<p>"I have no clue how he got in w/o any ECs. Maybe he fibbed his ECs or something."</p>
<p>Well you don't need official ECs necessarily to prove that you're interested in things besides just academics. I mean I never participated in any club or any sports team or any group in high school, but I definitely kept busy with other interests of mine on the side as much as possible.</p>
<p>13351 -- he was a huge nerd in high school, actually, but in college he just had a big transformation. Sort of like I did. Him and I were both complete nerds, haha, we never worked out, had no muscles, and he wore glasses all of the time while I couldn't see very well myself and wore glasses in class. In his freshman year at college, he wanted to have more fun, and he put on 35 pounds of muscle, became certifiably ripped, changed his hair style, his clothes, and his image in general. He started wearing contacts, too. For me, that happened after my sophomore year. I put on about 30 pounds of muscle, I changed my hair, my clothes, and all of this, and I even got laser eye surgery this last September and have better than 20/20 vision (20/12, in fact, nearly the best possible vision for a human, maybe 20/10 to 20/8 is the best, theoretically). Basically he just realized that people at Cal. Tech. had no social skills and he wasn't going to have fun there, and he didn't want to go through college the same way he had gone through high school. The funniest thing is he joined a frat, too! He couldn't be a more different person now than he was then, haha, but it's funny because if he wins our high school class award for "Most Changed" then I should at least come in second, since I did roughly the same thing, although he's probably had a lot more fun at college than I have. I work very hard and don't go partying or drinking much, while he does that a lot and still pulls it off. I just can't do that. I have to work way harder. He's so naturally smart it's unbelievable. I'd say he's probably the most intelligent person I know by many standards, at least.</p>
<p>I go to Oregon State, which isn't known for having a lot of devoted students. Unfortunately everyone here is basically a slacker. I feel like the only person who knows what the heck is going on sometimes when less than 10% of the student body really cares much about grades (this stat coming from many of the teachers I've just casually asked about the subject).</p>