The stress in the US system is very different. Indian schools (basically the oldschool british system I grew up with in boarding school) are hard but not stressful. Performance metrics are clear and students know what they have to do. US schools have become strange minefields of nebulous collage prep. Grades are given, everyone gets As. So students are forced to pad their resumes is other ways. You don't see indian students picking sports based on whether they can make team captain. You don't see average Indian students participating in 4+ team sports during a given week.
I've talked to Canadian kids who, when caught using steroids, have said that their performance on the field was part of their entrance plan. They had consciously decided to take drugs not to become pro athletes, or even to win a scholarship, but simply to get into a proper university. Similarly, I haven't heard of many indian students taking "learning drugs". I heard an ivy league admissions person talk about the sports thing. She spoke of a boarderline case involving an athlete who had competed at the Olympics. He had failed to medal. THAT was part of the schools decision, whether they metaled or not actually mattered.
I rarely see others mention it but I have a pet theory that grade inflation makes school more stressful. When A's are expected, a single bad day can easily sink a semester of effort. Additionally, as you say, grades don't leave much room for students to distinguish themselves positively anymore. Student have little room to excel, but every day is a chance to screw up.
My son is a junior now in a very competitive high school, and they had to do away with valedictorian/salutatorian because the difference between that and, say, just top 5% would be a 99.6 vs a 99.4 in one class in the 10th grade. It was so stressful for these kids, like it even fucking matters long term.
For people who burn out in high school, that's usually your first experience with it. The first time is always the worst, whether it happens in high school, college, or on the job.
Once you've already burned out once in high school, twice in college (once before and once after switching your major), and hit your breaking point at a job or two (regardless of whether you switch jobs, or careers, or just take a long vacation, or just spend six months kind of just putting in time at your job before you're ready to really try again) ... well, burning out still sucks, but you kind of get used to it, you know how to deal with it, and you know that eventually you're going to pick yourself up again.
But man, that first time, you really feel like a failure, like you're never going to amount to anything, and like you'll never be able to try again.
The biggest advantage to getting into an elite school is the networking. If your kid is making friends with the children of board members of Fortune 500 companies then they have a chance at the big leagues. Otherwise they're just clawing their way up to middle management like every other schmuck.
Of course even then it's a total crapshoot, but there's very little chance of that panning out in the state school.
> The biggest advantage to getting into an elite school is the networking. If your kid is making friends with the children of board members of Fortune 500 companies then they have a chance at the big leagues.
I wonder how the math works out on that. Realistically, I would only think so many connections could be made at such high levels for any given class of students.
How much does getting into the right college matter though? I'm not sure about the US system, but in Canada it doesn't feel like it matters all that much. Some schools are a little bit better than others, but it doesn't feel like a world of difference (at least when it comes to STEM). I've especially noticed this when interviewing candidates from various schools.
It doesn't really matter outside of fields like investment banking, parents (and college prep companies) place an artificial importance on it for the most part. In a tougher economy prestigious schools can provide useful connections, but in a bullish economy a degree from a regionally-known state school is equally valid.
It's not what you know, it's who you know. Even in Canada, a Waterloo grad is going to have much better connections then someone from the University of Northern BC.
Even that is only important a little bit. Excelling at a mid-tier university is completely FINE. It's so much harder to get into an Ivy League school now than when I was applying in the 90s; I'm not pushing my child to the brink for a tiny blink of undergrad prestige.
The 'arguing grades up' I always saw students doing seemed weird to me. But I was paying for school and ultimately just paying for a job-entry ticket so maybe I wasn't in the right mindset.
Absolutely and application padding began as early as the 90s when I was applying to colleges. It definitely was a thing back then but not as bad as we have today.
>The stress in the US system is very different. Indian schools (basically the oldschool british system I grew up with in boarding school) are hard but not stressful. Performance metrics are clear and students know what they have to do. US schools have become strange minefields of nebulous collage prep. Grades are given, everyone gets As.
Can you please point out the schools giving away A’s? My high school and the colleges I attended were certainly not that way. Not even remotely. I’m going to get a masters soon and I want to go to this type of school.
Who said anything about given away As? I said that having As was a given, not that it was easy. I do know of schools where 80+% of graduates have strait-As on government exams. They earn those through constant prep. My former highschool is now like this but nobody complains because almost all of their students go to university. (There is always that one kid each year who has mandatory military service to attend in his home country.)
What on earth are you talking about? You think the average American student is participating in 4+ team sports during a given week?
There are hundreds of millions of people around the world who's parents are spending their life savings to send them to a broken down public school, and anything short of an A+ means abject poverty (I mean real poverty, not the American "I can't afford my iPhone bill poverty") for another generation of their family name. My dad is the only person in his small shanty town who made it out, and he studied 16 hours a day, 7 days a week - all to achieve a decent middle class salary and drive a Toyota Camry. I was an exceptionally gifted student thanks to him, graduated at the top of my class, and now, again, barely eek out a middle class life
Not to mention the societal aspect - in many Asian cultures anything short of an A and you're an abject societal failure and a generational disgrace. Western-raised people don't have a clue what that kind of pressure feels like.
Anyone who thinks American schools are stressful are completely delusional about how the rest of the world works. Americans have had life too easy for too long - depression is simply a symptom of an overly easy life. It's the same reason depression & mental health issues overly present in zoo animals.
Suffering and struggle are necessary for a fulfilling, happy life - the West hasn't been exposed to real suffering in over half a century.
I've talked to Canadian kids who, when caught using steroids, have said that their performance on the field was part of their entrance plan. They had consciously decided to take drugs not to become pro athletes, or even to win a scholarship, but simply to get into a proper university. Similarly, I haven't heard of many indian students taking "learning drugs". I heard an ivy league admissions person talk about the sports thing. She spoke of a boarderline case involving an athlete who had competed at the Olympics. He had failed to medal. THAT was part of the schools decision, whether they metaled or not actually mattered.