Plan B Forum

Posted: **Fri Dec 07, 2012 8:49 am**

So we've got all the ducks in a row for The Warrior Princess to go to Mercy High School....(which is a really good Catholic girls school here in San Francisco, college prep, and also convenient to where we live, and she has friends who are going there)

Then she says to me that as a "back up" (we don't need a back up she's got the grades, she's got the recommendations, she's already done the interview) she would also like for us to submit an application for her to "The Urban School"....

Well, my initial response just upon hearing the name was negative....

And my attitude got even worse, when I discovered that this school is in The Haight.....

When I looked it up on line, I said "Oh no, this school is in Hippie Town....You are NOT going to school in Hippie Town....

She said that she wouldn't have to wear a uniform....

I said, "Oh yes you would...a head band, love beads, a tye died tee shirt and a peasant skirt....Not happening..."

(I looked into it a little further, and it really isn't that bad a school...at 35K a year, it shouldn't be...)

But we're probably not going to do that....

So then we started talking about college....

Now, I've always wanted her to go to Stanford, which is the best school in Northern California, and so long as she keeps up the grades for it, we've planned the money to be able to afford it....

The other nice thing about Stanford, is that it's far enough away that she could live on campus, but close enough that she could come home any time she wanted to (Similar to what I went through going to UVA in Charlottesville, with my family in Northern Virginia)

And she says to me...

"I'd like to go to Berkeley"....

(I think sometimes she says these things just to set me off...)

"BERKELEY!!!!" I replied. "That hotbed of Bolshevism! Why don't you tell me something that would bother me less, like that you want to join Al-Qaeda"...

"Berkeley...you won't be able to go there over my dead body, because if you go to Berkeley, my dead body will jump out of the grave and grab you..."

Which she found very amusing....

Fortunately we have three more years before we have to deal with that issue seriously....

Posted: **Fri Dec 07, 2012 4:52 pm**

You haven't seen the half of it.

Posted: **Fri Dec 07, 2012 6:35 pm**

Berkeley is a terrific school and if she gets in, you'd be proud to send her. And way to go Tati!

Are you going to make her apply to UVA?

Posted: **Fri Dec 07, 2012 6:40 pm**

I don't think she's the kind of kid who really wants to go that far from home...(Though she could certainly always spend time with my sister...)

But we'll see as the time gets closer...(If she wanted to go someplace in the DC area, like Georgetown for example, my sister has said that Tati would be welcome to live with her if she wanted to.)

Posted: **Fri Dec 07, 2012 7:10 pm**

Lord Jim wrote:And she says to me...

"I'd like to go to Berkeley"....

(I think sometimes she says these things just to set me off...)

"BERKELEY!!!!" I replied. "That hotbed of Bolshevism! ..."

Lord Jim wrote:I think his view on this may be a bit "stuck in the 60s"....

Posted: **Fri Dec 07, 2012 8:40 pm**

While immediately it's only high school, seems you have raised an independent thinker their Jim. And you know, that when push comes to shove, she is going to go to the school she has earned her right to go to. (I know you get to foot the bill as I did). But how does one deny someone who has done all the work needed (and then some) to get into her school of choice (my daughters was university of Maryland)? I couldn't say no and I doubt you would be able to either.

Wings are growing jim, gotta let em fly.

Posted: **Fri Dec 07, 2012 9:06 pm**

Lord Jim wrote: She said that she wouldn't have to wear a uniform....

I said, "Oh yes you would...a head band, love beads, a tye died tee shirt and a peasant skirt....Not happening..."

My "tea down the nose" moment of the morning! LOL!! Nice one Jim.

(Don't knock it BTW, can be very attractive on the right girls...)

Posted: **Fri Dec 07, 2012 9:28 pm**

Hmmm ...

No headband, no love beads, and no peasant skirt.

Still, the tie-dye does look pretty good on her ....

Posted: **Fri Dec 07, 2012 9:57 pm**

Best I could find at short notice...

Posted: **Fri Dec 07, 2012 9:58 pm**

Before dismissing Berkeley on trivial political grounds, one might want to consider -- including finding out whether it is accurate -- this:

Berkeley faculty, alumni, and researchers have won 71 Nobel Prizes (including 28 alumni Nobel laureates), 9 Wolf Prizes, 7 Fields Medals, 15 Turing Awards, 45 MacArthur Fellowships,[10] 20 Academy Awards, and 11 Pulitzer Prizes. To date, UC Berkeley and its researchers are associated with 6 chemical elements of the periodic table (Californium, Seaborgium, Berkelium, Einsteinium, Fermium, Lawrencium) and Berkeley Lab has discovered 16 chemical elements in total – more than any other university in the world.
* * *
The 2011 Shanghai Jiao Tong University's Academic Ranking of World Universities ranked Berkeley 4th in the world and the United States and 2nd in California. In terms of "fields", Berkeley is ranked 2nd in Natural Sciences and Mathematics, 3rd in Engineering/Technology and Computer Science, 4th in Social Sciences, 15th in Life and Agricultural Sciences, and 29th in Clinical Medicine and Pharmacy. In its "subject" ranking, Berkeley is ranked 2nd in Chemistry, 3rd in Mathematics, 3rd in Computer Science, 4th in Economics/Business, and 5th in Physics.[38] According to the US News & World Report Subject Rankings, Berkeley is ranked 4th in Arts & Humanities, 3rd in Engineering & IT, 5th in Life Sciences and Biomedicine, 5th in Natural and Physical Sciences, and 5th in Social Sciences.

