<p>I took a bus and between two and four trains to Stuy - 1 1/2 hours each way, back in the Dark Ages (both ways up hill!) I can say that without question even then the students were on the whole smarter than those to be found at the Ivies and AWS (I having been at W, and with lots of friends at the Ivies, etc.), and the school much more competitive (few Asians at the time - overwhelmingly Jewish). But to go Stuy, your parents had to have some inkling as to its value, over and above what could be found locally. Most of my friends who didn't attend didn't apply, not because they weren't smart enough, but because they didn't see the added value. And the same was true for Stuy grads as they were going off to college - many parents didn't see any added value in sending the kid off to Dartmouth when he could go, for free in those days, to City College. (In those days, NYU was the safety for City College, for those who could afford it, and NYU was thought of as a slacker's school.)</p>