This piece was really written to create a story about a modern day girl-Jesus. It mainly featured Esther, who helped the poor, the hungry, the undereducated, while in the end suffering rejection from schools who, no doubt, will be kicking themselves for not granting her a spot.

I wanted to read more about what the headline promised too, since these woe-is-the-rich-college-senior stories are so common.

The story also hinted at the parents' ambivalent/hypocritical attitudes about the elite college admissions stuff. On the one hand, it didn't matter; on the other hand, the dad had been dreaming of Smith since Esther was a baby (in a manger -- no, no, in his arms at a Smith College graduation).

The article is a slice of a tiny subset of girls. Interesting, but call it what it is.

On a lighter note, has anyone seen the MadTV Dawson's Creek spoof "Pretty White Kids With Problems"? Hilarious.

It had one even remotely interesting idea: women are expected to be a lot of things at the same time. But it treated the topic in a very topical way, not really engaging in any analysis, just a recitation of facts.

And then this wonderful line:

"Sometimes, though, everybody wants some of these hard-charging girls to chill out. "

Chill out? As in, what? Stop accomplishing things? Stop eclipsing the boys, as the article seems to imply?

I thought that was a deeply stupid line on the part of the NYT.

i have nothing to say about this story.. i just wanted to comment that every ad on broadsheet right now is so female centric i'm going through menopause just reading the latest entries

diet pills, "what's your body type?", age reducing products... and of course a gynecological clinic ad... nice... way to peg your audience... though i find it somewhat insulting that a feminist blog would be plastered with ads for a 'miracle' diet pill considering the next article will problem be about body issues or something

anyone remember that story a week or two ago about the straight-a girl who sued her teacher for failing her on a project? i guess that's another symptom of the same disease.

I agree that the article is primarily about a subset of girls. But I didn't get the impression that student Kat Jiang came from an affluent family (contrary to Broadsheet's labeling all the girls in the article as such), if you're talking about material wealth.

My parents couldn't afford to give me any of the privileges these girls appeared to be innundated with, so try as I might, I couldn't feel their pain. When I got to a nice college, I was surprised to hear some of my peers complain bitterly because it didn't measure up to their ritzy prep schools. Jeez, it had an equestrian center, an athletic center, tennis courts, other state of the art faclities, a rare book archive - where did these kids go to high school that they'd turn up their noses at all of this?

And the students at my college were mostly overachievers, and even surrounded by such great opportunities, still continued to feel as if they didn't measure up and weren't really all that special. The Imposter Syndrome. Very sad.

My completely non-scientific theory is that college applicants in America's top public school districts in are at a disadvantage numbers-wise. No college can admit ALL the qualified students from any given geographical area or they wouldn't fulfill their unofficial requirements for "diversity."

I come from the Deep South, an area that is under-represented at elite schools in the North East. I was accepted at a highly selective college from which friends who grew up in suburban Boston (but the same also applies to Westchester County and Chicago's North Shore, for example) were rejected, even though their academic resumes were the same as, if not better than, mine. I believe it was because the admissions office wanted to create a freshman class with representatives from as many different states--and schools-- as possible.

Maybe families with high aspirations for their kids should move to one of the states with crappy public education. I bet Williams would be thrilled to admit an over-achiever from, say, New Mexico or Mississippi. And the bar in those places is so low that it'd be pretty easy for them to excel and make themselves attractive to institutions that want very badly to create a well-rounded student body profile.

who do you think reads the Times?

The tagline to this article on the mainpage says, "A lengthy weekend feature looks at the challenges of girlhood through the eyes of a few affluent teens."

Broadsheet is "A blog that looks at the challenges of womanhood through the eyes of a few upper middle class women in New York."

You don't see it, do you? Oh well. Thanks for the laugh!

...i graduated 20 years ago from the very same newton north with a bunch of APs and extracurriculars in my pocket and went to brown. so i guess i'm an old-school version of the girls profiled in the article, although i don't remember anyone thinking i was nytimes front-page material at the time.

anyway, i'm writing less about the content of the article than an opportunity to give a shout-out to one of the teachers quoted in it, albeit briefly - peter martin, who's named as the girls cross-country coach, is also an exceptional math teacher. his 11th grade trigonometry/prep-calculus is one of the best classes i ever took, high school or college. thanks, mr. martin.

The Times writes stories disproportionately about rich kids. That's their demographic. It's not really worth a Broadsheet post.

Also, the fact that they're rich doesn't mean they deserve more ink, but it also doesn't mean they deserve less. None of the girls in that article came off as particularly snotty or entitled. There's an unfortunate undertone in Broadsheet posts that there's something unsavory about being affluent. It's not the girls' fault they're rich. It's their parents'.

I agree, it was just another article about over-achieving privileged kids in a rich suburb. They didn't even mention why they were focussing on girls rather than both boys and girls. I didn't get the impression that any of the issues that were facing these girls were really unique to their gender. Even the mention of "being hot" was brief.

As for talking to less privileged students: everyone at Newton North High School is rich.

As for wishing the girls would just "chill out", it seemed reasonable to me. Girls and boys don't need to accomplish everything in life before high school graduation. It is definitely a syndrome afflicting today's privileged youth: do everything, go everywhere, take every class to get on your college application. What are they going to do in college and the rest of their lives? They've already fed the poor, studied in Paris, learned everything from trombone to horseback riding, taken AP everything and discussed Kierkegaard. Adulthood is going to be a bore!