Is Westminster School the best school on Earth? STATESMOM returns

[statesmom]

I have a lot to say, don't know if anyone remembers the thread. Let me know if you want to hear from me.

Your poor son .Think you need to get your meds reviewed!

It seems to escape ppl’s notice these days that the top London independent schools are brimming with offspring whose parents all nod along to the same tune, much like the OP. Hats off to her for actually saying it out loud.

Much less chance of getting shot in Oxford

It's these sort of sentiments that I find so funny. As if my child is upset that he had to go to awful Westminster School and is slumming it in the Ivy League!!!

Jealosy is the worst human emotion (my hubby is French so I had to beat that out of him) and so common here.

In the UK, people look at someone successful and they say: I want to tear that person down and hope he fails.

In the US, people look at someone successful and they say: I want to be like that person.

My son's school has an average starting salary of $107,215. He is at a wonderful place, with lots of friends from all over the world and an intellectual atmosphere he finds stimulating. He is loving life (and why not?).

Maybe I should not have pushed him, gotten tutors, hired counselors, gotten him internships? Then he could look back at 30 years old from his till at the Sainsbury's and said: "Thanks Mom, I'm really happy here in Slough."

This thread is hilarious, but OP is so over the top that it's only going to bring out the US-bashers. You can have a very nice life here actually, I do. It's not all crime ridden and no holiday; the problem with the US is that everything varies so much from place to place.

As someone who went to university in the UK and has her oldest in the USA: Both systems have their pluses and minuses. A couple of the places eldest applied to did meet full need for international students, and in that case, many British students would do better in an American university, financially -- but the students in that bracket aren't paying these stupid fees for college prep.

The UK system does specialise too early in my opinion. The American system is excellent if you're not 100% positive what you want to study or want to mix subjects, especially in less common combinations. Oldest is a student at a liberal arts college which means her classes are small and she gets loads of attention from professors. The problem with many PhD programmes is that your funding requires you to be an RA or TA and therefore you're cheap labour for the university and there's a big incentive to keep you working.

The different systems for professional degrees (eg medicine and law) have some practical upsides but they do wind up costing the student more.

I guess I’m just surprised that you had to do so much if your son was so capable. Couldn’t he work it out for himself? Doesn’t the school help with that? I was at university years ago but my parents didn’t have to get involved in sorting out my adult life for me. My own sons are in their early teens and they sort out their own school work, extra curricular activities etc.
I guess the difference is, we’re in Australia and it’s a lot less competitive to get into good universities and relatively easy to get good jobs too. Their school sorts out assistance if they want to go to overseas universities but most people don’t because they don’t want to start out with unnecessary debt.

@statesmom as a UK citizen born and bred I have NEVER had the desire to "tear someone down" and I don't know anyone else who thinks that way either.
That's quite an insulting thing to say about an entire population.

@statesmom you honestly sound more than a little ignorant. Obviously you can't help if you have a low IQ and a poor understanding of global trends and the GDP of individual countries but perhaps don't start a thread about stuff you don't understand.
Also, the 'no debate' and ending a sentence 'okay?' is just a little bit gauche and cringe-inducing.

Awful thread. I’d hoped that the OP was just drunk last night but here she is again. 😳

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/i-quit-britain-for-americas-poorest-state-heres-why-its-economy-is-beating-ours-np50qlnmp

"Mississippi’s GDP per capita last year was $47,190, slightly above the UK’s approximately $45,000, though still well below the overall American average of $70,000. While the UK’s per capita GDP has stagnated for the past 15 years, Mississippi’s has been rising rapidly to the point that it has just overtaken us."

In what way, exactly, do you find me ignorant? I find attacking the person but not attacking the idea or argument pretty hilarious!

In any case, in the language of an economist our family has a revealed preference, in that we live in the UK. Well, we actually don't live in the UK; we have a townhouse in central London. That bubble I'd take ten times till Sunday.

