I couldn't bear to read past the first paragraph. I can't believe the Times gave it so much space -- over one full page in the Sunday news section! WTF? Nero fiddles while Rome burns. The NYT is obsesseed with the anxieties of the most privileged sliver of the most privileged nation ever in history.

I'd be more interested in articles like this if they focused more on gender and on the power dynamics of being young. I was interested in that book that came out a little while ago on overburdened teens who never have any downtime because they're expected to be on teams and play musical instruments and be on the school paper etc.; obviously that's coming from a place of privilege as well, but it's getting at the fundamental power inequity between adults and children, in that those kids don't have the freedom to decide what to do with their time.

This article...I couldn't be bothered to read it all the way through. It seemed remarkably un-self-conscious, and didn't explain, as you note, what the difference between these girls' experiences and their male counterparts' was.

I too couldn't bring myself to read the whole thing.
I agree with nausica and EG, and frankly have nothing to add that they didn't eloquently cover already.

I was upset with this piece, even as a student at a top-tier university. I came from a large exurban public high school in the South, and I felt this pressure very intensely, possibly more so than these girls. If I wasn't absolutely perfect, I felt I could kiss my chance of getting the hell out of Dodge goodbye. Where's the NYT article about that? I also agree with nausicaa and EG's assessments.

Isn't this typical NYT? A article seeming to be about a wide societal trend that ends up only focusing on an upper middle class population.

Yeah, at some point in the article they mention the small number of students that are bussed in? I was WAY more interested in reading what attending that high school is like for them, and not the kids who are striving madly to be able to buy $700,000 houses ten years in the future. Do they worry endlessly about getting into Smith? Can they afford the test prep classes? Do they enjoy the school?

I'm sorry, but mostly, the girls profiled in that piece just seemed so ... plastic. The debate two of them were having over if you needed a boyfriend, it was like it was scripted out entirely by their parents or some hybrid of the guys that created Dawson's Creek and The West Wing (Kevin Williamson and Aaron Sorkin, that is.) Or Esther's parents saying how much they didn't want her to have "anorexia of the soul" and yet immediately fussing over the great tragedy of "what would happen if Esther got a B!!!" It was all just Stepford-ian and, frankly, kinda eerie to me.

Don't these girls, any of these students, don't ANY of them want to, I don't know, go to a "non-name" school and study poetry or something? The whole thing just made me feel, I don't know, sad.

surely the pressure to get into college is felt by all girls, not just the over-priveleged few?

also... can anyone else not help wondering how many of these girls would be applying to "name" colleges if thier parents weren't standing behind them going "you will do this, and then you will go there and read this, and then you will graduate and marry and be a perfect stepford wife"?

/snark. Sorry. i knew plenty of girls like that at school.

The sad thing is that the broader subject -- women's perfectionism and how if affects them and the workplace -- is actually a very important subject, although I don't know that it can be addressed in a newspaper in any productive way. My most negative work experiences have come from micromanaging, perfection-obsessed female bosses, not from the jerky macho men (well, except for the one dude who sexually harassed me, but that's a whole 'nother category of experience!). It's a shame for the NYT to waste so much space on the question in such a superficial way.

Oh, come on, it's a little disappointing but not *that* bad. NYT Most E-Mailed is led by a feature of the elites, about the elites, for the elites? Noooo! Don't these readers attached to their high-speed Internet connections know they should care more about the downtrodden than a story that flatters their own vanity?

If you compare it to an ideal alternative treatment, it stinks. If you compare it to other NYT features about women, it looks pretty good. The author didn't pretend to be writing about a societal trend that applies to everyone. If you look, you'll find hints of the omitted issues: boys get extra privilege on top of privilege, affluent parents can be hypocritical, and these girls might be misguided. I hope the paper does better next time, but I wasn't dissatisfied.

sorry, but i liked this article. my little sister doesn't go to some overprivileged, white-bread school. she does, however, make straight-A's, teach gymnastics, do a lot of volunteer work with her church, and belong to a whole host of student groups. this weekend she told me that she was rejected from william & mary...a school that a number of my less accomplished friends went to 8 years ago when i was applying for college. the competition for college is insane, and is making a huge impact on young women. i think, too, that the college pressure is just one example of how much women are expected to be perfect these days. i understand that's its ridiculous to focus on a few white, rich girls...but reading the article, i saw a lot of myself, despite that i'm native american from a working class family. in my mind, this article pointed out what i've felt to be true for all women today. we are expected to be more, to give more to our communities, and to still put ourselves last.

