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<p>I totally agree with this.</p>
<p>A few quick thoughts on some comments here.</p>
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<p>Perhaps OP was disappointed at not finding high caliber peers who care about substance and true understanding. Perhaps the OP was sick and tired of watching most of these “elite” students back-stabbing one another to get ahead….just perhaps.</p>
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<p>Perhaps he just feels powerless to do anything about it. He’s not against the goal, but the process (to which the school is an accomplice) some of his peers used to achieve it.</p>
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<p>I agree it is bad to “just” teach to the test, but what if the teacher used the limited time to teach stuff that’s not on the AP test and missed out on the stuff that is on it? When the “AP” is branded to a class, the teacher is obligated to cover at least the standardized curriculum outlined by the College Board; otherwise, don’t call it “AP”. It does sound distasteful when teachers say it like that, but at least they are honest about it.</p>
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<p>The envelope of knowledge gets stretched and pushed every now and then. We are accumulating knowledge and discovering new things at an incredible speed. What is considered “college-level” now may very well be solidly high school material in another 10-20 years. For example, AP Bio is a lot deeper now than it was 25 years ago, and Trigonometry was taught at elite colleges less than a century ago.</p>
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<p>Many active, bright and inquisitive kids look forward to and enjoy high quality discussion based learning with other engaging peers. This is one of the big selling points of UChicago.</p>
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<p>The mindset that drove him to applying many schools may be in more angst with second guessing regrets if the list is reduced.</p>
<p>OP, I suggest two ways to look at this that may ease your mind. You can look at what’s happening around you in high school as a microcosm of the real adult-world which you will enter soon. Yes we don’t rack up EC’s to pad our professional resumes, but we do have a lot of people who found questionable ways to advance their career – the same mindset problem: the end justifies the means. So look at it as a challenge that you have to overcome with all your being, and turn this into an interesting problem solving exercise. You can also take the road less traveled and not set the same goal in college admission as your hamster wheel bound peers. Attend a less prestigious college and do well in it. In four years, you may find yourself leapfrogging over your current peers into either better employment or grad school placement.</p>
<p>OP, let me say it up front: you’re pathetic. </p>
<p>You had all the opportunities in the world but you squandered them because you were lazy. But instead of blaming yourself, you blame society. The thing is, you chose not to work hard. No one is going to drop anything in your lap because of your natural intelligence. So not only are you lazy, you’re stuck up and entitled too. There’s lot of things you could’ve done outside of school also, but you are probably too busy playing Starcraft or talking with your similarly-pretentious online friends.</p>
<p>Since this has been unofficially labeled the “venting” thread, my piece of mind on this is… I value education… And what most of my friends still don’t understand is that we went to public schools and we went because we had to, but college is optional and very expensive. You PAY for professors to drone on and annoy you because you want to be more intelligent and successful. The biggest disappointment is that kids don’t understand it. My friend went to one semester and only made it to 8 classes… She flunked out and her parents wasted 14,000… For her to party and not go to class. ---- thank you for letting me vent</p>
<p>I have reread what I have posted and thought about it. Perhaps, my point was not clearly delivered in my post. But, first, let me get this straight. I have yet to be rejected from a single college so far. So this is not a vent of my supposed frustrations from getting rejected from college. It is a vent of the frustrations regarding the ignorance of society. I am confused how you got that whole “Oh, society, why haven’t you caught onto my brilliance?” mentality from my posts…</p>
<p>I can phrase my point in a different way. Like what Richard Feynman said, “Physics is like sex. Sure it can be practical, but that is now why you do it.” Now, replace physics with education. There is a certain joy of finding things out, as illustrated by Dr. Feynman. We have lost sight of that.</p>
<p>I still have decades to live. A man’s worth is not measured by his accomplishments, but by his principles.</p>
<p>Also, regarding the number of schools I am applying to, it is just a matter of clicking submit button. Most of the work has been done during summer and 7 of my schools did not require any writing what so ever.</p>
<p>School is what you make of it. Education is what you make of it. School is not necessarily the place where you obtain most of your education, and any education in school is most probably not the most efficient way for an individual to learn (as opposed to the most efficient way to reach 1000 individuals). However, in a decent school, there are probably not many classes that do not offer an opportunity for education to take place - the AP calculus class that really did not thoroughly educate some kids who memorized formulas did teach them something about calculus, and may have opened opportunities for others, and may have spoken to the soul of still others. </p>
<p>As for choosing classes, both my children took AP classes that gave each about 30 college credits, while my D’s high school course load also included flower arranging and cooking classes, and my S took auto mechanics and some cool lab course that had him making pinhole cameras and potato cannons. One went to an ivy, the other went honors to a big 10 with a top engineering program.</p>
