Scholarships

This has nothing to do with food, or sewing. It is, however, a real puzzlement to me.

I've put 6 kids into college. My oldest, who is unarguably one of the most successful college students I've personally ever heard of, is out at the age of 24 with a BS in Industrial Engineering, MA & PhD in Economics. It cost us a whopping $32,000. No, I didn't drop any zeros there. No, he took out no student loans. No, we didn't refinance our house. 32 grand. How? Academics.

All of my kids are "gifted". This son decided in 8th grade that he was upset that two boys in his class always outperformed him in 7th grade, and started getting straight As on his report cards. Never stayed home sick from school, always did all the homework and then some ("those other kids in the group weren't doing their part, so I did the whole project for all 4 of us."), competed in the Junior Academy of Science, belonged to Boy Scouts, earned various scholastic awards, graduated #12 out of 320 kids, SAT scores of 790 verbal, 700 math, and got an enormous scholarship. By contrast, this article in the New York Times says that basically there are no free rides for sports, even football! I hear parents who actually start their kids in school late so they will be "bigger, and get more scholarships!" The New York Times says that just can't happen here - and explains why. These kids work harder than everyone else, according to this article.

This certainly doesn't mean that children shouldn't play in sports because they enjoy them. But that is the only valid reason, because to think it can be financially rewarding is a fool's errand. If just one person rethinks making their children's lives, and their own, very difficult because they're working so hard at what should be a fun game for the kids, I'm happy to have written this. Just an observation of life by a very experienced Mom.