# My niece is to be interviewed by Harvard- I don't think she should go **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 3, 2005, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-niece-is-to-be-interviewed-by-harvard-i-dont-think-she-should-go/324541 "2005-10-03T06:58:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2005, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-niece-is-to-be-interviewed-by-harvard-i-dont-think-she-should-go/324541/81 "2005-10-07T00:11:02Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > They are that I don’t know how she’ll handle being one of many gifted students instead of the class brain I think it’s good to have that experience. It can make you less arrogant and easier to get along with. And it softens the blow when you find yourself 30 and not living up to all that potential you were thought to have in high school, and feeling like you ought to be doing more with your life than you are. You realize there are probably people smarter than you who have accomplished even less than you have with their lives, and you feel better. Or at least if you’re me, you do. > [@](#): > > how she’ll adjust to being 1,000 miles away from home when she’s always been sheltered. As someone who was a sheltered teenager, I’d say this is definitely good. You really shouldn’t depend on your parents’ status and help your whole life- that’s pathetic. And in college, at least there are a lot of other people around you going through the same adjustment. ---
**Author:** ![Laughing\_Lagomorph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/6bbea6/32.png) [@Laughing\_Lagomorph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Laughing_Lagomorph)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2005, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-niece-is-to-be-interviewed-by-harvard-i-dont-think-she-should-go/324541/82 "2005-10-07T01:28:59Z")
> [@Rilchiam](#): > > … I’m not sure what a Boston Brahmin is, but Kerry’s family was not particularly well-connected. The phrase was apparently coined by Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. in 1860 to refer to that city’s entrenched WASP elite, or its “harmless, inoffensive, untitled aristocracy”. (Interesting article on the subject [here.](http://slate.msn.com/id/2096401/)) I always thought Kerry qualified as a Boston Brahmin, at least as much as anyone does these days. The tribe is apparently not as monolithically rich and powerful as it was 100+ years ago but many of its members still are much better off than the average American. As **Kozmik** points out Kerry is related to the Forbes family which among other things owns Naushon Island, a private island off Cape Cod near Martha’s Vineyard. (I also found an interesting article about Kerry’s background and the Forbes familly [here](http://www.nationalreview.com/geraghty/geraghty200404010835.asp)) ---
**Author:** ![Kozmik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/8dc957/32.png) [@Kozmik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kozmik)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2005, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-niece-is-to-be-interviewed-by-harvard-i-dont-think-she-should-go/324541/83 "2005-10-09T00:39:50Z")
> [@Laughing Lagomorph](#): > > As **Kozmik** points out Kerry is related to the Forbes family which among other things owns Naushon Island, a private island off Cape Cod near Martha’s Vineyard. (I also found an interesting article about Kerry’s background and the Forbes familly [here](http://www.nationalreview.com/geraghty/geraghty200404010835.asp)) Look at it from this perspective: when Bill Clinton was 17 he recieved a once in a lifetime chance to shake hands with President Kennedy; when John Kerry was 19 he was having conversations with the President at family estates and on yatchs. Two worlds apart. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2005, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-niece-is-to-be-interviewed-by-harvard-i-dont-think-she-should-go/324541/84 "2005-10-09T20:43:26Z")
Sampiro writes: \> Speaking of keeping up with the other children, I’m sending a note home to \> your parents. I want to talk to them about putting you in a class where you’ll be \> much better able to keep up with everybody else… What was the point of this particular bit of nastiness? Did you think this was an example of rational argumentation? Then you need to learn more about rational arguments. Did you think that I would be so tramatized by it that I would cry myself to sleep and leave the thread? Then you don’t know very much about me. Look, Sampiro, this thread has been very much beneath you. You are obviously a good fiction (and narrative fiction) writer. You need to learn the difference between writing a novel and writing a coherent post. If the story about your aunt wasn’t relevant to your niece, you shouldn’t have included it. Throwing in an irrelevant detail and then complaining because someone thought it actually had something to do with your question is a bad way to get your question answered. Incidentally, I lived six years of my adult life in the South, and pointless meandering in your narratives isn’t particularly Southern. It’s may well be something that’s particularly your style. If you want to write fiction, when are you going to finish that “Eve Gordon” script? You can sell it to Steven Spielberg for five million dollars and a cut of the gross. It will win an Oscar and we’ll all be able to tell people how we knew the great writer Sampiro before he became famous. I would have thought you were better than an OP which seems to say nothing but “Ow, it’s a scary world out there. How can I protect my niece from it?” Where do you get the idea that a Southern accent would be a disability if your niece were to go to Harvard. If anything, the boys will be all over her because they will find her accent cute. In any case, you probably have very little chance of affecting you niece’s choice of where she will be going to college. Even if you’re her favorite uncle, there’s little chance that she will even care what you think unless she happens to hate her father and wants to defy him. I know about this. Despite my attempts to be my nephews’ and nieces’ favorite uncle and my attempts to persuade them to try for the best colleges they can get into, I’ve had little effect on them. They like me, but clearly their own opinion and their parents’ opinions count for more than mine. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2005, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-niece-is-to-be-interviewed-by-harvard-i-dont-think-she-should-go/324541/85 "2005-10-09T23:09:04Z")
> [@Wendell Wagner](#): > > I would have thought you were better than an OP which seems to say nothing but “Ow, it’s a scary world out there. How can I protect my niece from it?” And I’d have thought you better than attempting to psychoanalyze somebody due to a few sentences on a message board. (Well, actually I wouldn’t have thought so- I don’t recall having read enough of your posts to form an opinion one way or the other, but it’s rude at best and usually equally inaccurate and always annoying, especially when the CONTROL+Freud in question gets pissier than a 98 year old at Oktoberfest when corrected on it.) Try not to dissect anyone with your blunt little tool again. ---
**Author:** ![Carnac\_the\_Magnificent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Carnac\_the\_Magnificent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Carnac_the_Magnificent)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2005, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-niece-is-to-be-interviewed-by-harvard-i-dont-think-she-should-go/324541/86 "2005-10-10T00:21:29Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > And I’d have thought you better than attempting to psychoanalyze somebody due to a few sentences on a message board. (Well, actually I wouldn’t have thought so- I don’t recall having read enough of your posts to form an opinion one way or the other, but it’s rude at best and usually equally inaccurate and always annoying, especially when the CONTROL+Freud in question gets pissier than a 98 year old at Oktoberfest when corrected on it.) > > Try not to dissect anyone with your blunt little tool again. Wow, Sampiro, take it easy, old bean. This man meant nothing mean-spirited to you, your sister or your family. This is obviously a delicate issue with you–and rightfully so–but he was offering what he thought helpful insight and wasn’t trying to “psychoanalyze” anyone. He didn’t know of your clinical acumen/insight. Hell, this board is famous for the “cyberpsychoanalysis” of which you speak–and usually with less sensitivity than WW showed. Anyway, I’m sorry for having amplified on his original post. No offense intended–bitch! 😉 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-niece-is-to-be-interviewed-by-harvard-i-dont-think-she-should-go/324541.md?page=4)