Was there anything Kate didn't excel at?

[Mommymoments]

Having read many articles Kate (pippa & James also) is so accomplished since she was tiny.
She is very sporty.. strong swimmer, excellent skier, hockey player, lacrosse, athletics, netball.. Plays piano very well & also was lead in schools drama production. Excelled at art.
It seems the Middleton's didn't do much in the way of equistrian sports?
Would love my dc to be as accomplished & well rounded. Can't afford Marlborough or any private for that matter!

I was shocked at how “intellectually challenged” the private school kids I met at uni were. Private schools seem to be able to get some very average people excellent grades and some frankly thick people good grades. If someone went to a good private school, it’s best to ignore their academic experience. Chances are it will have no relationship to their abilities

I agree with you @kistanbul regarding getting good grades out of people who might not have achieved those grades in the sort of school I went to. The help in many private schools during A Levels is very very focussed with a lot of support with personal statements and small class sizes and individually tailored learning support. Not all private schools are good schools though and there are different levels of academic selection between private schools (setting aside the ultimate selection criteria: ability to pay!).

However, I don’t think private school equals invalid academic results - there are plenty of very academically rigorous private schools who take no prisoners and whose pupils were always destined for excellent results. What I found (years ago mind you) as one of very few ex-state school students was that I was probably more driven than some of my private school contemporaries but less broadly educated; I’d very much covered what I needed to do to do well in my A Levels but not a lot else. I couldn’t say that I was brighter at all. I don’t think it’s fair to say that the chances are a private school pupil’s good grades will be no indication of ability.

This makes me so sad. There are so many better role models - especially for girls - who genuinely make the world a better place. Any appearance of KM excelling is because of RF hype combined with financial resources, supportive / pushy parenting, family trust funds for her education, Uncle Gary's dodgy cash for much else, scheming to bag a Prince (see her Raleigh plans, changing university, etc), etc. She has never worked (part-time at a family friend's firm after the Queen called her lazy doesn't count), shows no meaningful interest in any charity / patronage, cannot speak in public, is constantly being promoted as being keen / read to get started when she's had so many years to start making a difference! Look at how facile her early years work is, distracting from genuinely meaningful work by experts just to make it look like she's actually interested in something and working, and to give her the appearance of a specialist interest.

All KM has is the upper-middle class polish and the social and cultural capital of public school education. We should want more for our children, especially girls, than being 'accomplished' and marrying well.

Wow it's as if feminism never happened.

When we say she was very good at sports, I believe she was a sporty child, but hadn’t heard of her representing the county or competing above just being the best in her school.

shes “quite good” at sports, and is able to do several, that’s not the same as excelling at them.

I can't believe people berating her AAB. 'Hardly academic'? Oh come on.

she hasn’t got girl friends, which I find very strange. She isn’t good at public speaking.

Otherwise I think she is very good at most the other things OP is praising her for.

I wonder if that's because of the sheer multitude of sports she did.. Maybe she didn't want to specialise? Apparently she did swimming, athletics, cross country, hockey, tennis, lacrosse & netball.

It's far more impressive if it's a child from a State school like my DC

So no, I am not overly impressed!

@Oblomov23 AAB from a leading private school, with low teacher/student ratio, likely high quality teaching and low behavioural problems, and likely additional private tuition, when she took only 3 A-levels is not exceptional and does not mark her out as gifted. This is why universities consider contextual data.

Exactly @Roussette , and I say this as someone of a similar age to KM who was state-comprehensive educated, took more A-levels, and got better grades. Why are people so sycophantic towards the RF? They don't care about any of us!

@Mommymoments - that’s not as impressive as it sounds - she was at a boarding school and she just joined in. That’s not the same as excelling at something.

I guess if you are used to state schooling when sports only happened 1 hour at week and not at all post GCSE unless your parents made an effort to take you to additionally classes/groups, it seems a lot. But in context of just being there and provided for you, that’s rather different. I believe she didn’t really get involved in sports teams at uni when it was then down to her to arrange and balance the schedules.

that’s not to knock her, but the RF does seem to try to take the most mundane aspects of RF members and try to make it seem really impressive.

I think this is it. She was very good at lots of things probably above average. But we all know plenty who are all rounders with excellent and proven results with and without money. I'm sure you know them as well OP

The difference is she married the future king but luckily that's probably not an aspiration for most high achievers or above average all rounders!

We should want more for our children, especially girls, than being 'accomplished' and marrying well.
Agree with this.

She comes across like she was a bright enough, well-rounded student, not unlike many other very likeable and well-rounded students I've taught over the years.

I agree.

Diana, for all her faults, perceived and otherwise, did make a difference. She wasn’t afraid to make waves and do what she was passionate about. She also had young kids and didn’t use that as an excuse.
Kate falls very far short in comparison.

Yep. Agree @GruffaIo
One of my DCs took 4 A levels and got 3 A* and an A from a state school so I really cannot get excited about AAB from a very prestigous private school! I know lots of kids who got more than that!

Why are we so easily impressed, god alone knows. It's seriously weird.

I bet she was always Mary in the school nativity too. Some kids are just good at everything - even being Mary.

Kate was reportedly very quiet. She won't have been Mary
She was a quiet all rounder, not unusual amongst girls brought up to apply themselves.

Are you saying you doubt that I know people who went to st Andrew’s?? Why wouldn’t I? It’s not some kind of elite rare group of people you know, it’s just a normal university!

www.google.com/amp/s/amp.classicfm.com/music-news/kate-middleton-school-performance-video-sing/

Not Mary but was the lead in Eliza Doolittle.. Video here of her singing.

@MissHavishamsMouldyOldCake

I am no longer surprised at your knowing only six accomplished women.
I rather wonder now at your knowing any. I never saw such a woman. I never saw such capacity, and taste, and application, and elegance, as you describe united.

She was only 11? I am in total shock! She looks no different to now!

Give her her due, she did that well. Getting that accent must've been very hard when I think about how she speaks now!

@MrsMaxDeWinter Chef's kiss. If only it were an Austen reference not a Dickens.

@MissHavishamsMouldyOldCake quoted Caroline Bingley from P and P, and I quoted Elizabeth Bennet's reply.

What the Dickens (pun fully intended) are you talking about?

@MrsMaxDeWinter That the username you're replying to is presumably a pun on a Dickens character, rather than an Austen character?

Except I was not replying to her username, but to her actual quote, from P and P.