The Mad, Mad World of Niche Sports Among Ivy League–Obsessed Parents

[MacMadame]

This article in The Atlantic is about how rich parents go crazy trying to get their kids into Ivies via niche sports.

The Mad, Mad World of Niche Sports Among Ivy League–Obsessed Parents

Where the desperation of late-stage meritocracy is so strong, you can smell it

www.theatlantic.com

I read the whole thing and was very and also . These parents are just insane IMO.

 

[hoptoad]

ITA.
Crazy!!

 

[MacMadame]

When my daughter was little, she was really good at t-ball to the point where she got recruited for a farm team for the next year. I got visions of her going to Stanford on a Softball scholarship. But she decided to do Girls Softball instead, didn't have as much fun, and didn't sign up the 3rd year. Oh well.

If I were one of these parents, instead of saying "oh well," I probably would have made her do it again after hiring a private coach. For a 10-year-old.

I don't understand what is wrong with people. Getting to the point where you are disappointed that your kid gets into Georgetown is just insanity to me. Georgetown is an amazing school and any parent should be proud to send their kids there, for one thing, and also many fine people go to schools that aren't Ivies or even particularly well-known and have good lives.

 

[skatfan]

I feel so badly for those kids. What terrible pressure to live with.

 

[alexikeguchi]

I'm a little amazed that none of these parents considered figure skating. Skaters seem to have a great track record of admission to Ivies and equivalent universities, and you don't even need to be a multiple world champion like Nathan Chen. I can think of so many national qualifiers who never got any further but went on to Harvard, Columbia, and Stanford.

 

[clairecloutier]

So I had refused to click on this story in the first place. (Because I am tired of reading about overprivileged rich people trying to game a system already rigged toward them. )

But, it now appears that the author of this story is notorious for past plagiarism/inaccuracy, and The Atlantic has apparently had to add a long Editor's Note to the story apologizing for faults within ....

 

[MacMadame]

The disclaimer is as as the original story!

You know, it's perfectly legitimate to obscure details about someone to hide their identity but you need to say you've done that. I've seen that before: some details and their names have been changed to protect their identity"

 

[Vagabond]

If I understand correctly, people are having fictitious children in order to get them into Ivy League institutions.

There has to be an easier way!

 

[kwanfan1818]

If I understand correctly, people are having fictitious children in order to get them into Ivy League institutions.

There has to be an easier way!

The fictitious child (son) was to obscure the parent's and therefore the real childrens' identities, to keep the interview from backfiring on the real children and their chances to be recruited.

 

[Vagabond]

The fictitious child (son) was to obscure the parent's and therefore the real childrens' identities, to keep the interview from backfiring on the real children and their chances to be recruited.

So I was close. People are having fictitious children in order to get their actual children into Ivy League institutions.

 

[MacMadame]

So I was close. People are having fictitious children in order to get their actual children into Ivy League institutions.

Nope. It was just for the article. The colleges only know about the real children.

 

[Vagabond]

Nope. It was just for the article. The colleges only know about the real children.

ETA:

Never mind. The Atlantic has now retracted the entire article.

 

[skategal]

This reminds me of what my husband always says “Lawn bowling is every Canadian’s ticket to making the Commonwealth games.”

 

[Vagabond]

The Atlantic Retracts Ruth Shalit Barrett Article on Niche Sports (Published 2020)

Ms. Barrett had been a rising young political reporter in the 1990s before accusations of plagiarism derailed her career as an associate editor at The New Republic.

www.nytimes.com

In an interview on Saturday night, before the retraction, Ms. Barrett said she had hoped her article would start a discussion about the “broader social and economic issues” raised by the lavish spending, injuries and cutthroat competition in niche youth sports.

It might be better to have a discussion of the broader social and economic issues raised by the outright lies, plagiarism, and cutthroat competition in niche magazine journalism.

 

[kwanfan1818]

I thought the most interesting part was where one of the college coaches talked about how he'd see one of these athletes and think they had potential, but also things they could work on, and then would think the kid likely had many high-level, highly paid private coaches who probably tried to work on those things, and decided that the kid had less potential coachable upside than a kid with the same potential, but without the same advantages.

 

[MacMadame]

The Atlantic Retracts Ruth Shalit Barrett Article on Niche Sports (Published 2020)

Ms. Barrett had been a rising young political reporter in the 1990s before accusations of plagiarism derailed her career as an associate editor at The New Republic.

www.nytimes.com

It might be better to have a discussion of the broader social and economic issues raised by the outright lies, plagiarism, and cutthroat competition in niche magazine journalism.

