<p>I, for one, love Columbia because of its sports teams and the role that they play in the overall undergraduate experience. Oh wait. </p>
<p>But seriously, commiserating over the sports teams is so much more original and refreshing, don’t you think?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That really wasn’t my point. I wasn’t bagging on the SEC itself. Rather, the people who post on the Florida / LSU / Auburn / etc. message boards are moronic hicks who post inane and incoherent crap. Their “debates” aren’t Lincoln-Douglas quality; rather, it’s like a bunch of kindergarten kids arguing on the playground. </p>
<p>And the SEC creates champions? The stiff-arm trophy winner lost 4 games this year, including embarrassing itself against a team that lost to Appalachian State. And the runner-up team got its clock cleaned by a team that lost its last 5 regular season games.</p>
<p>The SEC does create champions. Once you obtain a ring, nobody can ever take that feeling away from you. This was just an abnormal year for college football.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>What the heck does that mean, the Big 12 creates champions. The Pac 10 creates champions. Division III creates a champion.</p>
<p>Anybody who believes that the Ivies only accept students with SATs in the high 1300s and above, on a 1600 scale, is misinformed. Ivies look for talent, ability and motivation in many areas. I know several students with slightly less than a 1270/1600 who were accepted into Ivies last year, as well as one at Stanford. These were non-athletes who excelled in other areas. One at a very elite Ivy was a well rounded minority student. If high GPAs and standardized test scores were all that mattered for success in life, then admissions committees would be replaced by computers and all nerds would be wealthy and in control. A 4:15 miler with a 1270/1600 is an outstanding find for any school who will most likely contribute more to the school than the majority of students. Leadership is also highly valued by elite universities, as it should be.</p>
<p>See, there are two myths implicit in this thread that I have a real problem with:</p>
<p>(1) The idea that doing HS athletics somehow is highly (and uniquely) correlated to having focus, motivation, and a good work ethic. There are many ways out there that kids can show (and put to use) their qualities of focus, motivation and work ethic. Doing athletics, while good for the body and mind, is no magic potion, and those who excel at it are not some sort of superior race of human. There is this bias in that direction throughout most of the country, and I’m thankful that admission committees see beyond it - in particular that of Columbia.</p>
<p>(2) The idea that “Leadership” is a quality to be nurtured and valued above all others. I put “Leadership” in quotes because its use with respect to students is largely BS. High school students have their days structured in such militaristic, almost prison-like fashion that even Foucault might say “that’s &^%$ed up”. They are given fixed lists of activities, prevented in numerous ways from acting like (or being treated like) adults, and a “good” kid is one who does what their told and does it willingly and enthusiastically ([read</a> this for more](<a href=“http://www.psychologytoday.com/rss/pto-20070302-000002.html]read”>http://www.psychologytoday.com/rss/pto-20070302-000002.html)). Before college, basically nobody has a chance to exercise true “leadership”, and colleges trying to read tea-leaves to find evidence of it are fooling themselves. Those with the creativity, discipline, interpersonal skills, and vision to actually be leaders of organizations or innovators of new ones would be painfully repressed and angsty in high school. So don’t sit here and tell me that colleges want to see evidence of “leadership”. </p>
<p>The best prospect for the leaders of tomorrow at your high school may very well be the prankster who is always gaming the system, or the kid who spends his free time reading everything he can on a particular subject. It may also be the gang leader dropout, who has learned how to navigate group politics and also provides for those who rely on him, albeit by whatever means necessary. It may not be the one who is obedient enough to put aside all her own passions in the interest of getting A’s in all her subjects, or who starts a BS club that does nothing just so that his college application can say “founder of ____” on it. So don’t sit here and preach “leadership” when basically nobody under the age of 18 has the slightest clue what that entails in the adult world.</p>
<p>Man, I should start a new thread to discuss this. I guess this was largely a rant.</p>