch. <3. and this is why we love you so. I dunno, any pity I feel for these kids is more than outweighed by the thrill those waitlisted kids are gonna get when they get the nod.
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Post by Don on Jun 8, 2017 7:18:57 GMT -5
celawson nailed it, IMO. There is no room for dissention innovation anymore. Schools are the great homogenizers. This is just a continuation of the process or raising conformists with no room or interest in divergent thought. See also: Vince524 new thread on life on college campuses today.
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Post by robeiae on Jun 8, 2017 7:28:51 GMT -5
I dunno, any pity I feel for these kids is more than outweighed by the thrill those waitlisted kids are gonna get when they get the nod. For all we know, the ones on the waitlist could all be ten times worse than those who had their acceptances revoked.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 8, 2017 7:42:37 GMT -5
Perhaps. But unfortunately there is no litmus test for who is a better person deep down inside. All we've got to go on is public behavior.
ETA:
I can't see that this has a damn thing to do with "dissension" or "innovation". They were circulating memes with sexual and racist images making jokes about rape, child abuse and the holocaust on a freaking Harvard affiliated site with other incoming Harvard students. And their punishment is to not go to an elite university that only admits a select few. Boo hoo.
Had they been jailed -- or even expelled -- for writing strongly-worded but well-supported controversial opinions about current political issues, that would be a different issue.
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Post by Amadan on Jun 8, 2017 7:47:31 GMT -5
I'm gonna contradict myself a bit here and take the Devil's Advocate position. Not sure if I have actually changed my position here, but I am seeing another perspective to this.
Yes, Harvard can afford to be super-picky and punt anyone who does something dumb in favor of a kid on the waitlist who... didn't do something dumb.
However, part of growing up is doing dumb shit and learning from it. You could say "Well, they lost their place in Harvard, so they are learning from it." Which is true. But do we really want to encourage a zero-tolerance culture where there is no room for error? One mistake (I mean a mistake that is a learning opportunity, not a "mistake" that causes serious harm to someone) and you lose your job, your reputation, your chances for career advancement, your spot in an elite university?
I am reminded of how military culture has changed in the last couple of generations - not for the better, IMHO. To get promoted today - especially among commissioned officers - you basically have to be a squeaky-clean brown-noser who has never pissed off anyone or made any serious mistakes. This of course has fostered a climate of extreme risk aversion and conformism.
It used to be that you kind of expected officers and NCOs to have gotten in trouble a bit, being rowdy, pissing off their CO, sometimes doing stupid shit. And as a result, you got some people who rose to the top with a risk-taking attitude and a willingness to try dangerous stunts that paid off. That is strongly discouraged today. Is that what we want?
Now, sharing offensive humor on a university message board is hardly the sort of "risk-taking attitude" that nurtures a good future military officer, so I am not saying it's the same thing. Still, I wonder if it's really good for us as a society to hammer every young person with the message "If you are ever caught saying anything offensive, it can have lifelong repercussions."
(The reality is that that is currently the case, so yes, they need to learn that.)
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Post by Deleted on Jun 8, 2017 7:53:20 GMT -5
These are not "lifelong repercussions." Has anyone seen these kids' names listed anywhere? I haven't. They will go to another perfectly fine university, like millions of other kids.
I assume they are smart kids who will do well academically and thrive. And maybe, just maybe, this experience will have taught them a thing or two about not being a dumbass online.
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Post by robeiae on Jun 8, 2017 8:00:26 GMT -5
Sure. Which is related to my general thesis here, Harvard or no Harvard. Engaging in irreverent humor has become such a litmus test, it would seem, with the apparent caveat that doing it privately is okay (incidently, the group was, in fact, a private group, though it was still an offshoot of a Harvard group).
After all, this was your assessment of their actions:
Again, I get Harvard's decision. I can't fault the school for it because reputation and appearances matter (now more than ever). But I think passing judging on who someone is here is perhaps a bridge too far. We don't know who they are, what they have done, outside of this one incident. The fact that they got into Harvard at all still says something, imo (unless they'e all legacies). There's a reason why the next ten on the waitlist didn't make the cut and it's not like we can assume these ten were the last ten to be admitted.
So, Harvard did what it needed to do. Fair enough. These kids learned a really tough lesson about "optics" (there's that word again), fair enough. Still, I think there's room to say calm the fuck down about people making jokes in poor taste, about dark humor, about gallows humor. Sometimes "hey dumbass, you missed badly with that one; think it through next time" is enough. Imo, at any rate.
Of course, when this is pointed out, and then that someone doubles down or worse, well...
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Post by robeiae on Jun 8, 2017 8:02:58 GMT -5
Still, I wonder if it's really good for us as a society to hammer every young person with the message "If you are ever caught saying anything offensive, it can have lifelong repercussions." (The reality is that that is currently the case, so yes, they need to learn that.) This would be what I was trying to get to, much better stated.
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Post by Amadan on Jun 8, 2017 8:32:39 GMT -5
These are not "lifelong repercussions." Has anyone seen these kids' names listed anywhere? I haven't. They will go to another perfectly fine university, like millions of other kids. I assume they are smart kids who will do well academically and thrive. And maybe, just maybe, this experience will have taught them a thing or two about not being a dumbass online. Sure, they'll live. I'm not saying their lives are ruined. But... they got admitted to Harvard, and then lost it. That is something that's going to stick with them. I'm not saying they don't deserve it. I just worry about how far this will go. Not for these kids, necessarily, but in future cases. You yourself said these kids were "too dumb to live." I know you were using hyperbole, and you probably would not say that they should not be admitted to any decent school anywhere after this. But there are certainly those who would be happy to go after anyone they can find guilty of having been offensive ever, anywhere.
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