Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I think it's because a lot of people wished they would have been that motivated as a child.
How much is self-motivated vs. parental pressure/influence? I don't recall any teenagers in my day who dreamed about doing research for Mom and Dad's megacorp..
How much is self-motivated vs. parental pressure/influence? I don't recall any teenagers in my day who dreamed about doing research for Mom and Dad's megacorp..
No idea. I don't doubt there are overachieving kids that just want to be overachievers because they do stuff that has nothing to do with their parents' jobs.
How much is self-motivated vs. parental pressure/influence? I don't recall any teenagers in my day who dreamed about doing research for Mom and Dad's megacorp..
I think it is probably a combination of both. I went to school with some kids who definitely had the overbearing tiger parents. Then on the other hand, there are kids who just really have a dream of doing something and will work hard at doing it until they make it.
... To me it seems he is just doing things his parents have pressured him into doing...
It doesn't seem like that to me. Without knowing anything else about the story, I assume the kid did all that stuff because he/she wanted to. 20 AP classes? What school even offers that many AP classes? Sounds like a private school or a public magnet school, not a school the kid went to by accident. Let it go. The kid likes to study and probably would climb the walls if forced to play sports or video games.
In my local paper I read about a kid who took 20 AP classes! He wrote a bunch of apps and did scientific research with some megacorps. Isn't he being robbed of his childhood? To me it seems he is just doing things his parents have pressured him into doing because it will look "good" for college admissions.
And these apps and research are stuff that most adults could do in a few days/weeks. Nothing groundbreaking about them. So why are kids like this pushed to be like adults instead of being kids? And why do colleges like this when it's obvious parents are pushing them to do this?
Maybe he LIKES it?
I took a class at a nearby university when I was in high school. I liked it.
Maybe he doesn't want to do typical childhood things; maybe he really needs the intellectual stimulation.
So what if adults can do it in a few days/weeks; most children might not be able to.
It doesn't seem like that to me. Without knowing anything else about the story, I assume the kid did all that stuff because he/she wanted to. 20 AP classes? What school even offers that many AP classes? Sounds like a private school or a public magnet school, not a school the kid went to by accident. Let it go. The kid likes to study and probably would climb the walls if forced to play sports or video games.
You don’t necessarily need to get them through the school. For example, they have Florida Virtual School (the online public school for FL) and kids can take supplementary classes through there even if they are in traditional school. I have a friend who teaches AP and she does most of her work talking to students/parents after normal school hours. FWIW, I did SAT tutoring a while ago (probably 15 years ago) and even then kids were taking online classes in addition to going to accelerated magnet programs that offered a lot of AP classes.
Fair enough, I've known people that were D students in school that turned out to be really intelligent.
Oh, I misunderstood your point.
IMO there are several factors. A good number of students, according to what I've noticed, read and been told by my psychologist buddy, this group is mostly male as well, don't hit their academic strides until college. Some very bright people never really hit an academic stride.......a college cohort and now long time friend dropped out of Rice, no real shame in that, took a job with an oil independent and before long he was programming and then he/they figured out he was amazing at examining old cheap 2-D seismic data/maps and deciding when and where to invest in much more expensive 3-D seismic, further what plays to invest and how much etc.
It seems the other direction doesn't work out as cleanly. Sure, some high school kids work diligently and perform very well but don't have the brainpower to succeed in college. However, per college, considering most majors anyway, students who do very well must be intelligent.
For various reasons I've been interested in intelligence, measuring intelligence and related for a long time. The University of Minnesota Medical School used to keep track of graduate's IQ. The long time running overage was in the high 120s (128 I think) and that makes sense. IQ128 = ~97th percentile, medical school is very, very difficult yielding both an information barrage and many very advanced concepts that must be well understood.
The answer is because it's nice to see people do well. When a kid performs as well as the kid the OP mentioned, it's nice to hear. Much like it's nice to hear about athletes breaking world records and such.
While some kids may be pushed by parents, not all kids are and I think it's unfair to judge a kid you don't know (or the kid's parents) assuming that it's not really the student's own motivation. You never know, some kids are just wired to be that way. I remember them from school. Sure we had the ones with so called tiger parents, but there were some who just loved learning too.
But one thing I will add. There is a dark side where over achieving students fall into the same trap as adults who are workaholics. This seems to happen more to the kids who are pushed by parents than the ones who are self motivated though. I have seen with my own peers when I was a teen and I see it with my daughters friends how some students are pushed a little too far and burn out. Or they are isolated from their peers because all their focus is on school and not being a kid, learning social skills, and growing up. While I think it's great to be a super smart and high achieving teenager, I also think there has also got to be education/life balance. Much like there should be work/life balance for adults (and how being a workaholic isn't always best).
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
