<p>naw he was a local kid, i heard it from a lot of people, but he was probaly messed up in the head anyway and that was just like the last straw.</p>
<p>stupidest thread i've ever seen. you may have gotten into harvard but you'll probably kill yourself somewhere down the line. (and sup, as if not getting into harvard means you are automatically a gardner) </p>
<p>think about it:
working hard in HS -> college -> job -> $$ -> happy</p>
<p>he doesn't seem too happy to me, nor do that many people on this board
get your priorities straight. ASK WHY YOU'RE DOING THIS! its because ur passionate to learn...that's why i want to get into college</p>
<p>i hope spyder died</p>
<p>this guy is smarter than all of you tho, in case you haven't noticed.</p>
<p>\altho,
i don't think i would fail school...i would still take the hardest classes possible...just wouldn't study crap and maybe make As and Bs...
i still want to be better than other ppl tho, but it's not hard if nobody is motivated. for example, my AP science class last year was full of absolutely brilliant seniors......but alas they were all seniors who had gotten into hypms and so therefore did no work. and i didn't have to study at all and still got the highest average in the class. kinda sad no?</p>
<p>oh and all of you are hypocrites. really you are. if i said, for now on, we don't get grades, you don't get any credit, and you don't get paid for a job, and we all die equal, would u still do the things you do? what if we just make the US go thru a China-type cultural revolution where nothing matters and smart ppl are prosecuted, would u still do what u do?</p>
<p>Is this a joke? 1) research =/= crap. 2) passion =/= bull. 3) bitter people =/= rickoids. Clearly, this has got to be a joke.</p>
<p>I hate to say it, but I think he is right to some degree. A lot of kids fake what they have a "passion" for and that is what gets them into college. Faking the "passion" that you have is sometimes even necessary because if you haven't found that thing that you love yet, what are you supposed to do? Ask a college to give you more time? I know the that the ONLY reason I take the Honors and AP classes is for college so I'm guilty of doing things just to get into a good school. Many people don't have that one thing that they love and when colleges want to see that, its hard. However, I am lucky that I have that one EC that I love and am passionate about.
My main EC is that I help children at an underprivileged school. Many of these kids are children of illegal immigrants. I first started helping at that school just to get my service hours for school done but now these kids mean the world to me. I have a soft spot for them because like them, I was also the little hispanic girl who knew not a word of English. I remember that my parents couldn't help me w/HW because I probably understood it better that they did. I know exactly how how out of place they feel because my mommy and daddy couldn't speak english like the rest of the kids' parents and I didn't understand my situation. I know that this isn't being a president of a club or researching in a lab, but it is what I love and care about.</p>
<p>I thought everything spydertennis said was common sense...</p>
<p>wow, SOMEONE didn't get enough love from his family. Did you have a traumatic up-bringing? Did your entire ancestry get wiped out in a single sitting? Are you a parapelegic? WHY ARE YOU SO NEGATIVE?
I don't understand. How can you assume that everyone is a jerk like you and does everything for college? Your type of mentality is what causes the suffering in the world today, where we believe that our negative actions do not cause an impact on the world.
I am seriously disappointed with your behavior. No doubt that you are older than I and it is not my place to chastise you, but this is RIDICULOUS!!! I am a debater, and I love what I do. I sacrifice my time and life to be engaged in my passions. Obviously, you cannot even comprehend the MEANING of passion.