<p>Also, a giant reason for applying to so many schools is for financial reasons. Some schools give more money than others do. I am a math guys, so with a higher number applicants sent out, there will be bigger number of acceptances. Of that, there potentially is a bigger chance that I will get more aid.</p>
<p>Going back to my “rant”, it guess it can also be attributed to my upbringing. Perhaps, I had not have the resources I would like to have… The local libraries are highly lacking in books at the level I want. I got bored of the books in the library a long time ago. Most books catered to a more basic level (the non fiction books). They have a minimum number of textbooks and I got through those basic books at an early age. So my knowledge in particular subjects were stagnated at a basic level until about my Sophomore year. I aced every biology test freshman year because of the years of fascination in the sciences ever since I was a wee child. Yes, I was lazy and even up with a B and C in the class (despite the fact that I was the only student to get over a 100% on the final). Bio is a simple subject. Also, my knowledge and experience in Computer Science exceeded the Seniors during my Sophomore year due to the fact that I have been programming since I was 11. That was also taught by reading from books in the library. However, that was all the library could offer. There were no advanced science books. I have been told since a young age to disregard calculus because I would eventually learn in someday at school. No one told me that it was just a bunch of complex sounding words for very simple concepts… Junior year, I started watching the MIT lectures online and get a textbook online and essentially taught myself Calculus. I mean, with all due respect, if your child wants to learn calculus when he is young, let him. I think there is a great benefit from learning that at a young age. Holy crap, calculus just cleared a whole bunch of things up for me. I don’t know, my mom just has a highschool degree, no college. My dad went to college in Korea and works in construction making bare minimum. They told me that I can be whatever I wanted, so I chose professor. It just seems like everything that was taught in HS just deluded me even more. Just by the nature math was taught just tripped me up. Even trying to teach my little brother algebra is hard. In his mind, he just has to learn how to solve a problem. That mentality has been drilled to his head by the education system. I just embraced the ability to imagine and have insight at an early age and disregarded the step by step approach to solving problems.</p>
<p>Why I am so critical about education is that people do not embrace it. People see it as a commodity that can be traded and weighed. I mean it is quite sad that kids these days can’t even stand watching a documentary because it is “boring”. If you are going to waste your time, at least do it by learning something. My favorite tv series is Nova and, recently, The Big Bang Theory. So that really shows a lot about my personality.</p>
<p>Society has never really appreciated education to begin with, and it’s ridiculous to think otherwise. School just happens to be a situation where you can learn and achieve your goals at the same time. But if you want to learn, you can go to the library and pick up a book. So that’s that.</p>
<p>And if you’re wondering where I got the idea of your attitude from, if it’s not clear from this thread, it’s definitely clear from your other posts. You bring up your bad grades while also bringing up your IQ (definitely a ******y move), and you bring up how you want to be a professor despite not showing any of the effort needed to become one. Hopefully whatever mid-tier college you go to is AMAZING for you and you end up working much harder or you should adjust your expectations now.</p>
<p>Also, in general, I find complaints about the whole supposed goal-based nature of kids today to be in general very privileged, very white, and very myopic. It’s really laughable that people think this is truly the worst problems that plague our youth, when in reality it is limited to the above group I just mentioned. (Asians are the ones actually driving their kids noticeably, for better or worse, and as for other minorities, there sadly exists a major discrepancy in wealth that results in very few having the resources needed to be within an upper-middle class type of community) Personally, as annoying as some of them can be, I think we could do with some more people who actually want to work for their future, instead of spending all day drunk and/or stoned, which is something very common even in my affluent school.</p>
<p>Perhaps, I do sound like a lazy, entitled snob who lives with his rich white parents who can afford to buy him a Porsche and support his drug habits. ಠ_ಠ</p>
<p>David, you’re at a point in your life where you have all the liberty to diverge from that which you don’t like in high school. Resources don’t end with your local library, the world doesn’t end at the edge of your town or the gate of your high school. Just because you came from an intellectually stifling environment doesn’t mean that the world out there is all the same. </p>
<p>Get out of the bubble, meet people (both your age and older) who will impress and humble you in a variety of ways, and then you’ll form a different opinion of yourself and of how much there is to learn.</p>
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<p>Wow, passive aggressive smilies. And super aggressive smilies.</p>
<p>Maybe it would’ve done you a lot of good to get out of the house more.</p>
<p>How do you not sound entitled? And if you’re not rich, you have had the fortune of attending a rich school.</p>
<p>EDIT: And lol one of your favorites is the Big Bang Theory. You don’t realize that show is not laughing with nerds, but laughing at them?</p>
<p>If it makes you feel any better, OP, people have been writing about pretty much the same thing for centuries. Just look at Descartes, Montaigne, and Rousseau’s works on education…</p>
<p>1) You will never find acceptance unless you accept yourself.</p>
<p>2) You’re not alone, there are people like you. Bill Gates for instance, look at his educational background… Maybe college isn’t for you</p>