I don't know how if there is much economic gain here. Print and online journalism are in a decline. In May the Atlantic laid off a bunch of people due to declining revenue. I doubt they thought this particular piece was going to save them.

I think it's more about prestige and also creating a brand. The Atlantic publishes a lot of these deep dives into social issues and normally does a good job. It's on brand for them and they hope to win awards. Maybe those will translate into money but probably not.

I am not aware there is a pattern of "outright lies, plagiarism, and cutthroat competition in niche magazine journalism" either. I'm not saying it doesn't happen but it seems to be fairly rare.

I thought the most interesting part was where one of the college coaches talked about how he'd see one of these athletes and think they had potential, but also things they could work on, and then would think the kid likely had many high-level, highly paid private coaches who probably tried to work on those things, and decided that the kid had less potential coachable upside than a kid with the same potential, but without the same advantages.

I was struck by that as well. It's hard to judge talent.

Part of what drew me to this article is that I am in the middle of the admissions process with my youngest who is trying to get into a conservatory. She is competing with kids who got weekly voice lessons for years, did dance competitively, and have professional acting coaches. It's not like she's completely untrained but I let her decide how many and what kind of classes she wanted to do so she hasn't done nearly that much, most just voice lessons off and on. We are paying at least $1k to a company that helps these kids with their auditions and their college apps. They'll look over her personal essay and her college apps, coach her on her acting, dancing, and singing auditions and also they give advice on how many and what colleges to apply for.

I sure hope it's worth it!

 

[Vagabond]

I am not aware there is a pattern of "outright lies, plagiarism, and cutthroat competition in niche magazine journalism" either. I'm not saying it doesn't happen but it seems to be fairly rare.

But it did happen with this particular reporter. And even when her story began falling apart, she tried to divert attention from herself to other issues.

 

[Amy L]

I guess this explains why my 10 year old nephew has been taking fencing lessons since he was 3 years old. I was imagining toddlers smacking each other with swords and wondering why my sil thought he needed to start so young but this sounds like something she'd think was necessary.

 

[MacMadame]

But it did happen with this particular reporter. And even when her story began falling apart, she tried to divert attention from herself to other issues.

Okay so discuss it, rather than saying we should discuss it.

Though if you want to have a discussion about a pattern, you have to convince people there is a pattern.

I guess this explains why my 10 year old nephew has been taking fencing lessons since he was 3 years old. I was imagining toddlers smacking each other with swords and wondering why my sil thought he needed to start so young but this sounds like something she'd think was necessary.

I am always surprised by how other parents handle their kids' extra-curricular activities. We always let our kids do what they expressed interest in. We may have suggested stuff we thought they'd be interested in when they were younger. But that was about it. Plus we had a rule that you could only do one thing at a time.

A friend of mine was convinced in the early 90s that China was going to become a big player in the global economy and so signed her kids up for Chinese emersion school once they hit Kindergarten age. This was to give them an "edge" in life (more their working life, I think).

I always thought that was a bit whack, not because I disagreed with her about China (I didn't), but because it seemed like a weird thing to insist your kids do. They had no one in their family including them who spoke Mandarin which put her kids at a big disadvantage. They had no family traditions with ties to China either. This made it very hard for the kids and they did eventually drop out of the program. As far as I know, none of them is fluent in Mandarin either.

 

[kwanfan1818]

The odd thing about the fictitious son was that I read plenty of articles where there's a parenthetical disclaimer in the beginning that some (non-key, non-central) details and/or names have been changed to protect the identity of the interviewee, and this was even mentioned in the now-removed intro. Since the subject was high-stakes admissions to elite universities, you'd think such a change would be 1. understandable 2. acceptable to a writer was being given a chance and needed to keep her nose clean by dotting the journalistic i's and crossing the t's.

I think it's pretty scary that the actual details of the training didn't make it clear who the family is, but, no, just one of many families, which, of course, was the point of the article.

 

[Seerek]

Ivy or state school, it's not uncommon to see partial or full scholarships given out to athletes who started taking up the sport only in their junior or even senior year of high school.

 

[overedge]

The Atlantic Retracts Ruth Shalit Barrett Article on Niche Sports (Published 2020)

Ms. Barrett had been a rising young political reporter in the 1990s before accusations of plagiarism derailed her career as an associate editor at The New Republic.

www.nytimes.com

It might be better to have a discussion of the broader social and economic issues raised by the outright lies, plagiarism, and cutthroat competition in niche magazine journalism.

Add "obsession with posting clickbait" to that list.