"in my mind, this article pointed out what i've felt to be true for all women today. we are expected to be more, to give more to our communities, and to still put ourselves last."
--cowgrrrl

If I may share an anecdote...

My high school ('96-'00) was a huge example of this. Our student government was entirely female, all four years--maybe 1 or 2 males slipped in here and there, but they were the glaring exceptions. Our student newspaper was almost entirely female-run all 4 years. On a special Spanish Club trip to Spain, I was the only male--the other 15 people were all women. If I had my yearbook with me right now I could probably give a few more examples.

So, even though I was never in their shoes, it seems to me that they must have been under a hell of a lot of pressure to perform like that.

That article was nauseating on several counts. First of all, these “perfect� girls exist at every high school in the United States. It hasn't been long since I ran the same damn race for the same positions at highly regarded universities.
As has already been noted, the “perfect� young women ideal crosses all economic classes. The young women from my blue collar hometown are under the same pressure to perform. To be good, smart, hot, talented and nice is not exclusive to the students interviewed in the article. All of the students interviewed (in a fairly extensive article) lived in the same community and (presumably) had many of the same opportunities.

The young woman who opted out of SAT prep is unlikely to be slowed in the race. She has simply found another way to be a good, nice girl. It is a function of privilege that she has the chance to perform this good deed.

I fervently hope that my younger sister doesn't run across this article. For young women who aspire to be “perfect� and gain scholarships or admission to top universities, this article exposes them to the competition. Your prom queen/all state athlete/community leader/4.0 student honestly doesn't stand a chance in hell next to these young women. None of the young women interviewed were concerned about achieving outside of their peer group. And why should they? Very few students have the opportunities which they have more or less exploited (I mean this in a positive way).

What does this article say to young women across the country?
You had better step up your game, because you're still not that good. And signing up for AP Latin (or any language course above a sophomore level) is not even on the table. Girl, you had better look for something to put yourself over the top. So be nicer, show your smarts, be charitable, and seek something, anything to earn that scholarship or admission.

Be more “perfect�.

Can I offer some over-50 thoughts? Maybe the article examined rich-white-girl-stuff too much, something the NYT seems to do all too frequently of late.

But the idea that someone is telling girls that they really CAN do anything they want is so new and so rare in the great scheme of things in this world, I'm not going to complain. Beats the hell out of what many of us of a certain age were told - that our ambitions were silly meaningless dreams. That our being in college was just to land a man. That our seats in professional school rightfully belonged to men.

Yeah, they're privileged economically and socially. But they're also privileged in ways I'm very happy to see from this side of 50.

You know what, MN? You're right. One of my most cherished mentors, who is in her 60s, came from a wealthy, blue-blood family, was told by her mother not to be "too smart" because boys didn't like that; she was turned away from her first intellectual interest because an instructor told her not to try and compete with "young men." That's not happening to these girls, which is good. I still would have liked to have seen more thoughtful analysis in the article, and it's still exclusionary in all the ways other commenters have noticed, but you're right. This represents a huge improvement over what girls of their class and race would have endured in the past, and we shouldn't lose sight of that completely.

I agree with MN and EG on their points. I'm thinking now of my mother and her sisters who, while they were sent to college and expected to excel, still limited their options to appropriately "feminine" pursuits. My mother's older sister studied nursing initially, and ultimately became a teacher. My mother was also interested in medicine, but not wanting to be in her sister's shadow, she passed on nursing and opted for a degree in medical technology. Studying to become a doctor wasn't even seen as an option at the time.
She has since said to me on more than one occasion that, looking back, she wishes she'd had the nerve to pursue an MD anyway. I think she was entirely capable of doing so, but she was a product of her time, so she didn't. In that respect, MN is absolutely right--thank goodness we now live in a world where women have the option of pursuing an education and a career, and that career is not limited to secretary, teacher, nurse or stewardess--right up until you get married, have kids, and become a housewife. Hooray for progress, and for feminism.

I also second the opinion that this kind of pressure is on every young woman, or at least those who are college-bound, which is more and more these days. I think it's rather sad. In a way, it's the same problem as before, just with different, less-strictly-gendered expectations.