I laughed out loud at this

Is the comparison of reaching the heights of success in either country truly a CEO in Silicon Valley v working at Sainsbury’s in Slough?!

Yeah Ivy League or Sainsbury's till are obviously the only options available in the UK.

I do agree about us (England - remember Scotland has a different system) specialising too early. That said we get our professional qualifications at university age 21, rather than the US system of a further three years ($$$$$) at grad school.

Why are you still in the UK though?

OP, Mumsnet really isn’t your target audience.

We know the UK is currently a shithole, but we love it anyway.

We don’t view our kids as investments. Life isn’t an F1 race.

Some of us have kids with additional needs, who might go to uni but need to live nearby/at home.

Nobody really gives a shit about top private schools unless they’ve got money to burn.

Calm down, basically.

DH is uncontactable right now, but I’m pretty sure he doesn’t feel that his parents massively failed him because he went to Imperial College rather than an Ivy League.

My son's school has an average starting salary of $107,215. He is at a wonderful place, with lots of friends from all over the world and an intellectual atmosphere he finds stimulating. He is loving life (and why not?).

Maybe I should not have pushed him, gotten tutors, hired counselors, gotten him internships? Then he could look back at 30 years old from his till at the Sainsbury's and said: "Thanks Mom, I'm really happy here in Slough."

lol,

I won't engage with most of the OP's stupidity, but clearly her son isn't musical. There is nowhere in the world to equal the Oxbridge Choral tradition, the US choirs are laughable in comparison. Ditto if one wants to study any European language - pitifully poor spoken levels coming out of Ivy League universities.

The author of that article is Douglas Carswell, formerly UKIP MP for Clacton-on-Sea.

However, like several posters before this, I also think the UK's secondary and university education discourages breadth of study.

To be fair the US university invent the technology to deep fake any European language you want.

I love when people condescend and say obvious things, like "Life is not an F1 race", "some kids have special needs", "my kid is not going to fail in life because he went to Imperial" and so on, thinking that vouchsafing such esoteric truths to lesser mortals manifests their intellectual superiority.

I am simply stating some pretty uncontroversial stuff, to wit:

1. The UK is poorer than Mississippi
2. Central London is a great place to live
3. The top US universities are richer and have far more opportunities that the top UK universities
4. Europeans treat the material success of others differently to how Americans treat and think about rich people
5. People vote with their feet; there are many more UK nationals living in the US than US national living over here. This says a lot.

I challenge anyone to significantly rebut any of the above.

@statesmom it’s jealousy not jealosy. You obviously didn’t benefit from an Ivy League Univeristy.

Have you considered that your son is thrilled at being a fair few miles from his opinionated, bonkers mother 🤣

If I had a few £100ks lying around and my kids fancied going to an American university maybe I would pay for the consultants, tutors, sports coaches etc. It would be a bit of an adventure for them and I wouldn't mind flying over to see them occasionally. But I don't have the money and don't really fancy increasing my mortgage to enable it. DD quite fancies Yale as she has watched Legally Blonde too many times but other than that neither of them really fancy it and I'm sure they'll do just fine.

@izzywizzydizzy
A lot of it comes down to cost. As a home student, you can get a bachelor's degree in the UK for £28k in tuition fees. That's a steal given the international students are queueing up to pay £100k for the same degree.

As a former university lecturer I find this really sad.

The day you pay for a university degree, that degree becomes worthless - and it seems that day has arrived.

You cannot pay for the true value studying is worth. Education teaches you to think. It gives you an understanding of what human life is, a perspective to understand how we have built civilisations and societies, the appreciation of the finite nature of life in all its forms and - most importantly - the fact that money, power and fame do not make people happy.

The best education you can provide for your child in my opinion is the ability to communicate with, empathise and care about other people and the planet.

I wasn’t trying to be intellectually superior. I was giving my perspective. My autistic DS1 (about to start comprehensive secondary, where I teach) might not cope with ‘living away’ when he’s 18. He’ll find something, it just won’t be megabucks Ivy League (or maybe it will).