I've been tutoring LS for almost a year. She's my most hard-working student. When LS first started working with me, the SAT gave her panic attacks. She couldn't complete an exam at home by herself without stopping. Her math skills were at a 6th grade level, and ADHD made even finishing the test a struggle. Needless to say, her scores were below average; she didn't have a lot of faith that they would get much higher.
During our time together LS has already taken twelve practice exams, many of these almost 6 hours long because of extended time. She has completed literally hundreds of homework problems, written dozens of essays, and spent over 50 hours tutoring. Her parents haven't helped her at all she does her own scheduling and is in regular contact with me weekly regarding her progress. The panic attacks have gone away and she's excelling at advanced math concepts like trigonometry. Her tenacity is exceptional. I've loved working with her.
I should also mention that LS is also, by far, my wealthiest student. She grew up in the Upper West Side of Manhattan and now lives in a home as large as my office building. Her living room has a 10-foot bay window that overlooks the Pacific Ocean. We tutor in her guest house. You get the idea.
This weekend, LS met with a major donor to her top-choice school, a friend of a friend of her dad's. Her description of the meeting, talking to a powerful man who had donated a building on campus, sliding her a business card, him saying, "if you ever have any trouble with [university], just let me know," was an uncomfortable reminder that this game still isn't fair, and I benefit from and contribute to this unfairness.
I'm ambivalent about LS getting into her top-choice school. I've never had a student so willing to sacrifice her time and energy for these asinine tests. She's consistently exhibited maturity and responsibility towards her learning. This hard work should be rewarded. But it's not her hard work that's going to get her into this school it's knowing the powerful man with the business card. LS is smart and will surely excel at [university], but it is money that will secure her place. If I was tutoring her in East County instead of La Jolla her story would be very different.
Here's another reason why I'm ambivalent about LS's position. Students like LS are the reason students like me go to college. Because her family can pay and donate her way into school, poor kids get scholarship money. Not only that, but in a very direct way, LS is supplementing my higher education. I've made thousands of dollars working with her and get special bonuses because she pays for premium services. I learn at the pleasure of the wealthy, and this is sad.
Though LS isn't blind to her privilege, there are some trials of life she has never been through and probably will never experience. She's never had a wage-earning job, and she'll likely never have to get one. Her parents have never struggled with a mortgage payment. They will never have to tell her, "I'm sorry, honey, we just don't have the money for a class trip/car/private university." I've dealt with all these things, and I don't know how I could explain to her how this makes our lives inexorably different.
One more thing I should mention about LS: her dads are gay. The powerful man from her top-choice school is also gay. He wants LS to write her admissions essay about how normal her life is, finishing it with the atom bomb that she has two homosexual fathers. This is absurd her life is anything but ordinary. But having a family built from a suspect class gives LS a unique perspective on privilege. Having gay parents couldn't have been easy. The privilege of having heterosexual parents, broken and dysfunctional as they are, is something I can't fully comprehend. Yet it is because of LS's family's financial privilege, their ability to pay for surrogacy (5 times over, no less) that LS and her siblings even exist.
I want her to understand this. I'm not sure how.
During our time together LS has already taken twelve practice exams, many of these almost 6 hours long because of extended time. She has completed literally hundreds of homework problems, written dozens of essays, and spent over 50 hours tutoring. Her parents haven't helped her at all she does her own scheduling and is in regular contact with me weekly regarding her progress. The panic attacks have gone away and she's excelling at advanced math concepts like trigonometry. Her tenacity is exceptional. I've loved working with her.
I should also mention that LS is also, by far, my wealthiest student. She grew up in the Upper West Side of Manhattan and now lives in a home as large as my office building. Her living room has a 10-foot bay window that overlooks the Pacific Ocean. We tutor in her guest house. You get the idea.
This weekend, LS met with a major donor to her top-choice school, a friend of a friend of her dad's. Her description of the meeting, talking to a powerful man who had donated a building on campus, sliding her a business card, him saying, "if you ever have any trouble with [university], just let me know," was an uncomfortable reminder that this game still isn't fair, and I benefit from and contribute to this unfairness.
I'm ambivalent about LS getting into her top-choice school. I've never had a student so willing to sacrifice her time and energy for these asinine tests. She's consistently exhibited maturity and responsibility towards her learning. This hard work should be rewarded. But it's not her hard work that's going to get her into this school it's knowing the powerful man with the business card. LS is smart and will surely excel at [university], but it is money that will secure her place. If I was tutoring her in East County instead of La Jolla her story would be very different.
Here's another reason why I'm ambivalent about LS's position. Students like LS are the reason students like me go to college. Because her family can pay and donate her way into school, poor kids get scholarship money. Not only that, but in a very direct way, LS is supplementing my higher education. I've made thousands of dollars working with her and get special bonuses because she pays for premium services. I learn at the pleasure of the wealthy, and this is sad.
Though LS isn't blind to her privilege, there are some trials of life she has never been through and probably will never experience. She's never had a wage-earning job, and she'll likely never have to get one. Her parents have never struggled with a mortgage payment. They will never have to tell her, "I'm sorry, honey, we just don't have the money for a class trip/car/private university." I've dealt with all these things, and I don't know how I could explain to her how this makes our lives inexorably different.
One more thing I should mention about LS: her dads are gay. The powerful man from her top-choice school is also gay. He wants LS to write her admissions essay about how normal her life is, finishing it with the atom bomb that she has two homosexual fathers. This is absurd her life is anything but ordinary. But having a family built from a suspect class gives LS a unique perspective on privilege. Having gay parents couldn't have been easy. The privilege of having heterosexual parents, broken and dysfunctional as they are, is something I can't fully comprehend. Yet it is because of LS's family's financial privilege, their ability to pay for surrogacy (5 times over, no less) that LS and her siblings even exist.
I want her to understand this. I'm not sure how.
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I lived in Rancho Santa Fe, CA for 2 years, people there are pretty much as wealthy as the La Jolla ones, if not more. And none of the kids i saw will ever experience the normal life. They all live in their very own golden bubble, which makes me extremly sad for them, and sometimes kinda jealous.