<ul>
<li>Tell 'em to go to hell or they'll be working you like a puppet well into grad school. -</li>
</ul>
<p>Thank you for the best advice yet posted on CC.</p>
<p>I concur. That was by far the best advice since I came in here (one hour ago?).</p>
<p>Ben, you are very funny. You call a spade a spade, and I admire that.</p>
<p>I think it's Jeremy who's the actually funny one : P</p>
<p>Thanks for all of the advice posted! :) I'm actually very self-motivated, not my parents. I tthink I just took my academics far too seriously and became too tense after a few events, including being resentful at my school for not allowing me into its Honors program.Reading Marie Curie's bio and adopting her as a role model also didn't help - she was never laid-back either (and obviously I now should realize that I cannot blindly follow her practices). But some famous scientists would never get into today's top universities.</p>
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<p>And trhe AIME killed me. ;) I think I got 1 though. I was so disorganized during the AIME and exchanged faces with my other classmates.</p>