<p>OK, so I'm talking to my intelligent friends, who are pretty much smarter than I am and have a lot of potential, about our schedules. They don't mind talking about this, so I'm not bugging them or anything.</p>
<p>One of my friends says he's taking the highest courses offered for his year, and then he says he's taking electives like Drivers Ed and Graphic Design, which are classes that he says will "help get credit for electives". He says he's taking Drivers Ed the whole semester because he doesn't want to take it during the summer, which is less than a week's time.</p>
<p>My other friend is taking Weightlifting, even though we already exercise after school almost every day and he's already taken his required PE credit.</p>
<p>I don't know, maybe I'm being too pushy with more rigorous classes, but the second guy wants to go to an Ivy League, and he has a lot of potential, but he's been taking really dumb electives that won't help him in the slightest.</p>
<p>Let me know if you think I'm overreacting or maybe just stupid.</p>
<p>People have their own reasons for doing what they do. There’s no reason for you to be concerned with other people’s class schedules.</p>
<p>Let it go 
It’s not your job to parent them about their schedules, or say: “You’ll never get into Princeton by taking that class…take AP Rocket Science instead.”</p>
<p>I don’t think stupid electives are the be all end all of one’s college application. What’s the difference between Weight Lifting and like, study hall? I’m sure kids have gotten into Harvard with a couple of studies. (Or maybe not, who am I to know?)</p>
<p>How does taking an elective make one unmotivated? The class schedule and GPA tells the real story of motivation.</p>
<p>What someone does for fun, without external incentive, tells the real story of motivation. In software circles, it’s commonly known that the best programmers are the ones who have difficult side projects like their own compilers or operating systems just to scratch an itch.</p>
<p>Maybe your friends have challenging hobbies?</p>
<p>I have a similar problem! My friend keeps bragging about how her sister went to Stanford and how she knows the campus like the back of her hand. Half of her grades are terrible, and she doesn’t have any extracurricular activities that set her apart from the rest, yet she thinks that she has a chance of getting admitted to Stanford next year. I want to be supportive, but it’s hard because honestly, her chances are slim. And it’s pathetic how she thinks she can just fill out an application and get in. Though, if she does get in, I am going to be so ticked off.</p>
<p>My advice to you: focus on yourself and hope you come out on top. Stay friends and try to motivate them, but if they don’t care, then you shouldn’t either.</p>
<p>^
Well, it’s Stanford, so even someone who has done well doesn’t really have a chance. No one should believe they have a decent chance at Stanford until they actually get the acceptance letter.</p>
<p>(I’m assuming the OP’s friends are freshmen, and a lot of freshmen think they’re going to Harvard someday because they don’t know about anywhere else and don’t understand how competitive it is, but usually by the fall of their senior year they don’t even really want that anymore.)</p>