On the up side, I was also pushed to engage in a lot of extra-curricular activities (Key Club, community service), make high honor roll, and take the SAT multiple times to maximize my score, in order to "look good on college applications." I'm pleased to say I rebelled and did none of those things, and still turned out pretty well. So there is hope for those of us who fail to be "perfect." ;)

"As has already been noted, the “perfect� young women ideal crosses all economic classes."

That's true - come to think of it, the most furiously perfect women I've known all came from working class backgrounds and had to exert themselves greatly to get into good colleges, grad school, etc. But of course, nobody would write a hand-wringing article about them - it would simply be assumed that that's what they needed to do to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.

"The young woman who opted out of SAT prep is unlikely to be slowed in the race."

Has anyone else here been thrown out of SAT prep, or was it just me? :)

"But the idea that someone is telling girls that they really CAN do anything they want is so new and so rare in the great scheme of things in this world, I'm not going to complain. Beats the hell out of what many of us of a certain age were told - that our ambitions were silly meaningless dreams. That our being in college was just to land a man. That our seats in professional school rightfully belonged to men."

Yeah, when you look at the bigger picture it is impressive. :)

"in my mind, this article pointed out what i've felt to be true for all women today. we are expected to be more, to give more to our communities, and to still put ourselves last."
--cowgrrrl

This hits it on the head for me. I would only add that I was taught not to expect the same from the boys in my class--as if football or basketball were more demanding than volleyball, choir, community service, and debate all at the same time. (Mind you, not by my parents, by some teachers. My parents were more concerned that I get enough sleep.) Maybe it's the crazy super-woman expectations that women are striving to meet that causes the >50/% female college enrollment and graduation rates, and not that boys are being affirmatively left out. Not that I think either end is healthy, since having no expectations can put a kid adrift.

I would love to see those same reporters take Amtrak southwest 200 miles rather than northeast and check out Sandtown. Where's Sandtown? The lowest per capita income neighborhood in West Baltimore, where 16 year-old girls are more worried about getting enough sleep after baby-sitting siblings while their mother work overtime, stepping on a used needle, getting molested or raped by Mom's new boyfriend-wannabe, dealing with girlfriends dropping out, boyfriends dropping out, a murder in the neighborhood every month days and one nearby every week and trying to complete high school when the rooves leak and spread asbestos dust and the water fountains are intermittently contaminated and unusable.

Black girls from West Baltimore are not the new white hotness that the NYT's core constituency on the Upper East Side wants to read about so I am not holding my breath.

I was glad to read some commentary on this article because I found it rather strange that the NYTimes would venture up to Newton, MA to write a story that's almost too boring to be printed in the Boston Globe. (We're actually focused on the Guardian Angels arriving here to help quell the rash of murders 6 miles away from Newton). But, I did make it to the end of the article, if only in hopes that there was some "zinger" as to why this story about some privileged young women under the stress of college applications is different than before. The only difference seemed to be that the article excluded overachieving boys, and only made an inference that this was going to make it more difficult for women to get into college. Wish they would have developed that part more ... What are the latest stats? Are the colleges concerned about having too many women?

However, it was a strange contrast to a movie I watched last night "Friday Night Lights" (based on a true story about high school football in Texas) where, yes the machoism of the Texas football culture is almost unbelievable, but you could see that the boys were crumbling under the stress of winning the one game that could be their only ticket out of Podunk, TX. Funny, the boys' story was much more compelling. No offense to the young woman in the article; she seems very nice. But I'm sure the NYTimes could have found a much more compelling subject to follow for this story.

Heck, 20 years ago, my friends and I took every test, AP class, and played every single tennis match, soccer game, etc. knowing we were up against the kids from the "good" schools, and that our future depended on it to both get into a "name" college AND for many, getting the scholarship money to keep us there. With the cost of an education rising beyond middle-class means, it would have made for a better article to have them additionally profile someone outside of their favorite demographic, who had to worry not just about what college she would go to, but how much debt would she have to take on to do so.

