BalabustaInDaHouse: First, you realize that all these sem cliches that you’re spouting don’t apply to the majority of the female population, right? Because a good amount of them are actually sentient human beings? Good. Also, sem in town is a great option. I was planning on going to sem in town until someone changed my mind. But that doesn’t mean that sem in E”Y is worthless. It’s a another experience that some girls are pulled towards. That’s all. And as for money, like I said before, girls work their tucheses off the latter half of their senior year pinching together the tuition money. Everyone in my seminary did. Maybe there are some entitled little brats out there, I don’t know. But a better taynah would be, “Why aren’t they working to pay for it?” not, “Why should girls being going?”
I think a lot of people approach the sem issue from a distorted, overgeneralized perspective. They think that sem in Israel is this fad thingy that girls and their parents feel this imperative to take part of, due to peer pressure/shidduch options/whatever. But it really isn’t like that. In fact, there were less than 15 Israel-goers in my high school class of 70. The overwhelming majority chose to go to half-day seminary programs, and start college. If anything, peer pressure dictated that you stay home. And plenty of them have already gotten engaged just fine, so I suppose it didn’t have any impact on their shidduchim. This was the case with most of my friends in other schools in NY, too. The reality is just different than what people spin in their minds.