<p>Hi,</p>
<p>I have an article to present, but before I post it . . .<br>
First of all, I admit that I care a lot about my grades and like many of you, is also a slave of Collegeboard tests and the college admission process. However, I've come a long way since 8th grade. One's life doesn't depend as much on your SAT score, or the undergrad college(grad is a little different) you get into, as you might think. This is why I get extremely frustrated when an 7th/8th grader posts here asking about what they need to do to get into XYZ University or how much they need to study over the next three years to score a 1600.</p>
<p>The following article is from the New York Times and it should serve as a wakeup call to CCers like myself and others. I know that it may come as a disillusionment, but its better that you realize the truth now than to have a post-college crisis after you find out what the real world is like.</p>
<p>Thread is open up to discussion, but please keep your arguments civil and intelligent. No personal bashing, and please make your arguments intelligent, PLEASE</p>
<p>Stay in school, strive for the best undergrad college you get into, work hard, but realize and understand the truth. Good Luck in the college application process (I'm a still current high school Junior ) </p>
<hr>
<p>Heres the article:
Stressed for Success?
By DAVID BROOKS</p>
<p>Published: New York Times : March 30, 2004</p>
<p>Many of you high school seniors are in a panic at this time of year,
coping with your college acceptance or rejection letters. Since the
admissions process has gone totally insane, it's worth reminding
yourself that this is not a particularly important moment in your life. </p>
<p>You are being judged according to criteria that you would never use to
judge another person and which will never again be applied to you once
you leave higher ed. </p>
<p>For example, colleges are taking a hard look at your SAT scores. But if at
any moment in your later life you so much as mention your SAT scores
in conversation, you will be considered a total jerk. If at age 40 you are
still proud of your scores, you may want to contemplate a major life
makeover. </p>
<p>More than anything else, colleges are taking a hard look at your grades.
To achieve that marvelous G.P.A., you will have had to demonstrate
excellence across a broad range of subjects: math, science, English,
languages etc. </p>
<p>This will never be necessary again. Once you reach adulthood, the key
to success will not be demonstrating teacher-pleasing competence
across fields; it will be finding a few things you love, and then
committing yourself passionately to them.</p>
<p>The traits you used getting good grades might actually hold you back. To
get those high marks, while doing all the extracurricular activities
colleges are also looking for, you were encouraged to develop a
prudential attitude toward learning. You had to calculate which reading
was essential and which was not. You could not allow yourself to be
obsessed by one subject because if you did, your marks in the other
subjects would suffer. You could not take outrageous risks because you
might fail. </p>
<p>You learned to study subjects that are intrinsically boring to you; slowly,
you may have stopped thinking about which subjects are boring and
which exciting. You just knew that each class was a hoop you must
jump through on your way to a first-class university. You learned to thrive
in adult-supervised settings.</p>
<p>If you have done all these things and you are still an interesting person,
congratulations, because the system has been trying to whittle you
down into a bland, complaisant achievement machine. </p>
<p>But in adulthood, you'll find that a talent for regurgitating what superiors
want to hear will take you only halfway up the ladder, and then you'll stop
there. The people who succeed most spectacularly, on the other hand,
often had low grades. They are not prudential. They venture out and
thrive where there is no supervision, where there are no preset
requirements.</p>
<p>Those admissions officers may know what office you held in school
government, but they can make only the vaguest surmises about what
matters, even to your worldly success: your perseverance, imagination
and trustworthiness. Odds are you don't even know these things about
yourself yet, and you are around you a lot more. </p>
<p>Even if the admissions criteria are dubious, isn't it still really important
to
get into a top school? I wonder. I spend a lot of time meeting with
students on college campuses. If you put me in a room with 15 students
from any of the top 100 schools in this country and asked me at the end
of an hour whether these were Harvard kids or Penn State kids, I would
not be able to tell you.</p>
<p>There are a lot of smart, lively young people in this country, and you will
find them at whatever school you go to. The students at the really elite
schools may have more social confidence, but students at less
prestigious schools may learn not to let their lives be guided by other
people's status rules a lesson that is worth the tuition all by itself. </p>
<p>As for the quality of education, that's a matter of your actually wanting to
learn and being fortunate enough to meet a professor who electrifies
your interest in a subject. That can happen at any school because good
teachers are spread around, too. </p>
<p>So remember, the letters you get over the next few weeks don't
determine anything. Picking a college is like picking a spouse. You don't
pick the "top ranked" one, because that has no meaning. You pick the
one with the personality and character that complements your own.</p>
<hr>
<p>also, I would like to make the point that I am not arguing against getting into a good college. I would just like to point out that if a good undergrad university is your ONLY thing that makes you who you are and nothing else, you will be in big trouble once you get to the real world. I've learned a lot from other people who just got out of college and are looking for jobs. Some of them work side by side in the same office, and only if you ask will you realize one came from an Ivy League and the other from a less well known college.</p>
<p>As you know, I am still a Junior at a very competitive NY high school, and I am also part of the Rat-Race for college. I admit I am aiming for the nation's top schools as well. Don't mistaken me for somebody who is sullen from rejection. This post is meant to enlighten only. </p>
<p>It will be interesting to see how parents will respond to this.</p>