<p>Hi, I'm a Junior in high school and am starting to look for colleges that I might be interested in applying. The question that's always been in the back of my head is that how much does college affect one's life/career? I mean, there's always graduate school, which accepts people from any school as long as the resume is good. I've been stressed over colleges lately. I realized that my grades for this year aren't so good(B's and a C, which killed my straight A GPA). And I ask myself, what if i don't get into the college I've always dreamed of? What if I just get into an okay college? What difference does that make?</p>
<p>note: I made the same thread in another discussion section, so that I can have more/different responses.</p>
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And I ask myself, what if i don't get into the college I've always dreamed of? What if I just get into an okay college? What difference does that make?
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It's not the college that decides your fate. I've met Stanford graduates who were unsuccessful and state college alumni who made it far. From what I can tell, it doesn't nearly affect life as much as we are led to believe. Most people I know with a bachelors don't even do anything related to their degrees, and if they want more depth and a career actually based on their studies there's always grad school. College has a pretty significant impact in the sense that most decent jobs require some sort of degree, but I've met many happy people who never had one and plenty of unhappy people with PhDs. And sure, if you want to be a doctor I bet a degree in medicine would be important, but whether or not it's your dream college is irrelevant to getting there. It's really up to you and where your priorities lie.</p>
<p>I used to have that problem. I took things too seriously and took every rejection (even the thought of one) as a personal failure. I had to look at it a different way - I mean, your neighborhood is likely full of people who didn't go to top-of-the-line schools. How many people do you know actually graduated from an Ivy League (outside the world of academia)? Once you leave college and enter the workforce, start a family, raise kids... the difference between a 'just okay' college and a good one seems pretty meaningless. </p>
<p>Don't let CC fool you. The amount of people on this site who get into amazing colleges doesn't represent how many people outside of it really do.</p>
<p>I've met people that were undergrads here at Caltech that are burned out and are pretty much sick of life while here. I've also met grad students from schools I've never heard of or thought they were fairly crappy (a few non-main campus state schools) and they're doing fantastic.</p>
<p>Certainly there are advantages to going to a top school, but as long as you take as much as possible as you can out of your college experience, then where you went really doesn't matter a whole lot.</p>
<p>In terms of academic success, as others have said, it's really up to you.</p>
<p>However, I'd argue that in terms of happiness that's not necessarily true. Can you, if you try, be happy at almost any school? Possibly. Should you have to settle for second-best for financial or logistical reasons? Not necessarily.</p>
<p>It's 4 years. No, it's not forever, but it's a long time.</p>