Sarah Strohmeyer's Blog - Posts Tagged "smart-girls"
When All Else Fails: Bohemian Rhapsody
I can't tell you how many times Bohemian Rhapsody has saved my own butt. But it probably would be best if I spared you details. My parole officer children probably would appreciate a little discretion.
But not Robert Wilkinson!
http://www.nj.com/entertainment/index...
But not Robert Wilkinson!
http://www.nj.com/entertainment/index...
The Plight of "Unhooked" Girls
This spring hundreds of bright, intelligent girls, the ones who stayed up until four a.m. studying for calculus exams, who by sheer ambition aced the SATs and exhausted themselves on the hockey field, who sang Christmas carols at the senior center and rewrote the prom rules, have been rejected in the cruelest form – the dreaded thin envelope from _______________ (fill in your Ivy dream school here).
The spurning of a boy, in comparison, pales.
Who cares about boys when you have just been told that despite all your hard work and determination, Princeton’s leafy green quads are forever off limits? Anyway, it was that boy LAX player one seat over in American Lit (the one who asked to borrow your notes from last class) who got in Seems like boys have it easier – still!
It’s enough to send a valedictorian to her book-strewn bed in tears. Why, she is asking herself. Or, rather, why not?
The answer is an irony to rival Austen’s own. There is an abundance of riches; there are too many smart girls.
Seriously, can there ever be too many smart girls?
Well, yes, apparently, if you’re in Ivy League admissions. “Unhooked white girls” – please, don’t even get me started on deconstructing that term – is the phrase school counselors use to describe the above: intelligent overachievers who earn all A’s, who score 2300 on the SATS or thereabouts but who have no “hook,” i.e. special skill/passion/Tiger-Mother-Induced talent to get them noticed. In other words, all that straight A, perfect SAT stuff is just the foundation. Here’s what the Ivy admissions counselors want to know: when did you last play Carnegie Hall?
“There are so many high-achieving … girls who have studied hard, participated in all the right activities, and expected the top colleges to appreciate their efforts,” Scott Farber, president and founder of A-List Education and a test-preparation and admissions expert told The Daily Beast recently. “Do they deserve to get in? Sure. Would they do well if admitted? Absolutely. But colleges are not looking for the well-rounded kid; they want the well-rounded class. And unless you are a superstar in some area, you’re just one of thousands of smart, all-around, but unhooked white girls. It may be unfair, but that’s life.”
Fellow unhooked smart girls, let me assure you I have received the thin envelopes and so has my smart twenty-one-year-old daughter. All is not doom, as I’m sure your parents have repeated over and over while privately gnashing their teeth at the system’s unfairness. All is well.
Just as we avoid partners in life who believe they are too good for us, so we avoid said colleges. Seek out the university that desperately wants your verve, wit and insight and you’ll only vaguely remember how you longed for that bulldog in blue.
Better, consider these hidden gems discovered more recently by my daughter: all-women’s colleges.
Smith, Wellesley, Mt. Holyoke and Bryn Mawr boast the rich history, the Gothic architecture, the academic atmosphere found at You Know Where. Plus, these colleges are obviously pro women. They believe in smart girls and always have, challenging them to study diligently, to reach beyond their limits and to trust their intelligence. The alumnae networks of all-women’s colleges are famous for actively supporting recent graduates with recommendations to jobs and grad schools.
Correspondingly, the sizable endowments at these schools make a top-notch rigorous education surprisingly affordable. I know because for three years I’ve written tuition checks to Bryn Mawr which has been more than generous.
In addition, many all-women’s colleges have decided SATs and ACTs are not mandatory. Their admissions rates are refreshingly reasonable – or, rather, “self selecting” - thanks to the current prejudice against single-sex education. None of this 5.6% business you’ll find at Harvard. If you’re smart and hard working, your chances are good.
Sure, there’ll be a few classmates in capes riding bikes with fairy wings and distant relatives will rudely inquire how you’ll be able to survive four years without boys….but so what? Fairy wings are fun and boys are everywhere, often in pursuit of girls. Funny, that phenomenon.
Need a role model? Look no further than Hillary Clinton, Wellesley ‘69. She was an “unhooked” smart girl too. Now, she pretty much rules the world.
So sit up, dry your eyes and send in your acceptances to the schools that want you. It’s time to show Harvard/Yale/Brown what they missed because, let’s face it, better to be “unhooked” than “unhinged.”
The spurning of a boy, in comparison, pales.
Who cares about boys when you have just been told that despite all your hard work and determination, Princeton’s leafy green quads are forever off limits? Anyway, it was that boy LAX player one seat over in American Lit (the one who asked to borrow your notes from last class) who got in Seems like boys have it easier – still!