Are you claiming that you know the deepest of every man and woman's heart out there? Are you saying that everyone is a bitter, cynical, mechanical being as you are? Of course, I am not saying everyone does EC just for passions - I agree there are many, maybe even a majority who find doing ECs for college their main objective. But I think the way you put so much pathos for such a negative implication is wrong</p>
<p>I'll tell you my own personal story. I love Debate and MUN equally, and i was the president of Debate during my junior year, and when i realized I was going to be the president of MUN and was joining the acadec team, I turned down an offer to run for a second term in debate because I just couldn't bring myself to splitting my committment between two activities that I loved. If this were all for college, I wouldn't have given a care for anything and just attempted to become a board member for anything possible.</p>
<p>If I seemed really vitriolic during this whole ordeal, I'm sorry, but I am truly upset by your beliefs about students and their college goals.</p>
<p>To Texasmathwhiz: now I don't want to sound cocky, but technically, your opinion could be cared less about. No one cares about your opinion about Shakespeare - we only care about the experts', and if they claim that he had something special in him, then he did. Are YOU a Shakespearean analyst? Unless you are, then please, correct me. Of course, I AM in the same boat as you, thinking that Shakespeare is quite overrated, but then again, who gives a care about MY opinion about him? We are nothing, meager droplets of water in the vast ocean, overshadowed by the powerful forces that guides it. Leave it to the experts to decide which authors suck or pwn.</p>
<p>no offense, spydertennis, but you're an a-hole. you fit into that category of people who are persistent over-acheivers. you may mock people with "passion," but guess what? you're the one who won't be happy with yourself when you grow up. life isn't all about getting into the "perfect college." in fact, a degree from a college is just a degree; it doesn't really matter what college you went to. my dad when to ut at austin, and a coworker of his was a top student who went to rice. yet, they both had the same exact job positions. hmm...explain that? people like you annoy me to no avail, because you think you think you're so superior to other people. well guess what, you aren't...</p>
<p>This is a very cynical view... "we're all lazy"?</p>
<p>Funny.. I was just complaining to my mom that MANY people who need to get stuff done seem lazy and don't get it done on time... and I personally don't understand that at all. I have very much a Type A personality, and I don't understand unmotivated people. </p>
<p>Yes, there are some hoops we have to jump through (tests being one) to get into college, but not everyone would just sit back without the college motivator. </p>
<p>There is only one exception for me - if college played no part, my grades would drop because I would be trying to fit in even MORE activities I enjoy (acting, robotics, mock trial, soccer, science bowl, TV reporting, writing, languages) and consequently getting little to no sleep. (Instead, I don't cram so much in so I can get sleep and keep up my grades).</p>
<p>quit being so nihilistic...its not cool and never was.</p>
<p>Plus...I DO have passion for basketball, I play it for fun, and it also helped me get into college because I wasn't another nerd who runs around doing things to get into college lol.</p>
<p>I think that it is awfully early to be having a breakdown like yourself. Calm down.</p>
<p>I agree with spydertennis. We all know that this is the truth, even though I do enjoy the things that I come to do, can we honestly say that if there was no college process that we would drop half the things we're doing? I sure would. I'd be doing 2 activities that I love, which they say is what we should be doing but who are they kidding? As I said I'd be doing 2 activities, maybe even one, just so the majority of the time I can go home and sleep. That is not the world we live in, and even though we complain about America and what it has turned us into, the truth is this is reality. There are millions of people applying to college, the best colleges, we all hope to get there. Step on a few feet if you will, not that I have, and nor have I pushed some one off of the climb up to that point in our lives. But the idea still remains, we all want to be successful. We all want money. We all want the jobs we dreamed of. We want it all. All in the end to be the ppl our families have made us believe we want to be, our teachers (every time we set foot in the classroom), these damn colleges make us believe, and life sets up for us -- to be happy. </p>
<p>Life is like a box of chocolates. There are the bad ones and the good ones. We do everything in our powers to get those that will satisfy us in ways unimaginable. </p>
<p>Good thread... I enjoyed and feel good about my opinionated rant.</p>
<p>Wow....who revived this thread. It's from '05</p>
<p>Hey Determind15, speak for yourself. "we all want to be successful. We all want money. We all want the jobs we dreamed of. We want it all." That is a gross exaggeration. It's true that there are somethings that we don't have a passion for but do it just for college, but that doesn't mean for everything else we did it for extraneous reasons.</p>