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[quote]
I guess it's just too bad if the hard working, genius nerd who was going to cure cancer has to go to community college because she was too focused to do enough community service in high school. But, gee, those presigeous college alums will at least be nice people.
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I doubt that many hard working geniuses are going to community colleges, unless it's by choice. These are exactly the kind of kids that routinely get into our best state univerisities; Michigan, CAL and UCLA etc., and it's usually because they want to be there. The engineering and science opportunities are great for these kids at our best state Us.
"Geniuses" also get picked up by the Cal Techs and MITs -
In my eight years of following college admissions and noting what kids from our school go where, I have yet to see an extremely bright person NOT go to an exceptionally good school, even if they don't have any significant ECs or community service on their resume.</p>
<p>I've mentioned my best friend's son before on this board, who was admitted early - (only a hundred or so a year) to Yale the same year my D was admitted. They were agressively pursuing this boy, yet he had no sports, no community service - no non-academic ECs at all! His extracurriculars consisted of math contests and academic decathalon.
He was (is) a brilliant math student with a lot of promise - that's it. He's also fairly quiet as well, so "personality" was not a factor in their decision.
He was also in at Stanford, MIT, Berkeley, full-ride at local Cal State.
Apparently his lack of "giving back" didn't bother these schools - they figured he'd give back in his productive post-grad years.</p>