It’s enough to send a valedictorian to her book-strewn bed in tears. Why, she is asking herself. Or, rather, why not?
The answer is an irony to rival Austen’s own. There is an abundance of riches; there are too many smart girls.
Seriously, can there ever be too many smart girls?
Well, yes, apparently, if you’re in Ivy League admissions. “Unhooked white girls” – please, don’t even get me started on deconstructing that term – is the phrase school counselors use to describe the above: intelligent overachievers who earn all A’s, who score 2300 on the SATS or thereabouts but who have no “hook,” i.e. special skill/passion/Tiger-Mother-Induced talent to get them noticed. In other words, all that straight A, perfect SAT stuff is just the foundation. Here’s what the Ivy admissions counselors want to know: when did you last play Carnegie Hall?
“There are so many high-achieving … girls who have studied hard, participated in all the right activities, and expected the top colleges to appreciate their efforts,” Scott Farber, president and founder of A-List Education and a test-preparation and admissions expert told The Daily Beast recently. “Do they deserve to get in? Sure. Would they do well if admitted? Absolutely. But colleges are not looking for the well-rounded kid; they want the well-rounded class. And unless you are a superstar in some area, you’re just one of thousands of smart, all-around, but unhooked white girls. It may be unfair, but that’s life.”
Fellow unhooked smart girls, let me assure you I have received the thin envelopes and so has my smart twenty-one-year-old daughter. All is not doom, as I’m sure your parents have repeated over and over while privately gnashing their teeth at the system’s unfairness. All is well.
Just as we avoid partners in life who believe they are too good for us, so we avoid said colleges. Seek out the university that desperately wants your verve, wit and insight and you’ll only vaguely remember how you longed for that bulldog in blue.
Better, consider these hidden gems discovered more recently by my daughter: all-women’s colleges.
Smith, Wellesley, Mt. Holyoke and Bryn Mawr boast the rich history, the Gothic architecture, the academic atmosphere found at You Know Where. Plus, these colleges are obviously pro women. They believe in smart girls and always have, challenging them to study diligently, to reach beyond their limits and to trust their intelligence. The alumnae networks of all-women’s colleges are famous for actively supporting recent graduates with recommendations to jobs and grad schools.
Correspondingly, the sizable endowments at these schools make a top-notch rigorous education surprisingly affordable. I know because for three years I’ve written tuition checks to Bryn Mawr which has been more than generous.
In addition, many all-women’s colleges have decided SATs and ACTs are not mandatory. Their admissions rates are refreshingly reasonable – or, rather, “self selecting” - thanks to the current prejudice against single-sex education. None of this 5.6% business you’ll find at Harvard. If you’re smart and hard working, your chances are good.
Sure, there’ll be a few classmates in capes riding bikes with fairy wings and distant relatives will rudely inquire how you’ll be able to survive four years without boys….but so what? Fairy wings are fun and boys are everywhere, often in pursuit of girls. Funny, that phenomenon.
Need a role model? Look no further than Hillary Clinton, Wellesley ‘69. She was an “unhooked” smart girl too. Now, she pretty much rules the world.
So sit up, dry your eyes and send in your acceptances to the schools that want you. It’s time to show Harvard/Yale/Brown what they missed because, let’s face it, better to be “unhooked” than “unhinged.”
Why I Wrote SMART GIRLS
When my first YA book SMART GIRLS GET WHAT THEY WANT comes out June 26th it will mark the end of a journey that began four years ago when Alessandra Balzer, editor and co-publisher of Balzer + Bray at HarperCollins, had just finished THE CINDERELLA PACT and remarked to my agent that I should write YA.
I'd already been thinking the same thing and not just because my writing style tends toward the fast, flippant and emotional. Ever since high school, I'd wanted to write a book about "my people" - smart girls I knew growing up who were often pigeonholed as stuck up prudes. Seemed unfair to say the least since I remember us as extremely funny and irreverent.
My high school was huge - 750 kids in my class alone - and largely blue collar. At Liberty High in Bethlehem, PA., the students who mattered were the stars on the football field, either as players or cheerleaders. A group of girls who fought to get As in calculus were largely ignored.
I'm not gonna lie, it hurt. Let's just say (my husband hates this part) that I played a lot of Janis Ian's At Seventeen when I wasn't invited to the prom. (Which I mooned from the backseat of my friend's car.) Cliche? Maybe. But there you have it.
Fast forward thirty years and now I'm the mother of a smart girl and former Girl Scout leader to her smart girl friends. Things have improved somewhat. Kids are more accepting. The football stuff not so big. (Then again, it's Vermont). But I'm disappointed because I see familiar patterns reappearing. My daughter and her friends are pegged, just like I was, as aloof. And, in some ways, they ARE aloof. All I know is that they're not getting the full high school experience, the richness and rewards that come from those first tastes of freedom.
