Don't get me wrong. I'd like to think I am smart. If you knew me on a day to day basis, you wouldn't necessarily think so - but when the chips are down, I'd say I was above average.. Not mensa, not a genius, but smart. I am smart enough to know I'm probably not smarter than a lot of people.
Since I was small, I was counted amongst the smartest kids in my school. I don't know if it just luck, or timing, or both - but I was selected in elementary school to take an exam for a pretty reputable program. Then all through middle school I was in an advanced class, then for HS - I went to a relatively reputable HS in the city.
This is where I think the disconnect was.
I didn't go to a reputable college. I didn't apply myself that much in HS either. I think it was the ability to say that I didn't study to explain away my mediocre SAT score, and my B+ A- average in school. (which was bad by the way - in comparison. To who - I don't know, but I was constantly reassured that it was bad..)
I like the college I went to. A lot of things happened for me there. I excelled at school without really trying. I met my husband there. I have great friends from there. I ended up getting a job at a great accounting firm (the biggest now - from what I understand) - hobnobbing with the ivy league students I went to school with in HS.
But there was something about that one hiatus in my life. The fall from grace, if you will. The college I attended wasn't reputable. I often find myself explaining why I went to this college, even though I've done relatively well for myself otherwise, and generally - I'm very happy.
I think it might be that I'm a reverse intellectual elitist. I met too many people who weren't smart, but ended up going to great schools. Or people who looked at the name of the HS, college, graduate school, law school - and immediately judged the person based on where he/she went, and I am relatively repulsed by it. The self-importance that some of these people have. I went to a whole HS with fledgling elitists. To a certain extent they were all that way. The worse part was the school fostered it. It encouraged the pomposity, rather than reinforced the idea that we may be smart, but we need to listen and hear those around us. That our own voices were not the most important, and our ideas may not have been the best. We were encouraged to think that we knew best... even if that wasn't true. I suppose it was one way to foster confidence. For a lot - it fostered cockiness. It was an immediate turn off for me from the very beginning, and perhaps that has translated very deeply into the way I live and view things now.
Yet - I subscribe to it. I must. If not - I would care less about what people thought about my going to a less reputable school, feel need to explain why I went there... It wouldn't matter. But it does. So I'm a big mix of muddled feelings and emotions about this.
As I am thinking about it - I'm swayed to let her stay here. The school district here is relatively good. There is no guarantee that she will be admitted to the school of choice that I have set my eyes on. I've also determined that life has a way of throwing curve balls at us. Let's say we uproot our lives here, and then she decides that she doesn't even want to continue to go to school. That has always been something that I have told McSquared to embrace, not reject. We teach our kids to understand the consequences of their decisions, and then let them make their own mistakes. That is a part of the beauty of living your own life, regret-free. I think they need to be fully educated, but in the end, if they fully understand what they are doing, who am I to stand in their way? It's not about controlling the actions of your children. It's about guiding them to make the decisions that are right for them, even if it means that you let them make the mistakes they need to in order to get to where they should be. Even if this means it takes them longer to get there.
I want to be able to afford the opportunities to my children that are invaluable in comparison to an ivy league education. I'd like them to see the world before they need to be immersed in it. I'd like them to be able to see those that aren't as well off to appreciate what they have I'd like them to meet different people from different countries to understand that we are all very different, and yet, exactly the same. Life's experiences trump anything you can find in a classroom, and I'd like my children to be subsumed in it. The juggle comes from whether or not I can afford both an ivy league education and all these other programs that give you life lessons...
So - I struggle. I continue to struggle about it. For myself and for my daughter...
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