I don't know, maybe it is my underprivliged hicktown background but I found these families a little gross. I grew up poor, I went to a small high school, and I got my education at a state school. I was happy to get an education at all, and a lot of people are glad to be able to go to state school and not a name school. A lot of people are happy to just get a good job or come out of high school with job skills. A lot of people are happy to go to a "career" college. I agree with Diane, a profile on one of these people would have been nice. I think a lot of times in the media the lower middle class gets overlooked and the idea is perpetuated that all young woman could possibly have to stress about is college and social order. In all reality I think the majority of young women have a great deal more to stress about than SAT prep. Gangs, teen pregnacy, violence in the home, drug use (both by friends and parents), and overall the pressure to be perfect in the eyes of the social circles of a high school.

The only thing I'll say in defense of the article is part of the problem it identifies - the absence of rebellion, independent thought and spirituality in these girls lives - may be more pronounced in these wealthy enclaves. The more material stuff we're surrounded with, the more we lose sight of what matters. IMO.

How are we going to effect social change if young people don't care about social issues? Where IS the rebellion? You know, when I was growing up, there were movies like Pump up the Volume and Heathers. People were pissed off. Well guess what? There's a lot more to be pissed off about today, but young people don't care. They're in a 16" flatscreen tv malaise or something. Material wealth and the drive for material success is the problem.

Full disclosure: I'm raising my children one town over from the town that's the subject of this article and frequent the much reviled Whole Foods there.

All I got from reading this was a remarkable sense of disgust at how we, as a society, are miserably failing some students while giving others so very much. The idea of a high school classroom where one would read Machiavelli, or Sun-Tzu, or of growing up in a situation where Kaplan test prep courses are not only a possibility, but something everyone one knows has access to-- I can't describe how absolutely unimaginable this situation is to me. I didn't grow up in a poor family, either-- just typical South Carolina middle-middle class. I am now a student at a highly ranked public university out-of-state, which is far more prestigious a school than most people from my hometown ever are able to go.

I guess I can see why people would think this article and its recognition of these girls' problems is a good thing-- I recognize that stress to over-acheive, and the high stakes of college admissions both are problems. Honestly, though, I feel like acknowledging this type of thing while making it seem like a problem that only pertains to the established elite is worse than not acknowledging it at all. Seeing so much time spent on these girls' worries about which $40k a year private school they'll attend seems frivolous. I could never praise the Times for this article, as the paper as a whole spends virtually no time covering the much more substantial problems of girls who don't have as many choices and resources, and for whom any college education is still an unattainable privilege. This type of thing not only ignores the many girls and women for whom having the problem of which top-tier school to choose is not a possibility, but exacerbates that group's isolation. Sure, it might be a nice feeling for whatever permutation of the upper class this is to read about their kids' problems in the Times, but putting it a little in perspective-- something these girls seem to not have been taught-- would not only make the public more aware of the reality of the less fortunate, but help relieve these rich* girls' anxiety, as well.

*Are these people actually considered "upper middle class"? Really? After a while, the term really has no meaning.

I actually haven't finished reading the article yet but I did view the multimedia feature and found it to be a good accompaniment. Background: commentary about their experiences from four of the girls along with pictures of them in action.

And while I agree with criticism of it focusing on upper-middle class girls while fronting this all-encompassing angle, I think it was still kind of interesting. Some of these girls will be writing the next Feministing and entering politics and medicine--it is interesting to me to see how the next generation of powerful, wealthy women are being brought up. Finding it interesting does not equal an endorsement of their lifestyle.

An addendum to my earlier comments. I sent the article to some of my friends and neighbors who "fit" the demographic and have preteen or teenage daughters and they thought the article was great! Which is why the NYTimes is fairly clever about this. They write for the audience they want.

And I like the point Jane made about how the article touched on the fact that they don't rebel, but didn't delve deeper into this. Again, that would've made for a more interesting article.

The class bias is really annoying in a lot of feminist books too like Linda Hirshman's Get To Work. Joan Walsh's article on Salon today explains why this is often so

Bennetts' book may be the ultimate example of the "my friends and me" approach, and yet I agree with her, and with Hirshman, about why these privileged women's choices matter to all of us: because they're disproportionately visible to the privileged men who run the world -- they are their wives and daughters and, if things continue, their mothers. And as long as affluent women opt out or get pushed out of top jobs and decision-making positions in order to raise children, men with stay-at-home wives and daughters and mothers will continue to make rules that make it hard for less privileged women -- and men -- to balance work and family. So these advantaged women and their decisions do matter.