Why not? In theory, the smartest kids in the school should rule the roost. Carpe diem! Grasp the thistle! Go for it!
The result was my fourteenth baby, SMART GIRLS GET WHAT THEY WANT. The best part was that from the get go, Alessandra was right on board with my vision of a book triumphing smart girls. And we agreed on a few ground rules:
a) This would not be a "mean girls" book, not that I don't LOVE Tina Fey. But it's been done, it's unproductive and, in my opinion, meanness sucks out the good karma. I'll leave that to Jennsylvania who is brilliant.
b) No cliches. Because smart girls are not cliche. They are usually interesting, well-read people, though hardly goody two shoes. For example, my daughter, a junior at Bryn Mawr is a horrible reality show addict. Her equally smart friend, Thea, and she were totally addicted to Gossip Girls. What they do now in college, I don't wanna ask.
c) Boys, yes! But not for boys alone. My smart girls would not break out of their shells to get guys. If along the way a few guys happened to come their way :) then so be it. And in SMART GIRLS GET WHAT THEY WANT, there are a couple of brilliant boys who turn up the heat.
So, that's my book and that's why I wrote SMART GIRLS. By the way, my smart girl friends from high school went on to live very fulfilling lives as a dentist, a Princeton professor, a mathematician, a pharmaceutical executive, an airline pilot (oddly enough, she was the WORST driver) and a Presbyterian minister.
My daughter's friends graduated from their Vermont public high school and went to Tufts, Vassar, MIT, Hampshire, Skidmore, BU and University of Chicago. They've got exciting internships this summer in film, journalism and psychology. Mostly, they have a lot of fun with and without guys.
In other words, I'm here to testify, smart girls DO get what they want!
I'd already been thinking the same thing and not just because my writing style tends toward the fast, flippant and emotional. Ever since high school, I'd wanted to write a book about "my people" - smart girls I knew growing up who were often pigeonholed as stuck up prudes. Seemed unfair to say the least since I remember us as extremely funny and irreverent.
My high school was huge - 750 kids in my class alone - and largely blue collar. At Liberty High in Bethlehem, PA., the students who mattered were the stars on the football field, either as players or cheerleaders. A group of girls who fought to get As in calculus were largely ignored.
I'm not gonna lie, it hurt. Let's just say (my husband hates this part) that I played a lot of Janis Ian's At Seventeen when I wasn't invited to the prom. (Which I mooned from the backseat of my friend's car.) Cliche? Maybe. But there you have it.
Fast forward thirty years and now I'm the mother of a smart girl and former Girl Scout leader to her smart girl friends. Things have improved somewhat. Kids are more accepting. The football stuff not so big. (Then again, it's Vermont). But I'm disappointed because I see familiar patterns reappearing. My daughter and her friends are pegged, just like I was, as aloof. And, in some ways, they ARE aloof. All I know is that they're not getting the full high school experience, the richness and rewards that come from those first tastes of freedom.
Why not? In theory, the smartest kids in the school should rule the roost. Carpe diem! Grasp the thistle! Go for it!
The result was my fourteenth baby, SMART GIRLS GET WHAT THEY WANT. The best part was that from the get go, Alessandra was right on board with my vision of a book triumphing smart girls. And we agreed on a few ground rules:
a) This would not be a "mean girls" book, not that I don't LOVE Tina Fey. But it's been done, it's unproductive and, in my opinion, meanness sucks out the good karma. I'll leave that to Jennsylvania who is brilliant.
b) No cliches. Because smart girls are not cliche. They are usually interesting, well-read people, though hardly goody two shoes. For example, my daughter, a junior at Bryn Mawr is a horrible reality show addict. Her equally smart friend, Thea, and she were totally addicted to Gossip Girls. What they do now in college, I don't wanna ask.
c) Boys, yes! But not for boys alone. My smart girls would not break out of their shells to get guys. If along the way a few guys happened to come their way :) then so be it. And in SMART GIRLS GET WHAT THEY WANT, there are a couple of brilliant boys who turn up the heat.
So, that's my book and that's why I wrote SMART GIRLS. By the way, my smart girl friends from high school went on to live very fulfilling lives as a dentist, a Princeton professor, a mathematician, a pharmaceutical executive, an airline pilot (oddly enough, she was the WORST driver) and a Presbyterian minister.
My daughter's friends graduated from their Vermont public high school and went to Tufts, Vassar, MIT, Hampshire, Skidmore, BU and University of Chicago. They've got exciting internships this summer in film, journalism and psychology. Mostly, they have a lot of fun with and without guys.
In other words, I'm here to testify, smart girls DO get what they want!