Berkeley is ranked 5th among 300 Best World Universities in 2012 compiled by Human Resources & Labor Review (HRLR) on Measurements of World's Top 300 Universities Graduates' Performance .[39]

In 2012, the Times Higher Education World University Rankings named Berkeley the world's 5th most prestigious university, and one of six globally recognized "super brands."[47] The 2012-2013 Times Higher Education World University Rankings placed Berkeley 9th in the world, 6th in the United States, and 3rd in California.[48] The QS World University Rankings placed Berkeley 21st in the world, 14th in the United States, and 3rd in California.[49] (In 2010, the Times Higher Education World University Rankings and QS World University Rankings parted ways to produce separate rankings.) In the 2006 international edition of Newsweek, Berkeley was the fifth-ranked global university,[50] and the Center for Measuring University Performance placed Berkeley ninth among national research universities.[51]

Berkeley ranks 9th among universities that have produced the largest number of living billionaires.[52]

The Princeton Review ranks Berkeley as a "college with a conscience"[53] and the 5th best value in public colleges.[54]

And when it comes to Tati's further education:

The most recent (2010) United States National Research Council Rankings, widely considered the ranking authority on US doctoral programs, identified UC Berkeley as having the highest number of top-ranked doctoral programs in the nation. Of all US research universities, UC Berkeley has the most graduate programs that extend into the top ten, with 48 out of 52 programs that were ranked, as well as the most programs with ranks that extend into the top 5, with 43 out of 52 ranked programs. UC Berkeley has the second highest number of graduate programs with a ranking of #1, with 16 out of 52 reaching top status—for comparison, Harvard achieved this level in 19 of its 52 ranked programs, while Stanford achieved it in 11 of its 47 ranked programs.[63] UC Berkeley doctoral programs that received a #1 ranking include Agricultural and Resource Economics, Astrophysics, Chemistry, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Computer Science, English, Epidemiology, German, Mathematics, Mechanical Engineering, MCB: Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, MCB: Genetics, Genomics, and Development, Physics, Plant Biology, and Political Science.

UC Berkeley was also the #1 recipient of National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships between 2001 and 2010, with 1,333 awards. The next closest were MIT at 1,242 and Stanford at 1,070.[64]

And, of course, there is the advantage of living in vibrant, youthful Berkeley rather than in humdrum, middle-aged Palo Alto.

Posted: **Fri Dec 07, 2012 10:07 pm**

better?

Posted: **Fri Dec 07, 2012 10:35 pm**

Far more attractive than most of what passes for fashion these days.

(Although peasants would have been very unlikely to have been wearing blue.)

Anyway, Bolshevism got its start, lamentably, as a reaction to the we-have-it-all-and-screw-the-masses attitude of the Russian aristocracy.

Which is very much in line with the we-have-it-all-and-screw-the-masses attitude of the people running the freak show known as the Republican party.

So if Boehner, McConnell, Norquist, Rove, et al., find their heads on pikes, they should hardly be surprised.

Posted: **Fri Dec 07, 2012 10:40 pm**

Andrew D wrote: So if Boehner, McConnell, Norquist, Rove, et al., find their heads on pikes, they should hardly be surprised.

"Not over my dead body will they raise your taxes."

Posted: **Fri Dec 07, 2012 10:44 pm**

I think you are missing the nature of the thread here Andrew. I don't think Jim had it in mind, nor seriousness, that it should be a starting point for a socio-cultural , political-philosophical diatribe using the father /daughter relationship to expose inter-generational attitudes and potential conflict in the educational desires.

I think he was just having a laugh....

Posted: **Sat Dec 08, 2012 1:16 am**

Perhaps. But when someone disses one of my almae matres ....

Posted: **Sat Dec 08, 2012 1:31 am**

None of my almas mattered...

Posted: **Sat Dec 08, 2012 4:38 am**

Same here.

<shrugs>

Posted: **Sat Dec 08, 2012 4:40 am**

keld feldspar wrote:None of my almas mattered...

Some of mine Cogan'd.

Posted: **Sat Dec 08, 2012 6:34 am**

Well at least she isn't saying she wants to drop out at 16. Count yer blessings Dad.

Posted: **Sat Dec 08, 2012 7:00 am**

"Education must be subversive to be meaningful."

Bertrand Russell

yrs,
rubato

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